Check out this cool project on the Australian teacher-librarian blog Hey Jude — a forensic science project kicked off by — gasp! — a murder in the library!!
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.}
The New York Times reports that O’Connor is working with a team to create a Web-based video game to promote civics education:
Speaking Wednesday afternoon at the annual Games for Change conference held at the New School in New York, Justice O’Connor described the game that will be offered free next year on the Internet. It is one of the main efforts of the Our Courts Project that Justice O’Connor started in conjunction with Arizona State University and the Georgetown Law School. The game is being developed with James Gee, a professor at University of Wisconsin who studies the educational effect of video games.
The first episode of the game will revolve around “a T-shirt with a logo on it that high school students are passing around and want to wear,” Justice O’Connor said. “That will involve some kind of issue that involves a First Amendment question.” (more…)
