The marvelous Peg Sullivan of Smith read yesterday’s post about libraries really focusing deeply on creating conducive learning spaces for students with disabilities. Peg is a great thinker about how library spaces can be used to promote deeper thinking, and as a long-time member of the AASL Standards and Guidelines Implementation Task Force (yup, that’s a mouthful), she has a deep commitment to the AASL Standards that we now refer to as L4L (Peg coined the term).

She said:

“One comment: if I ruled the world, we would be burning traditional carrels. I always find them dark and lonely, sort of like a “time-out.” I would only use them for privacy in the school office or something. There are better ways to “nest”; for example a small table by a window. People need light to think. Carrels are the sleep pod for overworked college students.I had a friend who purchased a number of rockers and put them into a quieter area of her library for the autistic students.  The rocking motion helped them focus, calm down and near by windows and picture/coffee table style books gave them something to look through during bad times.  It seemed to work extremely well.”

She added that she has an upcoming article on study rooms and will give a heads-up when it’s published.

The conversations of the past 24 hours reminded me of something else (really, people, even though I had a Major Birthday this year, did I have to get a sieve where my crackerjack memory used to be?).

One of my former students got her principal to agree to remove the tops of the carrels and open up her space. A very clever repurposing from a very clever librarian. (See her detailed information in the comments below.)

Addie noted on Twitter last night, “Maybe we need to create study carrels 2.0 – focused spaces that don’t feel like detention.”

I’d love to hear from you about Addie’s thought. What IS a study carrel 2.0? Is there still a need for individual learning zones in a school library or learning commons?

I was excited to have one of my grad students visit today. Yay! It’s fun to catch up and hear what people are up to, even if they ARE already done with Mockingjay and you haven’t even started it yet.

Here is one of the many things we talked about today that is resonating with me hours later.

So … we’re making these libraries that are more stimulating, more social, more cooperative, and more interactive.

What are we doing, as a movement, as a profession, as an association, to protect quiet spaces for the kids who can’t function with additional stimulus? Those who would benefit from being squirreled away, perhaps working alone, in a quiet study carrel? Those students — students with Asperger’s or autism, for example — who need hushed comfort to help them focus?

Our classroom colleagues talk all the time about meeting the individual needs students with various special learning or developmental needs.

All. The. Time. In hallways, in professional journals, in books, on podcasts, at conference.

But let’s turn the mirror the other way and reflect on our own practices. As a movement, as a profession, as an association, what are we doing to make sure that our learning commonses (is that a word?) are truly embracing all kinds of learners BEYOND diversity in reading materials?

So, thinking I had just offered up a thoughtful nugget for you to chew on, I was about to click “Publish” when I glanced at the back-to-school issue of School Library Monthly. Well, look what’s on page 52 — “Meeting the Needs of Students with Disabilities,” by Kendra L. Allen and Sandra Hughes-Hassell.

Beaten to the punch by folks far more expert than I!

(Though I hope I get some credit for learning-by-osmosis. My mother was a resource room teacher, my father was a special education director, and my stepmother still works with pre-primary impaired students. Y’all be careful coming to our house for dinner if you don’t enjoy table talk about special education.)

Here are three statistics from Allen and Hughes-Hassell’s article:

- Did you know that almost 14% of K-12 students have disabilities?

- That 90% of surveyed North Carolina school librarians scored themselves a C, D, or F when it came to their knowledge of best practices in special education?

- That only 1 of the 67 survey participants read all of the IEPs for her school? Which, umm, by the way, is kinda like against the law for school librarians to be doing if they consider themselves teachers of those students.

Those are some pretty scary numbers that tell us that this is a huge area for our professional growth!
Whether you’re a Southerner about to enter Month Two of the school year or a Midwesterner just about to start, let’s take a moment and think … if we had taken Allen’s survey about our special education practices, what grade would we give ourselves?

And here’s one final thought. Did y’all know there are books out there about collaboration and the SPECIAL ED TEAM, just like there are reams of published information about collaboration with school librarians? Do we see our special ed colleagues the way THEY want to be seen? As instructional collaborators, co-teachers, and partners? If not, what does THAT tell us?

Hi, y’all — We could use a few more of your great ideas for the November issue of SLM’s Nudging Toward Inquiry column. If you can help, please submit below!

Thanks,
Kristin