Guest post written by: - Meg Boisseau Allison (she/her), U-32 Middle & High School, Montpelier, VT (@meg_allison) - Peter Langella (he/him), Champlain Valley Union High School, Hinesburg, VT (@PeterLangella) We believe, at its core, that a library should be centered around providing equitable access to information and the wealth of knowledge within. Not only do we ensure that our physical buildings allow for differently abled people to access our spaces, but we believe obstacles are also invisible and must be interrogated, including our policies, practices, and programming, as well as the implicit biases and/or privileges embodied within those working in the library from directors to instructional designers, library assistants, and volunteers. We believe, at its core, that the art of librarianship is centered on building relationships that enlarge our students, our communities, and our own capacities for empathy. We do this through stories and books that, as Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop explores, become “windows, mirrors, and sliding doors” for our readers, and as Uma Krishnaswami posits, prisms. Librarians know this intuitively, and it is confirmed by brain research: stories build neural pathways that make us kinder (and smarter!). No one says it better than author and current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Jason Reyonds, “You read my books, you know my life, you know my secrets. We are connected.” In addition, we build relationships by creating bridges toward understanding by cultivating spaces for dialogue and for questions. We do this by creating safe spaces - we think of them as pockets - for our students, but especially those who are marginalized, traumatized, or struggle with belonging within the larger community, to find a nest within our shelves, sometimes literally. One of Meg’s students recently offered this perspective: During middle school I hid behind shelves. It was a bit difficult to do; the shelves at the U-32 library are too short to do anything more than kneel without your head peeking above the top. These shelves weren’t made to hide anything; the open spread of the tables and the wide windows make it impossible to hide; the bright lights make it so we can see each other and everyone else walking around in the library. Libraries allow all of us to be seen. In book groups and conversations by the shelves, we share our minds with each other, see each other in a new way. Libraries create a temporary world in which we can rediscover ourselves and each other. Above all, we believe that if we are guided by our values - empathy and equity specifically - then every decision made in our libraries and in our practices can be seen, created, and evaluated through these lenses. When we are looking at the world from this self-actualized place, we are operating through a lens of compassionate action, modeled on the Intercultural Development Continuum. Compassionate action takes our capacity for empathy and our commitment to equity to the next level by holding us accountable for walking the talk, in big and small ways. As librarians engaged in activism and fostering student voice for many years, it wasn’t until recently that we both came to understand that addressing systemic and structural inequities turns our empathy - and that of our students - into positive change. Oftentimes, empathy is the end goal, and while a necessary ingredient in this work, it’s not enough. It doesn’t disrupt the status quo, though it might change mindsets. It doesn’t shift the balance of power, though it may celebrate diversity. It doesn’t disrupt unjust structures, though it may lead to changes of heart. In short, it means that we just don’t feel bad when we see an injustice or hear a racial slur, we step up and do something about it. Better yet, it means providing training for students and colleagues with resources such as Teaching Tolerance’s Speak Up At School to become “change agents in their own lives.” Compassionate action ripples outward; it cannot nor should it be contained. It means that we just don’t theorize about changes that could or couldn’t happen in our structures and systems, but we build partnerships to do the heavy lifting of changing policies and practices that impact how our schools operate and how students do or do not thrive within them. We can’t think of a better, more meaningful, more relevant, or more impactful way to empower our students and provide learning opportunities to their liberation from harmful and unjust systems than working side-by-side with them in compassionate action. We are incredibly fortunate to work in a place, small but mighty Vermont, where the network of teacher-librarians is strong and inspiring. We are reminded daily that we have co-conspirators in compassionate action around the state, with many committed teacher-librarians planting seeds to grow more liberatory and just schools for their students, with the library at the heart of many of these changes. At Montpelier High School in Vermont, the first public school in the nation to raise the Black Lives Matter Flag, teacher-librarian Sue Monmaney does a number of things to make her library welcoming for all her students with an eye toward inclusion and acceptance. She has stepped up in leadership roles as a co-advisor for the Gender & Sexuality Alliance and is a past co-advisor for their Racial Justice Alliance. Sue’s role as a co-advisor for each organization “has been to listen, provide support for events, and to be a safe person for [students] to come to when needed. I'm working on moving from my comfort zone of ally to being more of an advocate.” When teacher-librarians model this level of vulnerability and growth, we empower our students to do the same. When they see us step outside not just the walls of the library but our self-imposed comfort zones, they might just see that anything is possible, but most especially for themselves. . At the Charlotte Central School, Heidi Huestis has made it one of her year-long goals years to integrate equity and empathy-building through literature. One of the most dynamic collaborations of the year for Heidi and her students was their partnership with the Clemmons Family Farm and the Vermont Reads book March: Book 1 by John Lewis. Guest artists visited her middle school students and facilitated arts workshops based on social justice, including themes such as identity, diversity, courage, and how to help their peers in the face of injustice. When students make those emotional connections, those empathetic pathways, to characters in literature and then learn ways to turn those feelings into action, they truly become the changemakers our communities need, not in the future, but in the here and now. They become agents of compassionate action. Our indefatigable colleague, Jeanie Phllips, uses her experience as a librarian and her platform at the Tarrant Institute at the University of Vermont to create a monthly podcast called #vted reads. Her podcast elevates and amplifies essential reads for Vermont learners, whether it’s professional development, young adult literature, middle grade fiction, or graphic novels. Jeanie isn’t afraid to ask tough questions and is refreshingly candid in her interviews about her growth and evolution as a thinker and reader. In a recent interview with noted Native scholar Judy Dow, they not only discuss one of Judy’s favorite books, Joseph Bruhac’s Native Roots, they explore racial trauma and identity, guided by Jeanie’s insatiable quest to learn more, do better, and honor the lived experiences of those she is in conversation with and the characters they are in dialogue about, benefiting all of us to think better, feel more, and step up. (Disclaimer: Both Meg and Peter have had the honor of being on the #vtedreads podcast talking about some of their favorite books, Ibi Zoboi’s Pride and Ngozi Ukazu’s Check, Please!. What librarian doesn’t love to talk about books?) In closing, we are two imperfect teacher-librarians, cloaked in many privileges bestowed unto us by a society that privileges and rewards white, heteroseexual, cis-gendered, middle-class, educated, and able-bodied people. We did not start out in this work knowing how to ignite activism and compassion within ourselves as teacher-librarians, much less our students, but we were always good people with a sense of what was right and fair. As are many, many of the folx who go into librarianship and public education. We all do this work because we care. We came into the library field because as readers, books touched us at some intersection(s) in our lives and development. We have evolved in this work and continue to do so, and we are deeply committed to the work of sparking changes in our spheres of influence, though not in newly reworded slogans and one-off staff development workshops, but in deep and systematic ways that restructure the policies and practices that are unjust. We are also deeply curious about how other teacher-librarians are working to identify barriers for their learners and patrons, both visible and invisible, and how they are working to remove them. What greater act of compassionate action is that? We invite you to share your stories on Twitter using the hashtag #Libraries4Action. We’ll see you there. A sample of works and thinkers that have informed our educator-librarian-activist praxis:
Meg Allison, Val Brown from Teaching Tolerance, Peter Langella.
From Teaching Tolerances Social Justice 101 and Facilitating Difficult Conversation Workshops. Boston | August 2019 Comments are closed.
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AboutThe purpose of the ISTE Librarians Network is to promote librarians as leaders and champions of educational technology and digital literacy. The key mission is to provide a professional learning community where librarians can leverage technology knowledge and expertise to improve school library programs, increase access to information, and foster strong teaching and learning environments in a connected world. Archives
April 2020
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