White House Author

Cheryl McCallum, Ed.D., is Director of Education at the Children’s Museum of Houston where a dedicated team of staff and volunteers engages children and their families in a “Playground for Your Mind.” More than 800,000 visitors annually design rockets and cars, test their fitness, conduct experiments and earn Kidtropolis bucks at the museum. The team of educators that Cheryl leads also serves another 250,000 people through outreach programs with libraries, schools and community centers. These programs are dedicated to reaching children from low income neighborhoods. Cheryl’s focus, in part, has been to help parents in their roles as first teachers of their children, to engage their children in fun, high-quality museum learning activities. As part of a decade-long collaboration with Houston Public Library, Cheryl recently directed the development of the Family Literacy Involvement Program (FLIPkits.org) through which 2,280 activity kits are made available for loan to families through 34 Library branches in Houston. The program has been replicated in many other cities around the U.S.