BFTP: What does a good library tell you about a school?
Sunday, February 8, 2015 at 06:12AM Your library is your portrait. - Holbrook Jackson
... children in one set of schools are educated to be governors; children in the other set of schools are trained for being governed. The former are given the imaginative range to mobilze ideas for economic growth; the latter are provided with the discipline to do the narrow tasks the first group will prescribe. - Jonathan Kozol, Savage Inequalities.
Had I any say in the decision, my grandsons would never attend a school that did not have a good library program.* You can tell a lot about a school's philosophy of education - in practice, not just in lip service - by what sort of library it supports.
A school with a good library:
- Believes that education is about teaching kids how to ask and answer questions, not just know the "right" answers.
- Believes that asking questions is a sign of intelligence, not stupidity.
- Believes that kids should have access to a diversity of topics and points-of-view and be taught the skills to make informed opinions of their own.
- Believes that kids' personal interests are legitimate areas of investigation.
- Believes that it is as important to create kids who want to read as to simply create kids who can read.
- Believes that access to good fiction collections helps kids meet developmental tasks and reading fiction can foster empathy.
- Believes that kids should be content creators and content sharers as well as content consumers.
- Believes that it is important to have more research skills than simply being able to Google a topic - and that it is important to have a professional who helps kids master those skills.
- Believes that edited, quality commercial sources of information should be available to all kids regardless of economic level.
- Believes that technology use in education is about creativity, problem-solving, and communications.
- Believes that the classroom is not the only place learning occurs.
- Believes that kids, like adults, sometimes need a "third place" where they feel welcome, comfortable and productive.
It's in times of budget cuts that a school's true values come starkly into focus. Libraries are a visible sign that a school is educating governors, not the governed.
Which kind of school do you want your grandchildren to attend? With what kind of school do you wish to be affiliated as an educator?
What does your library reveal about your school?
* Good = proactive professional and support staff, adequate materials, articulated curriculum, pleasant physical plant, up-to-date technology.
Original post January 24, 2010
This post was reincarnated in an expanded verions as a Head for the Edge column you can find here.
Reader Comments (3)
I believe that a good library is needed in schools, especially in elementary schools. All of your points are very true. A library is needed to help all of these points work with each child. Each child should have a place to go that is quiet that will make them feel at home. Also, each child should have another place to get information without staying on the internet for a long time.
I'm thinking about sharing this post with our school board. Library staffing in our district has been consistently and steadily eliminated over the past several years. Our four elementary schools have a librarian only two days a week with no support staff. The intermediate school has one librarian on Monday and a different librarian on Friday and no support staff. Our middle school and night school share one librarian three days a week. All past regularly-scheduled classes in the libraries have been eliminated. I believe we are headed toward having only one librarian in the District. Information Literacy classes are and will no longer be offered. Saving dollars has replaced teaching children. Sad to admit that I have given up the fight for our students and am retiring years earlier than I had planned.
Hi Bob,
Share away. I am sorry to hear about your budget issues. You staffing sounds a lot like that in the district where I started last summer. I am still optimistic about turning the situation around.
Doug