Greetings from the IASL conference (How Cal Berkeley in the 60s relates to Standards)
I’m at UC-Berkeley for the International Association of School Librarianship, for which I am Program Chair. The program part of the conference kicked off about a half-hour ago with three morning preconferences. I can hear Rosemary Chance and Teri Lesesne’s booktalking voices trickle down the stairs, Carrie Gardner’s session on Acceptable Use Policies for a Web 2.0 World downstairs, and Doug Achterman and David Loertscher’s session on Google tools right behind me. Hearing the melding of these voices after so many months of planning brings so much pleasure.
Our conference venue is the Clark Kerr Conference Center, named for the Cal president who led the university during the tumultuous protests in the 1960s. There is a display case here with mementos and biographical information, and this quote:
The University is not engaged in making ideas safe for students. It is engaged in making students safe for ideas.
Powerful stuff even decades later. Put this comment into the Internet context — is your school district, building, or library more concerned with safe ideas? Or with giving students the skills they need to deal successfully with ideas? Sometimes I fear we do more of the first (especialy those of us in elementary) even as we aspire to the second.
Look how nicely this “Common Belief” from the AASL Standards dovetails with Clark Kerr’s statement:
The continuing expansion of information demands that all individuals acquire the thinking skills that will enable them to learn on their own. The amount of information available to our learners necessitates that each individual acquire the skills to select, evaluate, and use information appropriately and effectively.
Kerr’s quote continues:
Thus it [the University] permits the freest expression of views before students, trusting to tehir good sense in passing judgment on these views. Only in this way can it best serve American democracy.”
And look how that statement maps to Standard 3:
Learners use skills, resources, & tools to share knowledge and participate ethically and productively as members of our democratic society.
If you live in the Northern California area, it’s not too late to join us for this conference. Visit the IASL Web site to learn more or stop by the Front Desk at Clark Kerr!
Image: IASL logo from iasl-online.org; manipulated with photofunia.com