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.}

We are getting a new student teacher in the fall, and she spent a good chunk of Friday with our classes.  I have a great feeling about her joining our community.   Anyone who will say, “Have you asked someone else before asking me?” or broker a discussion about whether or not Gundam was too violent for an elementary school collection is off to a terrific start.  

Somehow — and I don’t remember how — in her Q&A with students, the question came up of where kids’ parents worked, and when we asked how many had parents at General Motors, six hands went up.

Tomorrow, says CNN, President Obama will announce GM’s bankruptcy.  I can only imagine the anxiety parents are trying to hide from their children … and that their children are feeling anyway.

The New York Times is reporting some scary stuff about students’ expectations for high college grades just for showing up or doing the reading.  Others are equating effort with the reward of a high grade. 

A recent study by researchers at the University of California, Irvine, found that a third of students surveyed said that they expected B’s just for attending lectures, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the required reading …

James Hogge, associate dean of the Peabody School of Education at Vanderbilt University, said: “Students often confuse the level of effort with the quality of work. There is a mentality in students that ‘if I work hard, I deserve a high grade.’ 

In line with Dean Hogge’s observation are [the survey's] test results. Nearly two-thirds of the students surveyed said that if they explained to a professor that they were trying hard, that should be taken into account in their grade.

Jason Greenwood, a senior kinesiology major at the University of Maryland echoed that view.

“I think putting in a lot of effort should merit a high grade,” Mr. Greenwood said. “What else is there really than the effort that you put in?”

“If you put in all the effort you have and get a C, what is the point?” he added. 

[Brower] said that if students developed a genuine interest in their field, grades would take a back seat, and holistic and intrinsically motivated learning could take place.

“College students want to be part of a different and better world, but they don’t know how,” he said. “Unless teachers are very intentional with our goals, we play into the system in place.”

THIS IS WHY WE IN LIBRARY LAND TALK ABOUT STUDENTS NEEDING TO LEARN TO ASSESS BOTH THE PROCESS AND THE PRODUCT.  See how this student confuses the two? The student equates effort (process) with the summative assessment (product).  The students wants credit for the effort (process), even if — maybe especially if — the product misses the mark.  Is this a realistic life skill? That “trying” is enough? After all, if the new stimulus package fails, will anyone give credit to politicians for “trying hard”?

These ideas are jostling around with Carol Dweck’s video interview I blogged about a few posts ago.  How we help students deal with the reality of a product-oriented society while also investing in the process, when society judges only the product? It’s a big question … one I can’t answer right off …

Image: AASL Standards + Photofunia’s image generator