I’m sitting in our classroom as my children’s lit  (aka, “Media for Children and Young Adults”) students do a pair of reflection projects.  First, they reflect as a group about the major ideas and themes of the course.Then, I ask them to reflect alone. The instructions:

This semester, you’ve heard a lot about what I believe about literature and resources for children and young adults.  Now that you’ve reflected on the course content, what do you believe about selecting media for children & YA?You can write your response as:

• a “This I Believe” essay
• a policy statement
• a Children/YA Bill of Rights
• a philosophical statement for your portfolio
• something else

I like spending the final hours of a course having students synthesize the ideas so that they can leave the course reminded of all we have done, but I’ve only this year added the individual reflection.So … what do I believe about media for children and young adults? I asked myself, watching them write, and I figured I should answer my own question.

I believe that books still matter and that they can help us grow our thinking and our world view.  They can make us laugh, teach us how to do things, or help us know our world.

While print books are still my preferred mode, I believe in multimodal and multimedia formats: digital texts, ebooks, audio books, audio mp3s, graphic novels, magazines, Web sites, and more.

Keeping kids reading is more important than being picky about what they read.  I am excited that we have passionate readers throughout our K-5 building.

I believe that our library collections should be real havens for pleasure reading, not just give lip service to that. 

I don’t expect my students to love what I loved, even if I wish they did.

I believe in library spaces that welcome children in and value them for who they are.

I believe in library spaces that build a sense of community and thoughtful excitement about learning.

I believe that library spaces should adapt to the needs of its users, not vice versa.  My hat is off to whoever invented casters for library furniture.

I believe that kids should be allowed to check out what interests them, not what is good for them or what is “on their level,” and that we should help them make good choices for their developmental level, not decide for them.

I believe that making good selections based on student needs and available budget is not censorship, no matter what School Library Journal put on its cover.

I believe that reader’s advisory is two-way: that I can recommend resources to kids, and that they can advise me right back.

I believe that libraries are safe places to explore new, unfamiliar ideas.I believe that a kid saying, “I love the library” should be the rule, not the exception.

I’ll close now so I can see what my students have to say.  Knowing their track record this term, it will be far more profound than what I have written.

What’s your manifesto?

{Post-class afterthought: I’m sitting in my office with tears in my eyes reading what they wrote. I’m a very lucky prof. Very lucky.}

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In the spring, I posted information inviting you to join our Exploring Elementary 2.0 self-paced tutorial.  The tutorial uses a constructivist approach to Web 2.0.  Participants visit sites, explore them, then reflect on how those tools might be used in their teaching and learning.

I’m rerunning this tutorial for the staff in my building, and I hope you’ll join us! We are a small building, so your perspectives mean a lot to us.  You can participate as an individual, or you can organize a group and use this for staff development in your district.  Check with your district and see if you can coordinate your staff’s participation so that they can earn PD credit in your district.  You monitor their progress and follow your district’ s reporting procedures, but the work is already done!  No handouts to make, no computer lab to supervise!

It is really fun to watch staff colleagues explore on their own and then chat with me or with each other.  I often learn that they see different uses or work patterns than I do, so even if it’s a tool I know, I gain a new perspective.

We’re rerunning this tutorial from now until the end of August.  (A third round will begin in September as we kick off SLMAM’s 25th anniversary year!)

To learn more, read over the information at http://exploringelementary2.edublogs.org and then email me at slmamblog@gmail.com to let me know that you’d like to participate.

Hope to hear from you!

Kristin

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That was something I used to hear pretty often when I taught writing several years ago during free-writing time.   I collected images on index cards, and if kids were stumped, they could choose a card and describe what they saw, imagine they were there, imagine their story was set there, etc.

Here’s a cooler digital idea … Getty Images has introduced MoodStream, which plays a random collection of images, videos, and music to stimulate brainstorming and new ideas.  Need a new mood? Adjust the site’s palette of sliders.

When I took MoodStream for a spin, I found lots of images of summertime - children at the lake, a vintage shot of a couple in a canoe, a Technicolor image of a poolbasker, vintage video of what looked like Miami Beach — plus a field of flowers, a sixties Christmas shot, and more.

The perfect way to spend my first day of vacation … playing around with ideas.

(Found via Ewan McIntosh’s blog)

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