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108: The State of Libraries w/ Dustin Hensley
16 Plays3 years ago
Today we are joined by Dustin Hensley. Dustin is the library media specialist at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee. He is an advocate for creating spaces that cultivate a student’s love of learning. He was one of the co-founders of the Bartleby Program, which centers community improvement and entrepreneurship with students, and is one of the winners of the XQ Super School competition, remaining active in the XQ Community of Practice. He currently teaches courses on Community Improvement and Academic Research.
In this podcast, Dustin and I talk about the state of libraries today:
- the purpose of a library
- how libraries interact with students
- political forces attacking books and librarianship
- transitions from libraries to Makerspaces and Fablabs
- and how libraries provide a pedagogy that transforms learning.
GUESTS
Dustin Hensley, library media specialist, project lead, and grant-writer for Elizabethton High School, part-time professor, co-founder of the Bartleby Program, and active member of the XQ Community of Practice
RESOURCES
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Episode 108
00:00:03
Speaker
Hello and welcome to episode 108 of our podcast at Human Restoration
Chris McNutt's Background
00:00:07
Speaker
Project.
00:00:07
Speaker
My name is Chris McNutt and I'm a high school digital media instructor from Ohio.
00:00:12
Speaker
Before we get started, I wanted to let you know that this is brought to you by our supporters, three of whom are Kathy Cinello, Kimberly Baker and Bradley Henson.
00:00:20
Speaker
Thank you for your ongoing support.
00:00:21
Speaker
You can learn more about the Human Restoration Project on our website, humanrestorationproject.org or find us on Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.
Dustin Hensley and the Bartleby Program
00:00:43
Speaker
Today, we are joined by Dustin Hensley.
00:00:46
Speaker
Dustin is the Library Media Specialist at Elizabethton High School in Tennessee.
00:00:51
Speaker
He is an advocate for creating spaces that cultivate a student's love of learning.
00:00:55
Speaker
He was one of the co-founders of the Bartleby Program, which centers community involvement and entrepreneurship with students, and is one of the winners of the XQ Super Schools Competition, remaining active in the XQ community of practice.
00:01:07
Speaker
He currently teaches courses on community improvement and academic research.
Libraries, Politics, and Makerspaces
00:01:10
Speaker
In this podcast, Dustin and I talk about the state of libraries today, the purpose of a library, how libraries interact with students, political forces attacking books and librarianship, transitions from libraries to makerspaces and fab labs, and how libraries provide a pedagogy that transforms learning.
00:01:30
Speaker
I was in college to be a history teacher and I was loving my history classes and I started into my education classes.
00:01:39
Speaker
I started noticing how much being a classroom teacher went against my philosophy of learning.
00:01:46
Speaker
It was doing my residency and would see the teacher would skid up and lecture and such.
00:01:52
Speaker
And I was thinking about the students and what if they didn't want to learn about that today?
00:01:57
Speaker
What if they wanted to learn about something else?
00:01:59
Speaker
And that doesn't matter.
00:02:00
Speaker
That if a kid came in like, I want to learn about dinosaurs today, then too bad.
00:02:04
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We're learning about this instead.
00:02:05
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So the students had no autonomy or agency whatsoever in their own learning journey.
00:02:10
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And I couldn't consciously become a classroom teacher for that reason.
00:02:14
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But I wanted to work with teenagers and I wanted to work in a learning environment.
Value of Libraries in Student Exploration
00:02:19
Speaker
So I was trying to find what can I do that I can still do all these things that I want to do, but I'm not forced to
00:02:26
Speaker
make kids learn something they might not want to learn.
00:02:28
Speaker
And I thought back to my high school librarian, who was an amazing human being and helped foster my learning in a lot of ways.
00:02:36
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And I thought, I just want to do what she does.
00:02:38
Speaker
So I reached out to her and she said, this is what you have to do to become a school librarian.
00:02:42
Speaker
So I, in my senior year, dropped education as a minor and just graduated with a degree in history and went straight into the master's in school librarianship program.
00:02:53
Speaker
Most school librarians take the journey of they're a classroom teacher for several, several years, and then they later on will go become a school librarian when they graduate.
00:03:02
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Maybe get tired of the classroom.
00:03:03
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They want something different.
00:03:05
Speaker
But I went straight into the school library.
00:03:08
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That's all I wanted to do.
00:03:09
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The reason I became a school librarian is what guides my pedagogy in that I want to cultivate self-interest in students all the time.
00:03:18
Speaker
I never want to force learning on anyone.
00:03:20
Speaker
Whenever they come in to the library, if they say, this is what I want to learn about today, then we learn about it together.
00:03:26
Speaker
And it's great that I never have to be the authority on anything.
00:03:29
Speaker
that i'm the authority on finding information on how to verify information but i never have to be that person okay i'm going to teach you now it's okay i don't know anything about this either let's learn about it together um just a few days ago there's a student that wanted to know what the inside of a kangaroo pouch was like
00:03:45
Speaker
We learned about the inside of kangaroo pouches.
00:03:47
Speaker
And it's great that every day is going to be
Initiatives on Social Emotional Learning
00:03:49
Speaker
different.
00:03:49
Speaker
I'm sure a lot of people's view of the school library is that you're an elderly lady with the glasses on your nose and your hair in a bun and you shush people.
00:03:59
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The school library job is not monotonous that way.
00:04:02
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It doesn't have to be monotonous that way.
00:04:04
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It can be a new journey every day that you're learning something just completely off the wall that you did not expect to be coming because the students really guide what happens in the library.
00:04:15
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So it's the most equitable space in a school because it's made for everyone.
00:04:21
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It's not just for the high achievers.
00:04:23
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It's not just for a certain subsection of the population.
00:04:27
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And that's true of libraries everywhere.
00:04:28
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That's public libraries, academic libraries.
00:04:31
Speaker
that they are made specifically to help every single person in the community.
00:04:35
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Yeah, my whole goal is that I'm going to learn with these students and let them guide the journey, that I'm there to help get them the right kind of sources to be a conduit to the correct information, but also teach them the skills on how to correctly assess information so that we're getting accurate information.
Chris's Journey in Education
00:04:55
Speaker
There's two things that you're saying that really resonate with me.
00:04:58
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The first is kind of a personal note.
00:05:00
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I kind of went the opposite route.
00:05:01
Speaker
When I first went to school, I actually wanted to be a librarian.
00:05:04
Speaker
And I got a degree in history and shifted into education.
00:05:07
Speaker
It's a cognitive dissonance that I constantly face as someone who is a classroom teacher of can change occur from the inside versus can change occur from the outside.
00:05:17
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Because there's always that constant resonance of we have to get through
00:05:22
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the standards.
00:05:23
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And it can feel really gross to force kids to do those things.
00:05:27
Speaker
But at the exact same time, there's the question of, well, if no one ever attempted to make those changes from the inside, would change ever occur?
00:05:35
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Like, I totally get what you're saying.
00:05:36
Speaker
But it's just interesting that we both have relatively similar origins in terms of understanding that.
Evolving Role of Libraries
00:05:43
Speaker
But when it comes to the library, I was thinking back to my own high school experience, and I was not a fan of my high school classes.
00:05:51
Speaker
I was truant all the time.
00:05:53
Speaker
But I always loved the library.
00:05:57
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I also connected a lot with the librarian.
00:05:59
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Our librarian actually was an older lady.
00:06:01
Speaker
It was a relatively traditional space.
00:06:03
Speaker
It just basically had books and then like a couple of computers, and it was...
00:06:06
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relatively simple but it was a very welcoming place i also think of libraries as accepting places a lot of folks would use it as a way to get out of class but really what they were doing was they wanted to go there because it was calm and people cared about you there and they felt like they asked you how you were doing it was a very non-compliance non-authoritarian space
00:06:28
Speaker
So, yes, it got you out of class.
00:06:30
Speaker
But the reason why you wanted to get out of class was that it felt different to be there.
00:06:34
Speaker
It's a little more complex than that.
00:06:36
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And I think that that's a good segue into just talking about what is the purpose of a library, especially inside of a school.
00:06:44
Speaker
I think that, you know, even when I was younger, that was I don't know if this is still the case, but they used to call them instead of libraries, a media center.
00:06:52
Speaker
to focus more on like research and finding and using sources on the internet, etc.
00:06:57
Speaker
In your opinion, what is a purpose of a library?
00:07:00
Speaker
Yeah, and we still use the term media center.
00:07:02
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So I am a library media specialist.
00:07:06
Speaker
Books, internet, all those different things are just mediums for the transference of information.
00:07:11
Speaker
So whether it be a book or it be a computer or a video, a DVD, a
00:07:16
Speaker
Do we still use DVDs?
00:07:17
Speaker
Blu-ray, whatever it might be.
00:07:19
Speaker
All of that is just for transferring some information.
00:07:21
Speaker
So yeah, I like the idea of the library being that accepting space because the librarian has a really special position with students and that they never have to judge performance.
00:07:34
Speaker
Students all have a favorite teacher, but at some point, eventually, that teacher is going to judge their performance on something.
00:07:40
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They're going to assess their abilities, and the school librarian never has to do that.
00:07:44
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So I'm in this great position that I get to be an advocate for students.
00:07:48
Speaker
that I get to be someone in the same position as like a school counselor, that I get to build a relationship with them that's completely outside of just what are you able to do?
00:07:58
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What are you able to accomplish?
Impact of Politics on Libraries
00:08:00
Speaker
And that who are you as an individual and a person?
00:08:02
Speaker
That's my number one idea of what a library should be is building relationships with students because that helps
00:08:09
Speaker
create all these other opportunities for learning that once I know them as an individual, I mean, that helps me get back to my original purpose of here's a great book that you might like, or here is a great resource that you might be able to utilize in your classes.
00:08:23
Speaker
So that relationship piece, I think, is the most important aspect of the school library.
00:08:29
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Me and my position used what I'm doing with relationship building to start a lot of social emotional learning initiatives across the school.
00:08:39
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I'm over our school survey of social emotional learning for students.
00:08:43
Speaker
I hate that a lot of times that students have no ownership over their own data, whether it be their grades or the GPA or whatever, the school owns it.
00:08:52
Speaker
they have to pay for a transcript or whatever.
00:08:55
Speaker
So I take the data from the surveys and take it to the students, let them wrestle with the data with me.
00:09:01
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Because, I mean, it's their information.
00:09:04
Speaker
Again, libraries being this place of open source knowledge, you can come and learn about this if you'd like to learn about it, which I really look for those students that fall through the cracks, that the library kids, those are the ones that are skipping class because they need a different space.
00:09:19
Speaker
I want them to feel like they're engaged somewhere, not just that here's a space where you feel like calm and quiet.
00:09:25
Speaker
that you're not having to deal with all the heartache or troubles or headaches or whatever of the classroom.
00:09:31
Speaker
But here's a place where you actually belong.
00:09:33
Speaker
This idea of the library is so much more than just here's the silent sanctum or the book depository.
00:09:39
Speaker
But it's a space where students can actually feel like that that's where they belong in the school and they have an adult in the building they can talk to.
00:09:47
Speaker
I know that every bit of research about social emotional learning shows the importance of having an adult they can talk to, at least one that says their name every day.
00:09:55
Speaker
And you mentioned that with your school librarian.
00:09:57
Speaker
We are that person that they can come and talk to because they know that, like I said before, we're not going to judge them.
00:10:02
Speaker
We're just there to accept them.
00:10:05
Speaker
I can't help but think as you're explaining all this, because it's such an important topic, that this feeling of belonging and having that connection to the library and the librarian is, especially in maybe the last year or so, been a lot more difficult as different kind of political forces, cultural war forces, et cetera, have come in and said like, hey, like you're not going to have this book or this book isn't appropriate, et cetera.
00:10:31
Speaker
with those books being primarily focused on student identity, race, gender, sexuality, etc.
00:10:37
Speaker
How do you negotiate that as a librarian, knowing that your role is very much centered on those connections, but at the exact same time, school regulatory policy, politics, whatever, might force you into...
00:10:53
Speaker
restricting what it is that you can do.
00:10:55
Speaker
Right.
00:10:55
Speaker
And I think a lot of the forces right now are trying to, like, there's going to be first amendment lawsuits and all this that happens with everything that's going on.
00:11:05
Speaker
But I think what they're really trying to push for is silent censorship, that they want librarians to censor themselves, that I'm too afraid to purchase this material because it might get challenged, which every school board in America already has a material challenge policy.
00:11:19
Speaker
This is nothing new.
00:11:20
Speaker
There's always been a route for parents to challenge materials in a school library.
00:11:24
Speaker
That's been around for decades.
00:11:26
Speaker
But this new push, I think, is just to fear monger that librarians will not purchase the materials because there's always been a route for parents to challenge.
00:11:36
Speaker
And all of those usually have to go through a very lengthy process.
00:11:39
Speaker
It's not just that I don't like this book, so the librarian pulls it.
00:11:43
Speaker
There's a lengthy process of having to go through a committee that all reads the book and will make a decision that goes to the school board for them to make a decision.
00:11:51
Speaker
So there's this generally they're really lengthy processes, which are so much more than what they're currently pushing is that if a parent doesn't like it, the librarian pulls it.
00:12:00
Speaker
Of course, as a librarian, not a fan of a parent choosing what someone else's kids can read.
00:12:05
Speaker
If you have a problem with the topic, then that's something you should talk to your own child about and make that decision together.
00:12:11
Speaker
And even then, these are teenagers.
00:12:12
Speaker
They should be able to make their own decisions that if they would like to read a book.
00:12:16
Speaker
I've had students in the past that have told me, like, I can't take this home.
00:12:21
Speaker
Can I just check it out and leave it here and read it while I'm here?
00:12:23
Speaker
Because if I get caught with this, I'll be in trouble.
00:12:26
Speaker
So obviously we make arrangements that they can read it while they're at school so that something doesn't happen to them at home.
00:12:32
Speaker
Currently there's a push in Florida for the library management system called Follett to send an email to parents for every book they check out so that they couldn't just check out something at
00:12:46
Speaker
keep it at school so that that way the parent would always know which librarians are really big on privacy.
00:12:52
Speaker
That's one of our biggest tenants is the privacy of the patron.
00:12:56
Speaker
That goes completely against the library bill of rights from the American Library Association.
00:13:01
Speaker
That's like I mentioned earlier, that's their data.
00:13:03
Speaker
That's their information.
00:13:05
Speaker
That's their reading log.
00:13:09
Speaker
What they've checked out is their private information.
00:13:12
Speaker
It should stay that way.
00:13:14
Speaker
Yeah, we're in a really strange position right now in a lot of states, like Tennessee being one of them.
00:13:19
Speaker
About a month or so ago, there was a celebrity who testified to the state legislature, and he asked, what's the difference between a school librarian and a man in a white van with no windows sitting outside the school?
00:13:33
Speaker
He said, the kids can run from the guy in the van.
00:13:36
Speaker
They can't run from a school librarian.
00:13:38
Speaker
So there is all kinds of attacks of school librarians being groomers and endangering children and all these things that it's a really weird place to be in.
00:13:48
Speaker
But librarians are really fighting back because they
00:13:51
Speaker
We obviously care about the children and we're trained.
00:13:54
Speaker
We have master's degrees.
00:13:56
Speaker
We have advanced degrees on how to select books that are age appropriate, that are appropriate for where students are at as human beings.
00:14:05
Speaker
Developmentally, it's an attack on professionalism.
00:14:08
Speaker
There's a group called Freedom with the...
00:14:11
Speaker
READ and freedom, the freedom for students to read this out of Texas, Carolyn Foote.
00:14:16
Speaker
So we're pushing back and advocating as much as we can.
00:14:18
Speaker
And I think that a lot of librarians are going to push the boundaries and see what happens.
00:14:23
Speaker
Myself being one of those, that we have students that need these materials that have things going on in their lives that they need to be able to read about and learn about.
00:14:32
Speaker
So we'll see what happens in the next few years.
00:14:35
Speaker
Not the most exciting place to be right now because of the forces trying to censor our ability to help all students, but that's what we're here for.
00:14:51
Speaker
Hey there, I hope you're enjoying the podcast so far.
00:14:54
Speaker
I want to take a brief moment and promote something that may interest our listeners, which is our upcoming Conference to Restore Humanity.
00:15:00
Speaker
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00:15:13
Speaker
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00:15:24
Speaker
And our virtual conference is designed to be a virtual conference, as in we use flipped keynotes, which focuses on conversation rather than staring at a Zoom screen, and our courses are interactive, asynchronous explorations.
00:15:36
Speaker
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00:15:40
Speaker
Tickets are discounted right now at $150 for all four days, with discounts available for underrepresented communities.
00:15:46
Speaker
Now, back to the podcast.
00:15:55
Speaker
It's definitely a...
00:15:57
Speaker
dangerous situation especially from that silent censorship angle i think about not necessarily from a librarian angle but from like an english teacher angle i know so many english teachers who are not introducing certain topics because they don't want to deal with the parent fallout like the hate you give has been a really big one which in years past was not really that that big of a deal but now it's just like i don't i don't want to deal with it i don't want to i don't want to
00:16:24
Speaker
constantly coming after me.
Debate: Libraries vs. Makerspaces
00:16:26
Speaker
And that to me is highly concerning.
00:16:29
Speaker
I can't help but draw the line between the stories that you're sharing about testifying against librarians and the role of a library, and also just the cutting of funding to libraries in general, and whether or not we'll see more attacks on having a library at all.
00:16:47
Speaker
And kind of in that same vein, I think about maybe the last 10 years or so, the shift of libraries and schools moving towards kind of like workplace centric spaces like makerspaces, fab labs.
00:17:02
Speaker
And, you know, I literally teach in a makerspace a lot of the time, but our school does not have a library.
00:17:08
Speaker
That is our school's quote unquote library.
00:17:11
Speaker
And I personally am not a huge fan of that.
00:17:14
Speaker
I personally think that you should also have books in a space of new research and a quiet space sometimes and sometimes maybe it's a little bit softer, but a makerspace is not that is very much different.
00:17:23
Speaker
I'm curious about your thoughts on the shift from the traditional library to these other spaces and perhaps how that could connect to what we're seeing from politicians and from advocates to
00:17:39
Speaker
I mean, defund or remove libraries.
00:17:42
Speaker
Yeah, so I think that I personally have nothing against makerspaces and fab labs.
00:17:47
Speaker
I don't have one in my library.
00:17:49
Speaker
We have a separate makerspace in our school, which the engineering classes are taught in.
00:17:54
Speaker
So we have like a separation at our school, which is good because I know nothing about engineering.
00:17:58
Speaker
But I obviously want to advocate for books being in a library.
00:18:02
Speaker
Outside of just being able to be like a holder of foundational knowledge or whatever from all the research that you do and the information that you've learned from books, there's so much importance in just being able to read a piece of fiction.
00:18:14
Speaker
Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop has in the library world this research on mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors.
00:18:22
Speaker
that books provide all of those things, that they give you a mirror to yourself, but they also give you a window to glimpse into the lives of other people and then a sliding glass door to step into those lives.
00:18:32
Speaker
So that's one of the guiding principles of librarianship is that mirrors windows, sliding glass doors, that novels and fiction give you the ability to learn empathy and how other people live their lives so that we can have a better understanding of all cultures and all different peoples.
00:18:51
Speaker
With the push towards a full makerspace, you're losing all of that.
00:18:55
Speaker
And again, I love students having information, having knowledge.
00:19:01
Speaker
But then they need to be able to do something with that.
00:19:04
Speaker
What good does it do a student to have all this trivia knowledge if they can't do anything with it?
00:19:09
Speaker
So I like a nice balance of here's the space in the library where you can learn.
00:19:14
Speaker
Then here's the space where you can create something with that knowledge that we want them to be either generative thinkers or creative thinkers that they make something new or they take something existing and do something new with it.
00:19:26
Speaker
Like we want to see that happen in the library.
00:19:28
Speaker
because we don't want just to see the part where they find information and leave with it.
00:19:32
Speaker
So I love the idea of them creating in the library, whatever my students, they do a lot of design thinking in the library to try to create community solutions.
00:19:43
Speaker
So I used before the pandemic hit, I taught a class called Community Improvement, where our students would look at our region and then find issues that they saw and then try to create solutions alongside of users.
00:19:57
Speaker
and then pitch those solutions to the people in the community that can make them happen, and then actually go out and do the thing.
00:20:04
Speaker
That, like we didn't have a makerspace or whatever, but we were able to take the information and research that we did on a topic and do something with it.
00:20:12
Speaker
And that's what we want to be able to see is that, okay, I'm a holder of foundational knowledge, but then I'm also able to take it and apply it to life and be collaborative with it and create new work or whatever.
00:20:25
Speaker
To me, a lot of the work surrounding makerspaces and fab labs are not necessarily rooted in a pedagogical lens.
00:20:35
Speaker
A library is a pedagogy.
00:20:37
Speaker
It's doing research and applying it, as you're talking about.
00:20:39
Speaker
It's about obtaining knowledge.
00:20:41
Speaker
A makerspace is more... It can have a makerspace pedagogy, but I think that typically how it tends to be implemented is more so just, hey, we did a project.
00:20:51
Speaker
Now we're going to go make a 3D model.
00:20:53
Speaker
And it doesn't really have any extension beyond that.
00:20:56
Speaker
It's just like it's a thing that exists and it looks kind of cool at the end, but it doesn't really mean anything.
00:21:01
Speaker
It doesn't have any actual purpose for student learning outside of having an interesting end product.
00:21:07
Speaker
And it seems like more and more, a lot of libraries are shifting into just being spaces that create as opposed to spaces that have those resources there.
00:21:17
Speaker
Sadly, tour a lot of schools and a lot of schools are starting to remove books.
00:21:23
Speaker
And instead put in like poster printers and those giant 3D material printers.
00:21:27
Speaker
And as you just said, it's not that those things are bad, but over time, it's shifting the purpose of a library to be more of almost like a,
00:21:36
Speaker
an engineering space, which is a little bit different than what it is that you were just talking about here in this first half.
00:21:44
Speaker
I guess that kind of all builds into just the idea of, you know, what is the purpose of a library and specifically a school context with classrooms?
Libraries as Collaborative Spaces
00:21:52
Speaker
So like when you remove a library, what is the danger when it comes to a regular classroom and the connections that they make
00:22:01
Speaker
Yeah, so like you mentioned in the beginning of the podcast about your journey of becoming a history teacher when you want to be a librarian and the idea of having to meet the standards and like you have your classroom materials that you're given by the state.
00:22:15
Speaker
Maybe I know that's the way our state is that here's your textbook and such.
00:22:18
Speaker
that the library has so many supplementary materials that you don't have in the classroom that we are able to offer.
00:22:26
Speaker
Whether that be a book or a database or sometimes we even have like educational games or headsets, like all these different things that we can offer that you don't get to have in the classroom.
00:22:37
Speaker
We're able to cater our budget based off of the needs of the school.
00:22:42
Speaker
So if the social studies department really wants to be able to do this thing, but they don't have the funding for it, they might be able to come to the library and say, we want to be able to do this.
00:22:52
Speaker
Can you help us?
00:22:54
Speaker
Or there's not a department in the school that I've not worked with that has come to the library and said, can we have assistance with this?
00:22:59
Speaker
Which begins a lot with me as a librarian going out and telling people this is what I can offer you.
00:23:06
Speaker
that a lot of people just assume that the library is for the English and the social studies teachers, that those are the most closely aligned to what the library does.
00:23:16
Speaker
They're going to be reading and researching.
00:23:17
Speaker
That's what happens.
00:23:18
Speaker
So a lot of it for librarians is I need to go advocate to the whole school that I can offer all of these different things for you.
00:23:26
Speaker
That whether you mentioned earlier the budget cutting.
00:23:30
Speaker
Yes, that's totally a thing that happens.
00:23:31
Speaker
But are there other kinds of resources that I can offer you?
00:23:34
Speaker
Are there websites or lesson plans?
00:23:37
Speaker
Because we're trained educators as well.
00:23:39
Speaker
We're certified educators.
00:23:41
Speaker
We have the ability to create lessons or I've co-taught a lesson in every subject, I'm sure at this point.
00:23:48
Speaker
It would range from one day I am working with a biology class and the next day I'm working with criminal justice on looking at Supreme Court cases.
00:23:58
Speaker
We have that ability to kind of be chameleons and
00:24:03
Speaker
fit in with any subject and especially love doing co-curricular things, interdisciplinary, that we love working across disciplines.
00:24:13
Speaker
And one of the good things about a library is we're just a really big space.
00:24:16
Speaker
We have the ability, like if two classes want to work together, let's say that a science and a math class want to do a project together,
00:24:24
Speaker
And they can't combine their classrooms because there's too many students to fit in one classroom.
00:24:29
Speaker
So the library is just a really good space for that.
00:24:32
Speaker
And when you're in my big space, you get me too.
00:24:36
Speaker
I am also available to help in all of the teaching and whatever project design that you're doing because librarians are trained in instructional design.
00:24:44
Speaker
And when we're in library school.
00:24:46
Speaker
So those are things that we have the ability to do.
00:24:49
Speaker
That's one of the things we love doing the most when I talk to other librarians.
00:24:52
Speaker
We don't want to just be there to be the ones like, okay, this is how you use a database, go back to your class and figure out, you know, do your research.
00:24:59
Speaker
We don't want to do that.
00:25:00
Speaker
We want to get in the research with you.
00:25:02
Speaker
Usually whenever a class is going to come and a teacher says, can you teach them how to use the databases?
00:25:09
Speaker
I'll say, yes, can I stay with them?
00:25:11
Speaker
Because I want to work with the students on it.
00:25:12
Speaker
Because I don't want to just say, here it is, goodbye.
00:25:14
Speaker
I want to say, okay, let's really get into it together.
00:25:17
Speaker
I want to make sure that you find the best material possible.
Encouraging Self-directed Learning
00:25:21
Speaker
Like you had mentioned, like you have standards and you've got pacing guides and all this stuff.
00:25:25
Speaker
So I want to be able to use the time that I have to make sure that you get the best information possible in your work.
00:25:30
Speaker
And I think that's one of the most important things in libraries right now are making sure that students can validify information.
00:25:37
Speaker
that they get the best information possible because there's so much information out there.
00:25:42
Speaker
I think about, and whenever you teach freshmen, I know you see this, that you talk, all right, we're going to do a research paper, start researching topic.
00:25:50
Speaker
And the first thing they do is go to Google and they click the first thing that pops up.
00:25:54
Speaker
And it's probably something that they paid to have the top ad or the top thing on Google.
00:25:58
Speaker
And they just start topping it out or something on social media has popped up and they're like, Hey, did you see this news article?
00:26:04
Speaker
And, um,
00:26:06
Speaker
You can read just the URL of the website, and it's like, wow, that is definitely not valid.
00:26:10
Speaker
Look at the name of that website.
00:26:13
Speaker
It's like 40 characters long.
00:26:15
Speaker
And this really important aspect for librarians right now is that we need to help every subject in teaching.
00:26:21
Speaker
This is how you find valid information because one of our biggest things in libraries is that we do not want to teach reliance on someone else.
00:26:28
Speaker
A lot of times in the traditional classroom, we're teaching kids to be reliant on someone to give you information.
00:26:34
Speaker
That's the last thing we want in libraries is that we want students to be able to go out and find it on their own so that once they graduate, they don't need to have someone say, here's the information, because that's whenever they start going to Facebook to find out their news.
00:26:47
Speaker
They need to be able to have the skills and the mental agility to find information, question it, see if it's valid, and then accept it or discard it.
00:26:58
Speaker
So that's a big thing right now is that we're teaching all subjects.
00:27:03
Speaker
The teachers will bring them or I'll say, hey, can I work with your students on validifying information, whether it be an English class or history class or science or whatever.
00:27:12
Speaker
It sounds like it presents the opportunity when you work with teachers to expand upon that pedagogy and model the importance of both self-determination theory and self-directed learning, as well as critical pedagogy, because you can be that person in that space that helps guide learners.
00:27:29
Speaker
Because you don't have to.
00:27:31
Speaker
I recognize that.
00:27:32
Speaker
There are plenty of schools where you do have to follow the standardized pacing guide.
00:27:36
Speaker
But there are a lot of ways typically to get around that even in traditional schools.
00:27:41
Speaker
And I think by inviting to that space, you can show them like, no, you could do it this way.
00:27:45
Speaker
It's going to feel a lot different.
00:27:47
Speaker
It's going to be a little more probably organized chaos than everyone doing the same thing.
00:27:51
Speaker
topic, but there's a space there to learn to help folks get there.
00:27:56
Speaker
And as you say, it also might help stop the negative effects of standardization on things that involve libraries, really, like the fact that a lot of adults don't read books at all because they had negative experiences with books when they
Countering Standardization in Reading
00:28:10
Speaker
were younger.
00:28:10
Speaker
I've
00:28:11
Speaker
Never met like a first or second grader who doesn't read.
00:28:14
Speaker
They all read stuff because it's fun.
00:28:16
Speaker
But the second that we're like 22, like, I'm not gonna read a book.
00:28:21
Speaker
That's lame.
00:28:22
Speaker
I was like, well, there's actually a lot of really great literature out there that you could engage in.
00:28:26
Speaker
But the experience of schooling has really negatively impacted.
00:28:30
Speaker
I noticed that especially with homeschool students who transition to public school, I've noticed are always vicarious readers, whereas most of my students are not.
00:28:41
Speaker
So it both offers the opportunity for you to come in and introduce that pedagogy and kind of transform how learning works, but also maybe potentially counteract the more negative effects of traditional classrooms.
00:28:53
Speaker
And I think that I'm glad you brought that up.
00:28:56
Speaker
There's a great book by Kelly Gallagher called Read-A-Side that you might have seen before that talks about how schooling really destroys the love of reading.
00:29:04
Speaker
Because you think about like small children and they beg to be read to and they can't wait to learn how to read.
00:29:10
Speaker
And like you mentioned, first and second graders love reading books.
00:29:12
Speaker
Before I was a high school librarian, I was an elementary librarian.
00:29:16
Speaker
And whenever I would bring up, like, you know, it's time to find your book for the week, they would lose their minds.
00:29:21
Speaker
It was hard to keep track of them because they were all over the place just wanting to get books to take home, like begging to take more than just their allotted amount that they were allowed to have.
00:29:31
Speaker
And then, yeah, we start, which Accelerated Reader also does this, that we start assessing based off of their reading.
00:29:39
Speaker
And that's what really kills that love of reading.
00:29:42
Speaker
And then the books that we choose to teach in our English classes are so outdated and sometimes benignous that they just can't connect to.
00:29:52
Speaker
They're all written by dead white men.
00:29:54
Speaker
I know that's a huge issue that we have, that we don't have much diversity in our selections in English classes, which the library is able to provide.
00:30:04
Speaker
I know that, again, going back to the political forces right now, they're trying to get rid of that diversity in literature.
00:30:10
Speaker
But, yeah, we offer so much of that.
00:30:12
Speaker
And, again, we're not assessing you on it.
00:30:14
Speaker
And I have nothing against English teachers.
00:30:16
Speaker
I love my English teachers that I work with.
00:30:19
Speaker
But...
00:30:20
Speaker
they're going to guide you in what you think about what you're reading.
00:30:23
Speaker
There's so little space for you to have your own opinions on what you're reading that you're going to have the guiding questions at the end of the chapter and all of those things that really put you in a box in your understanding of literature that you don't get to explore it on your own.
00:30:38
Speaker
And the library opens up.
00:30:39
Speaker
Again, this goes back to the very beginning in the relationship building that getting the kids in the library is so important because they're going to be surrounded by books.
00:30:48
Speaker
And eventually there's going to be a cover that catches their attention.
00:30:52
Speaker
They're going to get it.
00:30:54
Speaker
I've had so many students that'll come in and they'll tell me, like, I'm not going to check out a book.
00:30:59
Speaker
I'm like, okay, that's fine.
00:31:00
Speaker
Just come in here and hang out and we'll talk, you know.
00:31:03
Speaker
And eventually they see a book and they get it.
00:31:07
Speaker
And they'll say, like, don't say anything.
00:31:10
Speaker
Like, don't say I told you so.
00:31:11
Speaker
I'll be like, okay, I won't say a word.
00:31:13
Speaker
Just check out the book and enjoy it.
00:31:15
Speaker
I love every time that happens because, like, eventually their wall gets broken down just because they see the book displays or whatever.
Promoting Literacy and Love for Learning
00:31:22
Speaker
Like, I intentionally will put books...
00:31:24
Speaker
at the table they sit at because I figure out, okay, this kid sits there every day.
00:31:29
Speaker
So I'm going to start putting, based on what we've talked about, I'm going to start putting a book at that table.
00:31:34
Speaker
I'm going to switch my displays up.
00:31:35
Speaker
So that way they're eventually going to keep seeing that book and they're going to check it out.
00:31:38
Speaker
It's going to happen.
00:31:39
Speaker
And most often it does happen.
00:31:41
Speaker
So that goes back to being like, I don't think there's anything wrong with librarians being the book people.
00:31:47
Speaker
I think we do so much more than that.
00:31:48
Speaker
But I think being the person that helps instill a level of learning back into high schoolers, I think that's such an important position to have.
00:31:55
Speaker
Yeah, promoting literacy in general is one of those like stables.
00:31:58
Speaker
Kids need to know how to read, but they will learn how to read by reading things that are interesting, that they like to do.
00:32:04
Speaker
That's going to be way more powerful if they're just intrinsically motivated to do it because you are when you're younger.
00:32:09
Speaker
There's no reason why you can't be
00:32:12
Speaker
I think about a lot of my personal experiences with reading in school and Lexile levels and being told that book is either too easy or too difficult.
00:32:21
Speaker
And I was always a fan of picking the hardest possible book, even though I had no idea what was going on, just because I was always fascinated by Moby Dick or something, like these super thick books.
00:32:31
Speaker
I was just like,
00:32:32
Speaker
I had this ancient text with it, and it just felt like I was discovering it in one of those old libraries, which coincidentally is my favorite book, which I love that book.
00:32:42
Speaker
But yeah, I really like that concept of how do we get learners to be intrinsically motivated and reshape schools via using libraries as transformative pedagogy.
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:32:54
Speaker
Reed's a great example of that, Kelly Gallagher's work in general.
00:32:58
Speaker
I'm curious about any final thoughts you have or appeals you have to educators about libraries or the work that you do.
00:33:04
Speaker
Please utilize your school library.
00:33:07
Speaker
The librarians want to be used.
00:33:09
Speaker
If they're not advocating for themselves, I want to advocate for them.
00:33:12
Speaker
The library is such an essential space, especially for students.
00:33:16
Speaker
So please support your school librarians, whether it be administrators, teachers, whoever's listening.
00:33:22
Speaker
The school library wants to be used, whether it be monetary or whatever you're doing.
00:33:28
Speaker
And don't just use the library as a backdrop for photo ops.
00:33:32
Speaker
That's a thing that happens in a lot of places is that if someone comes in like a dignitary or something, that they'll use the school library as a great backdrop for a picture opportunity.
00:33:41
Speaker
Like we're so much more than that.
00:33:43
Speaker
We like you coming in, but don't just come show up and take a picture and leave.
00:33:47
Speaker
We can provide so much more than just that.
00:33:50
Speaker
So I mean, my last minute plea is just utilize the space.
00:33:54
Speaker
It can be so much more than what you realize it can be.
00:34:02
Speaker
Thank you again for listening to Human Restoration Projects podcast.
00:34:05
Speaker
I hope this conversation leaves you inspired and ready to push the progressive envelope of education.
00:34:09
Speaker
You can learn more about progressive education, support our cause, and stay tuned to this podcast and other updates on our website at humanrestorationproject.org.