Reflective Essay 1

Youth services are at a pivotal point of change all over the world. The challenges youth service librarians face to meet the changes that are occurring are enormous and exciting at the same time. To address one of those challenges I have had to create a blog…a brand new venture for me and one that I am immensely proud of; as I have been wanting to create one for several years, but until I had the push, it just felt too daunting. Surprisingly, I found a website that not only encourages my creativity, but fuels it by giving me an incentive!  One incentives is to have an upgraded subscription to the PRO version free for one year! The only requirement is start one of the free educational professional development courses, I chose: http://teacherchallenge.edublogs.org/personal-blogging/ This entitles me to a free one month subscription to get started! Then to qualify for the free year,  I must finish the course by the end of February! (Although, this may be a bit too daunting at this moment in time?)

Another challenge that youth services librarians face is discussed in YALSA’s, The Future of Library Services for and with Teens: A Call to Action “Too often teens’ desire to learn is thwarted by an educational system too focused on testing, unwilling to adopt culturally relevant pedagogy, or so strapped for funding that only the basic resources are available” (Braun, Hartmann, Hughes-Hassel, & Kumasi, 2014, p.12) I have encountered this very issue when working in inner city schools.  Several of the smaller schools that I worked in did not have a library, one had two rolling book carts full of books (that we advocated for) that would move between the English classrooms, and a part-time librarian who was housed in the main office, as there was not space available for her; another school had a library, several computers…but no librarian and the computers were in a sad state of disrepair. Yet another school in a large district that was strapped for cash, cut the middle school librarian position altogether, although there were 1100 students in the school. “In many communities, frequently poor urban and rural ones, school districts no longer employ school librarians; some have even closed their school libraries.”  (Braun, Hartmann, Hughes-Hassel, & Kumasi, 2014, p. )  This is a frightening trend. Especially when one acknowledges that teens need more assistance to navigate   the perilous waters of the internet. “When thinking about teens and tech, researchers are discovering it is a double-edged sword. “As one NWP teacher said in a focus group, “availability and access to quality resources has never been greater, but it requires even more skill in filtering and sorting” (Zickuhr, 2014) How can media center staff meet the needs of students if they are not there?

In the video, Why Students Don’t Read What’s Assigned in Class, Kittle (2010) discusses why students don’t like to read.  It’s a crime that has been perpetuated by our society’s preoccupation with high stakes testing. At what point do we stop and say, “Hey, reading is for pleasure, learning something new, relaxation, a virtual “stay-at-home-vacation”…and you DO NOT have to produce a product about what you’ve read!” It ruins the experience of just being able to R E A D. I touched on what I did in my classroom in the forum and it was highly gratifying to have books, “disappear” from my class.  Although it was also a challenge to replace them. In my humble opinion, I believe having to produce a product after every book you read is number one in killing students’ desire to read for, gasp, pleasure.   However, there are teachers figuring out how to get students to read more!  In an article in The Atlantic, the author, Michael Godsey, was thrilled to discover the advantages of utilizing  podcasts in the classroom to encourage more student buy-in to reading. I am going to have to pass this on to my colleagues, as we all need a very deep tool belt to tempt and tantalize our students into engaging more with texts. Another way to encourage students to read more is through the use of the “read aloud technique”…”to launch students into a text, enhance a lesson, model close reading or think aloud and/or generate interest” (Hayn, Kaplan, & Clemmons, 2017 p. 74). I have found reading aloud to be an invaluable tool in high school.  I was teaching at a high school that was touted as being in the top 500 in the country.  High school seniors did not use inflection in their voice at all…their affect was quite flat.  It made the atrocities retold in the book sound as if it were just another day in the park. I was completely horrified listening to them.

Another issue facing librarians is that canon text that is still used while the message of the story itself is still relevant, the language used is not and can be highly insensitive and racially charged. “…let’s advocate that publishers give our children books with better context and clarity—and re-surface more excellent, overlooked books that everyone should know about. It’s what kids deserve. (Bird, 2017 para 21). Reworked texts have been available for decades, it’s important that the message we are sending to students be that inclusion and diversity are important.

Of course, where would we be if we all had to read the same books? We need diversity in our collections! “By emphasizing the “needs, interests, and abilities” of the young adult community served by the library’s young adult collection and by noting that these “needs, interests and abilities” reflect a “diversity of political, economic, religious, social, minority, and sexual issues,” a library’s policy becomes a statement of advocacy for the need and interest of the library’s collection service population.” (Patte, Amy, 2014 p.23) It is our duty and responsibility as librarians to adhere to the ALA’s code of ethics to increase the variety of books we offer to our patrons. ” We have a special obligation to ensure the free flow of information and ideas to present and future generations” (ALA 2008 para. 3) After all, we don’t all like the same things, and we learn more about our world by having an assortment of different collections to peruse, increase our knowledge base, inhale, taste, smell, and enjoy. We need to increase the amount of leisure reading our teens participate in to expand their horizons. 

In the infographic below, the author  shows how many Australian teenagers read for pleasure…70%!

(Johanson, McRae, Rutherford, Singleton, 2016)  How do we get our teenagers to have more access to pleasure reading? What is the Australians’ secret? My daughter is currently living in Australia, I’ll have to ask her to inquire at the local library!

Additionally, as a library school student YALSA recommends that I:

“● Recognize that teen librarianship is no longer confined to four walls and requires having a flexible and progressive
mind-set about the possibilities of engagement with teens.
● Recognize the customer service aspect of the profession and the need to build strong communication and
interpersonal skills.
● Acknowledge that in order to effectively serve teens, teen services librarians must embrace emerging
technologies.
● Think about what talents and skill sets that you bring to the profession and how they can be best harnessed within
the connected learning framework of library services.
● Seek out opportunities to build the soft skills needed in order to be effective advocates for teen services” (Braun, Hartmann, Hughes-Hassel, & Kumasi, 2014, p.28).

I have been learning, networking and surprising myself as to what I can accomplish as I face the new era of what it means to be a librarian in the digital age.

 

References

Reference List Reflection 1-1fvpxfh

 

[wmd-divider style=”plant” spacing=”40″ color=”#002426″ size=”2″ ls-id=”5cafe19798f45″/]

Reflection # 2!

How can we  better serve the teenagers in our communities? What can we do to engage them and bring out their inherent curiosity, compassion, empathy, and drive to move forward to become better human beings? One such way is the creation of MakerSpaces in the library. “We’ve moved beyond being a place to simply check out books by providing a place where teens can create, be engaged, discover and learn, or simply hang out. It’s essential that librarians are there for teens, not only to assist them with their information needs, but to be their guides in making the connection between what sparks their interests and future careers.” (Monee, 2014 p. 3) Makerspaces can and are changing the way teens interact with the library in a multitude of ways. They have become vital parts of the whole and “…  provide students with safe places to create, collaborate, and problem solve. Leverage the power of making to give students choices, provide opportunities for students to teach each other, and expose students to interests they might not be introduced to otherwise,…” (Hansen, 2015) I wish these had been around when my children were growing up. We live in a small rural community and I feel that they would have been exposed to a much wider world if MakerSpaces had been in our tiny library. Modern “libraries provide access many print, visual, and virtual information resources that would not be accessible to most students and faculty, even in today’s highly connected world. Makerspaces provide access to tools and materials that would be too expensive or impractical for most students or teachers to have as individuals or in a classroom.” (Weisgrau, 2015) I have worked in both the inner city and a large rural town. MakerSpaces combined with the vision of great librarians and teachers will lead teens to reach for new heights by providing teens with varied experiences that would not otherwise have had.

Peggy Kittle Book Love

I cannot say enough good things about this book. It spoke to me.  Peggy Kittle reached into my soul and informed the world thoughts that had been floating in my brain for eons.  Teens will read for pleasure if given the opportunity and encouragement. When I was teaching in s small inner city high school, I encountered this first hand.  I created my own classroom library filled with a wide variety of books, as many as I could get my hands on, determined that every student would find at least one book that would ignite that spark, long lain dormant within them (these were sophomores in high school, but the majority of them did not read at all outside of school and many barely read in school), but on the one day that I set aside for independent reading you could hear a pin drop. If you had told me this would happen, I would have seriously thought that you were pulling my leg. I can still see my small group of boys all huddled around a search book; the invaluable skills they gained as they worked together as a team to find all of the items would last them a lifetime.

Another aspect of the thinking about teens and reading is their dedicated space. Teen spaces need to be as inviting as possible.  It may well be the one place that they feel welcomed and safe. ” Feature interactive information of interest and need to teens including, but not limited to, homework help; health and sexuality; financial advice; relationship advice; time management tips; pop culture; college prep” (. Teens are about to embark on the journey of life; heading into adulthood, teen spaces need to be able to provide avenues of exploration and diversity of ideas for teens as they mature into adulthood. 

We all  know teens who use the web mindlessly for research papers,  teens who do not think critically and teens who copy and paste without citing. “These are symptoms of “information illiteracy. What is ‘information literacy’? Basically, it is the ability to identify, locate, evaluate, and use information effectively and ethically. (Grassen, 2009) The site that Grassen developed as part of a Libguide for UCLA College Library has a wealth of information on how to teach information literacy and why is is so important.  It has been and will continue to be of the utmost import to teach these vitally critical skills.  We have all heard of “fake” news, our teens need to be able to think in a way that will help them to be able to navigate an increasingly challenging world.

“Now as always in our history, reading is among our greatest freedoms. The freedom to read and write is almost the only means for making generally available ideas or manners of expression that can initially command only a small audience.” : Freedom to Read Statement (2016). How can anyone in this day and age not agree with this statement? It is imperative that that we continue the fight to be able to have people everywhere be able to read and access information so that they can make up their own minds what is ethically and morally right.

The following are just a very minor sampling of “Banned books” that I have read…and I truly cannot understand why adults would want to ban them?  An age restriction I could see on some of them, as some of the topics contained therein are more mature in nature; but then again, we all know that children/teens mature at different rates.  So, what would be unsuitable for one child, may well prove to be a lifesaver to another; as they can totally relate to the subject matter and it may help them to understand their place in the world better.

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie  
• Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo A Anaya
• Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (This title was a complete shocker, as I loved this book and did not remember any part of it being remotely objectionable?)
• Monster by Walter Dean Myers
• The Diary of a Girl by Anne Frank
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

Books with Diverse Content: OIF found that out of the 2015 Top Ten Most Frequently Challenged Books, nine of them contained diverse content. The 86 books on this list include content by or about people of color, LGBT people and/or people with disabilities. This is an absolute shame, as it is 2019, not the Dark Ages.  Sadly, it may well take another 100 years for people to become more tolerant.  Countries all around the world battle with issues of racism and discrimination.

However, there are some people in this world who do have the best interests of children close to their heart. CommonSenseMedia is a true Godsend for parents, educators, and everyone else out there who want to have access to a necessary to to help filter and figure out how to make children more safe from the proliferation of advertising, misinformation, and outright lying that big corporations will go to so that their content and message will be seen/read/viewed by younger and younger audiences.  I was especially appalled at what I found concerning YouTube for kids??? I have nieces and nephews that are quite young as well as having friends who have young children and was more than a bit shocked as to how Youtube for young children is not moderating itself well at all! “The app continues to draw lots of public scrutiny and controversy for including some clearly inappropriate videos and ads (with nudity, alcohol, and profanity), as well as fast food and junk food ads that push unhealthy food (some of which look a lot more like entertainment than advertising, making it hard for kids to know they’re being marketed to.” This guide made me think deeper about both the long-term and short-term consequences of exposing our children to content that we are not aware has motives that are not as altruistic as we may think.

 

References

references reflection-1r62ocu