I have always had a soft spot for the writings of Alfie Kohn. He’s one of the educators whose writing always stirs just a bit of guilty feeling in me, reminding me that I could be doing more to be better in ways that matter. So on one hand, I love his commentary pointing out that the Common Core State Standards are about, well, setting a common bar, not looking for individual achievements. And on the other hand, I know these are the cards we’re dealt, that there is some language in them that is library-friendly, and that I see some instructional gaps being filled that were gaping under past practices. Here’s an excerpt below … click the link at the bottom to read the entire thing.

Education Week: Debunking the Case for National Standards via kwout

SLM advisory board member Buffy Hamilton and Jennifer Hubert-Swan were profiled in The Boston Herald about current practices in school libraries.

An excerpt:

Buffy Hamilton, who calls herself “The Unquiet Librarian,” holds the phone receiver away from her ear at the Creekview High School library in Canton, Ga., revealing a cacophony of noise in the background.

“It sounds like that a lot of the time,” says Hamilton, who welcomes what she calls “the hum of learning” — students talking about projects, watching videos and even singing “Happy Birthday.”

In 2009, Hamilton began re-imagining her role as a librarian at her new public high school of 1,800 in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. In her new role, Hamilton focuses on enhancing lessons and class projects with tools of the digital world to access, organize and evaluate information.

Her job “is really about helping teachers and students explore new mediums for learning,” Hamilton says. “So that’s been a big shift.”

Creekview High School’s media center looks and sounds nothing like the more silent libraries of the past. The new emphasis on collaborative learning and the use of digital tools to produce dynamic research projects leads to a louder, more hands-on environment that can prove beneficial to students later in college.

Brianne Rhoades, a student in both my Information Literacy for Teaching and Learning and Teaching with Technology classes (lucky me!) created this continuum to help students see the line at which they should seek permission. Thought it might be helpful for you. I like how she plays with the idea of audience to help determine whether you need to get permission. (CTools is our campus version of Moodle or Blackboard.)

We have also talked in class a lot about the values of showing Creative Commons search engines to students as a hassle-free alternative.

Click on the image above to view it full-size.

Image copyright 2011 Brianne Rhoades; used with permission