Developing Media Literacy

By the time I graduated from high school in 1992, I had handed in many term papers that I had typed on my fancy electric typewriter with citations to a number of library books.  I headed off to college where every student received a brand, spanking new Apple Macintosh Classic II:

Photo courtesy of AntiqueXmas, https://i.etsystatic.com/13928464/r/il/4167ae/2516607797/il_1588xN.2516607797_24wz.jpg

It was portable!  It had a word processor! And a printer!

My senior year of college, I was having some difficulty finding additional texts for my philosophy independent study on democracy and education, so I visited my advisor.  After we discussed the resources I had reviewed and what I was looking for, he queried, “Have you considered looking on the internet?”  I had not.

Shifting with the Standards - A Look at AASL & ISTE Standards in a COVID World

If we did not already know it was true before COVID, we definitely know it to be true now that we live in a world where information gleaned from the digital, electronic, technological, and online sphere is more important than ever.  Throughout my library studies, I have read a fair bit of lamentation from those who care about books and libraries that the digital world and its content may displace the primacy of printed books.  As Gorman (2015) notes in his preface to the updated Our Enduring Values, the profession of librarianship has “been rocked, socked, shaken, and stirred by all these societal, economic, and technological changes” (p. xii). 

Certainly, as I move forward with my library studies and library work in these COVID times, I have spent a good bit of time thinking about what it means to be a librarian without a library.  Of course, I have a library (and it is brand spanking new and gorgeous and filled with an updated, curated selection of books that I think my students will love), but my students are home learning from my immensely patient and innovative teacher colleagues via Zoom and Google classroom, and they are not visiting my library. 

Thankfully, Dr. Jenna Spiering, in her 2019 article looking at the updated standards from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) reminds me that “’adolescent literacies’ refers to a shift from recognizing literacy as reading and writing school-sanctioned texts toward an acknowledgment of the myriad ways that young people make sense of text, images, and other media in many different contexts in their everyday and (often) online lives” (p. 46).  It is not so much that the print and digital worlds are in competition but that, increasingly, they are being used in combination.  They are, in a very real sense for our students, merging, and effective school librarians therefore need not only a baseline understanding of the current AASL standards that Spiering (2019) helpfully explicates but also a firm grounding in the standards related to using technology in learning, like those offered by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). 

COVID certainly brings home the importance of librarians keeping things relevant through the use of new technologies.  (I will not say “through technology” because, really, aren’t books a form of technology, just not a particularly new form?)  If students cannot access the print books in our collections (either fully or at all), how do we make sure that they nonetheless access information and “evaluate … [it] for accuracy, purpose, bias, etc.” (Spiering, 2019, p. 47)?  How do we shift from building collections to creating connections (Cromartie & Burns, 2019, p. 81)?

The AASL’s National School Library Standards crosswalkwith ISTE Standards for Students and Educators (2018) helps with navigating the shift that Spiering (2019) references, especially during the current global pandemic.  This helpful chart matches up the AASL’s six shared foundations (inquire, include, collaborate, curate, explore, and engage) with ISTE’s standards across the four AASL domains (think, create, share, and grow) (AASL, 2018). 

Two crossovers stand out to me as examples of how we navigate the shift (Spiering, 2019) in a world where COVID pushes us firmly into the digital context.  We can implement the AASL standards that apply to us as librarians, traditionally in a brick-and-mortar context, through adherence to the ISTE standards in a digital context as well.

1.       Under the shared foundation “Inquire,” the AASL standards for school librarians call for librarians to “design systems that promote flexible and collaborative teaching and learning” (American Library Association, 2018).  The ISTE Standards for Educators call for educators to “foster culture where students take ownership of their learning goals and outcomes in both independent and group settings” (n.d., para. 6a) and to “provide alternative ways for students to demonstrate competency and reflect on their learning using technology” (n.d., para. 7a).  Librarians, as educators, can play an important role simply by making sure that our students have access to the resources they need for successful inquiry.  In an online learning setting, this could include setting up a bitmoji classroom with links to key resources, creating an online request form for students to seek help with finding learning-supportive materials, assisting with efforts to distribute computers or tablets to students, or doing curbside pick-up of requested physical books, if your school and district permit.

2.     Learning online is hard.  No lie.  Even for students we all too often view as “digital natives,” learning online is not the same as learning in a brick and mortar classroom with a physically present teacher!  The Include shared foundation encourages librarians to help students develop an awareness of a global online learning community and to develop and exhibit empathy and tolerance within that community (AASL, 2018).  ISTE standards connect in with a reminder that we can use technology to “build networks and customize their learning environments … use digital tools to connect with learners …” and to “make positive, socially responsible contributions and exhibit empathetic behavior online that build relationships and community” (AASL, 2018).  As librarians, we can prepare digital citizenship lessons that can be shared with students online via school YouTube channels or Google Classrooms.  We can host meet-ups online for our students via Zoom, Google Meet, or WhatsApp so that students can connect and develop and maintain relationships within the school community.

I offer these two examples as food for thought.  The AASL standards and ISTE standards provide many more opportunities for addressing our students’ needs to develop as learners and for navigating the shift from pure textual literacy to a multiplicity of literacies across a variety of texts – traditional print, digital, visual, and more.  I welcome your contributions to this effort!

 

 

References

American Association of School Librarians. (2018). National School Library Standards crosswalk with ISTE Standards for Students and Educators [PDF]. AASL.org. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/180828-aasl-standards-crosswalk-iste.pdf

American Library Association. (2018).  Shared foundations: Inquire [Infographic].  AASL.org. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SharedFoundations_Inquire_2017.pdf

Gorman, M. (2015). Our enduring values revisited: Librarianship in an ever-changing world. ALA Editions.

International Society for Technology in Education. (n.d.). ISTE standards for educators. ISTE.org. https://www.iste.org/standards/for-educators

Spiering, J. (2019). Engaging adolescent literacies with the standards. Knowledge Quest, 47(5), 44-49.

I'm back...

I’m back!  So many changes over the past two years that I hardly know where to begin! 

You may note that my tagline has a new addition – librarian-in-training.  After almost twenty years of practicing law, I decided to go where my passions led me.  My time-line went something like this:

August 2018 – A confluence of chances led to my taking a part-time job in my daughter’s middle school library, job sharing with two other full-time moms with whom I have volunteered in the elementary library almost a decade.  We decided to put those skills learned as elementary school library volunteers to good use and take over a middle school library program that has been, to put it nicely, underwhelming students and teachers for years!

August 2019 – After a whole lot of conversations with my law partner husband about how we’d make it work on top of still practicing law, working in the library, and, oh yeah, having two kids and a husband, I started working toward my MLIS degree at the University of South Carolina.  The program is 100% online, which is great, because…

March 2020 – Well, you know what March brought!  COVID… shelter-in-place… masks… social distancing… digital learning… remote working.  It’s a new world – one that is simultaneously scary (especially for the elderly and the immune-compromised, which includes some Very. Important. People. in our family) and filled with opportunity.  I’m focusing on the opportunity. 

·        Do I love being home with my kids? Yes, I do! 

·        Are we learning all kinds of things about how computers, cellphones, social media, online ordering, Zoom, and just technology in general can make life, well, better if not great?  Yes, we are!  

·        Are we making the most of every small moment we get to spend masked up, outdoors, and socially distanced with family and a few close friends?  Absolutely!

April 2020 – Packing up and moving an ENTIRE MIDDLE SCHOOL LIBRARY!  Safely!  In the middle of a pandemic!

Summer 2020 – No travel…  (wah-wah…) No camps… (boooooo…) But wait, I’m focusing on the opportunity!  Lots of family time, puzzles, reading, long walks in the neighborhood, Amazon boxes on the porch, maybe-we-can-do-delivery-from-our-favorite-places-again, and online classes!  So. Many. Classes.  (Seriously.  I took four classes during the summer.  Exhausting AND fun!)

August 2020 – Unpacking and setting up an ENTIRE MIDDLE SCHOOL LIBRARY!  Safely!  In the middle of a pandemic!

So… here I am.  Embracing my studies and my new work (as well as my old work… maybe more about that later), learning remotely with my 5^th grader and 9^th grader alongside (because school has started back for all of us), running a school library remotely in the middle of a pandemic, focusing on the OPPORTUNITY. 

I’ll be trying to post here a little more regularly, reflecting on what I’m learning and where I’m heading.  I look forward to putting my mind-fluff out there again and hearing from whomever takes the time to read!

Lies We Tell Ourselves

I know I am going out on a limb speaking on racial issues, and I’m probably going to say something wrong, but I'm going to speak what I think is truth anyway.  Particularly in light of the current political climate, I have been trying to educate myself more on racial issues, to confront this idea that, as Ta’Nehisi Coates would say, I think I am white, to acknowledge my white privilege, and to deal with my own subtle prejudices.  So, please forgive me if I step on toes while I try to work this out in words and force myself to take a good look at myself and the world I live in and, in doing so, make myself a true advocate for racial justice.

I have a favor to ask all my friends who, like me, think we are white: please stop sharing the story of that cute little boy who got his hair cut. On its face, this is a sweet story: boy cuts his hair to look like his best friend's hair and is gleeful that on Monday the teacher won't be able to tell them apart because of their identical haircut. Only here is the twist for us adults: he is white and his friend is black! There is a lesson to learn here! Clearly kids don't see color like we do!  There is hope for the world!

This is an example of one of the lies that we who think we are white like to tell ourselves. We, “enlightened” white people, like to tell ourselves that we can raise children who Don't. See. Color. Racism is thereby eradicated!  Pat yourself on the back because your child is colorblind!  But the story is sweet because we adults know it isn't true. Kids are naive. That kid with his new haircut is going to school, and his teacher will easily tell him and his friend apart because one appears white and the other appears black.  (And do you think this story would get nearly as much airplay if the races were reversed in the story?) 

As I understand it, the Japanese language does not have separate words for blue and green. Leaves, grass, the sky – all the same color.  (I assume they are shades of the same color, but I have no idea, not being or speaking Japanese.)  But we, who speak English, do have separate words, and, as a result, we can't “unsee” leaves and the sky as being different colors  - green and blue.  Similarly with race, maybe there was a time in ancient pre-history when people didn’t have separate words for black and white (though I bet we did or at least for other differences among humans) but even so, we do now, and, culturally, we cannot “unsee” that difference.

While we get an opportunity to pat ourselves on the back when we share this story and congratulate ourselves for being good white people who raise good white children, what we lose is the opportunity for real discussion about race and difference and marginalization and equality. Because the fact is that we all SEE color and notice race (and lots of other differences but let's focus on race here since it is at the heart of the story). And what we want are not necessarily clueless children who “just don't see color” but children who see it but don’t make JUDGMENTS about it, who don’t make ASSUMPTIONS based upon it, who even appreciate and understand that their friends may be treated differently BECAUSE of it.

There was a time when I comfortably thought that I didn’t view my black friends as “black,” just as my friends (who maybe happened to be black).  But when I started examining my white privilege and the subtle stereotypes and prejudices I had absorbed in my Southern upbringing, I realized that that was BS and not only untrue but unfair to my friends because that view ignores and diminishes their experiences that have arisen out of being viewed as black.  These are experiences that make us different (that maybe make us seek out friendship with each other because of appreciation of our differences, sure), but they are experiences that simply are not the same, even if we live in the same place at the same time and do the same things.  True friendship doesn’t allow us to ignore our differences and focus on liking each other on some shallow level.  It forces us to acknowledge our differences and learn from them and TALK ABOUT THEM and come up with ways together to keep them from having us or our children lead drastically different lives with drastically different opportunities and risks because of those differences. 

We who identify as white and benefit from the privileges that accrue to that status cannot hope to raise colorblind children because that denies the world in which we live. If we want to do right by our fellow humans, we must hope to raise children who see color and all that it means in this world and try to see beyond it to a real person with a real background and experiences and who will strive to make sure those differences don't mean different treatment.  It’s great to have children who think that it is totally cool to have a haircut (or a shirt or a common interest) with a friend of a different background, but it really isn’t ok to have children who don’t see and understand the differences.  Because the reality is that children who are viewed as black have different experiences than children who are viewed as white – even if they have the same haircuts - and we do a disservice to ALL of our children when we encourage them not to see those differences.  We do a disservice to ourselves and to our black friends when we lie to ourselves that colorblindness is possible or, more importantly, desirable.

The Allowance

Allowance.  How much, for what, when?  This topic regularly comes up with parents.  There are a variety of approaches to allowances, and every family will have to decide what fits with their values, parenting style, and child’s (or children’s) personalities. 

When our daughter was going into first grade, we gave this issue a lot of thought.  I read a couple of articles and books, including the fantastic Kids, Money, & Values by Patricia Schiff Estess, which I recommend finding at your local library.  Here is where my husband and I finally shook out:

1. We decided that, in our household, an allowance would be purely a money management training tool.  It is not a carrot or a stick.  We do not require that our child (currently only our daughter gets an allowance, though our son’s time is coming, in about a year) do household chores to earn her allowance.  Nor do we withhold allowance as a punishment.  Why?  Ultimately, our view is that no one pays us to do the little chores that keep the house running.  Cleaning up after yourself, gathering trash, doing laundry, unloading and reloading the dishwasher, etc. – these are all just the price of admission for living in our home.  No one is going to get paid to do these things.  Not us.  Not the kids.  And if we give ourselves permission to remove the allowance as punishment then we’re depriving our child of the opportunity to do what we have established as the primary purpose of giving her an allowance:  learning to manage money.  She can’t manage what she doesn’t have.
   
2. That does not mean that the allowance does not come with strings.  Our daughter is now expected to make the vast majority of her discretionary purchases.  She knows that if we are on vacation and she just has to have that adorable stuffed cat to add to her collection of a million and one stuffed animals then her Daddy and I will ask, “Did you bring your money?”  We may buy her brother the stuffed cat HE wants, but he’s still living on Mama & Daddy’s discretionary dime.  If our daughter wants something non-necessary, she has to budget for it.  No money = no purchase.  Why?  We want her to distinguish between what she needs and what she wants.  Food, basic clothing, shelter, basic school supplies – those are things we provide because she needs them.  The one-hundredth stuffed cat?  That’s something she wants.
   
3. That also doesn’t mean that we would never pay our kids to do chores.  Why?  Well, we pay someone to mow the lawn and wash the car, for example.  If one of our kids shows an interest in something that we already pay another person to do – well, we’d strongly consider just paying our child to do it.  We didn’t have kids to gain free labor, so it seems fair to pay them to do something we’d be paying someone else to do.
   
   
4. Barring a truly exceptional circumstance, which has occurred only once, we don’t advance allowance.  Why?  There’s really no money management goal behind this one.  It’s simply because we don’t want to have to remember from week to week that we’ve already forked over the allowance she thinks is due. 
   
5. That said, we will occasionally loan money if she hasn’t brought her purse.  Why?  Well, her Daddy and I have credit cards.  We do this all the time.  Understanding credit is part of managing money.  She pays us back as soon as we walk into the house.  No long-term memory required.  And we don’t change interest… yet.
   
   
6. We do have her allocate her money among three permanent categories and one temporary category, but we do not dictate HOW she allocates her money.  Why?  Again, this is a money management tool.  We think the best way to learn is by trial and error.  She won’t learn if we don’t give her some freedom to make mistakes with her allocations when it really doesn’t matter (or to feel really good when she thinks things have worked out perfectly).  The three permanent categories are spending, savings, and donation.  Typically, she puts her weekly allowance in a special jar, where she may also stick any change she finds or any money she gets as a gift from a friend or relative, then every few weeks she pulls out the money and divvies it up among her wallet and a couple of specially labeled Mason jars.  The temporary category was her idea:  Christmas savings.  Turns out the kid has a generous spirit and LOVES buying her gifts to give family at Christmas.  She’s pretty good at it, too.
   
   
7. HOWEVER, remember the title of that book?  We also want to impart some VALUES with our money management training, so we match savings and donation but not spending.  Why?  Matching indicates the relative importance we put on saving for the future and supporting charitable causes.  She decides how much to save (but boy does she love to double it, and she is VERY proud of her bank balance) and how much to donate as well as to which charity.  We make the match.
   
   
8. Finally, we have no set schedule for increasing the allowance amount.  Our daughter was going into first grade when we started this training experiment, and she is now going into fourth grade.  She still gets $5 a week.  She hasn’t asked for a raise, and, for the time being, the amount seems to meet her limited discretionary needs.  If she asks for a raise and is willing to explain why she thinks she needs it or if her Daddy and I just decide independently that her circumstances warrant it absent a request from her, we’ll do an increase.  (And I am expecting a request in a year, when her brother starts getting an allowance.  Why?  Because she’s older and will think she deserves more.)

This system has worked for us.  Our daughter understands that money isn’t unlimited, that it is rewarding to see your bank balance grow and to know you have savings, that supporting a worthy charity makes you feel good about spending your money, and that spending on yourself often pales in comparison to buying something that puts a smile on the face of someone you love.  And as she gets older and starts actually earning her own money, we’ll add additional money management training tools like a checking account and credit card.

I’d love to read comments  from others about the system you use, why, and how it works for you.

Confessions and lessons

I am still trying to get my head around the playground incident today.  I’m still trying to determine whether I did right or wrong by keeping my mouth shut.

Confessions:

#1:  My son is a pretty rambunctious four-year-old.  He can be rough and tumble and swear he has an almost unlimited supply of energy.  (As my sister describes it, he is either completely off or completely on.)  I don't make excuses.  He's tough.  We are constantly working on paying attention, considering others, slowing down, etc., etc., etc.  He is also a pretty introverted kid.  While he loves his friends (hugs and kisses for everyone!) and enjoys playing with them, he is equally likely to announce that he “just wants to play by himself.”  We are constantly working on boundaries.  Yes, you can play by yourself.  No, you can’t shove the other kid away.  Yes, you can say, “I don’t want to play right now.”  No, you can’t growl or roar at the other kid.

#2: I’m a pretty laid back parent.  I don’t follow my kids around the playground.  I may read or chat with another similarly-minded parent while the kids are playing.  I keep an eye out and have an idea where they are, but I don’t hover, direct their play, or interfere unless I see them doing something harmful or dangerous or mean to another child.

#3: I expect other parents to discipline my kids, not to the exclusion of me doing it, mind you, but when they see something I don’t, they should feel free to immediately chasten or command or send them to me.  If I see another child doing something harmful or dangerous or mean, you better bet your boots I tell them to stop, and I expect other parents to do the same to my kids.  I’m not the type of parent who will yell at you for disciplining my child for something I don’t witness.  I’ll thank you.  Honestly, it took me several years as a parent to realize that there even WERE other parents who didn’t operate this way.

So, I wasn’t sure how to handle the mom today who came over and very sharply told me I needed to supervise my child.  Apparently, he wanted to have the small play structure to himself and was expressing that wish by pushing other kids off and pulling hair.  Not ok.  He was racing the mom coming to berate me; he knew he was in trouble.  I pulled him out of play for a time-out, and we discussed the rules for staying at the playground:  equipment has to be shared because it’s a park for everyone;  no pushing or pulling hair or mean behavior of any kind is acceptable.  “But I want to play alone” isn’t an excuse because there are other places to play alone.  After about five minutes on the bench, I set him free, and he ran off chastened but happy to go play by himself on the hill.  I wish that was the end of the story. 

As he got out of earshot, I could hear the other mom – standing maybe 20 feet from me – telling her child “Stay away from that boy.  He’s a bad kid.  He pushes and pulls hair.”   Not briefly but on and on and on and loudly.  I resisted the urge to say, “I can hear you” because I’m pretty sure that was the point.  She was clearly trying to send a message to me that I was a bad mom and my child was a bad kid.  I guess maybe I was supposed to scream at him or spank him or make him leave the park instead of quietly disciplining him and returning him to play, and I guess she thinks it’s ok for an adult to call a four-year-old child names and to teach her child that bad behavior makes someone a bad person, not someone having a bad moment.

The thing is, I have been in her shoes.  My kids have been on the receiving end of bad behavior from other kids.  But here’s the other thing, per confession #2 above, I tell my kids that they need to work it out or just go play elsewhere, that maybe that kid is having a bad day and they should just steer clear.  And per confession #3 above, if I see the behavior, I tell the other kid to stop.  I don’t go yell at the other parent.  Because maybe they are reading a book or having a chat or just taking a break from having a rambunctious four-year-old climbing on them.  I don’t mind.  And I certainly don't start telling my kids or anyone else that the offending kid is a bad kid.

And now I’m mad.  At myself.  Because I feel like I should have said something instead of saying nothing.  I loathe confrontation.  My son didn’t hear these hurtful comments, so I just sat and said nothing.  But I did hear them, and I feel like I didn’t stand up for my kid or myself.  And now I think, who’s to say that this other mom won’t feel free to share her judgments on other kids who make a bad behavior choice?   Why should she go around labeling kids as “the bad kid” and teaching her kids to do so as well? 

So, I will do what I do so well as the non-confrontational introvert that I am:  I will write about it and think about it and maybe get a little teary about it and then I will resolve to share what I have written about my experience.  Because maybe other parents will recognize themselves in this situation – maybe they see a little bit of me in themselves or maybe they see a little bit of the other mom in themselves – and maybe they’ll be a little braver and bolder about speaking up or a little kinder and less judgmental with a kid who was showing his ass like mine was.

Don't Dis the Playdate

I read this blog as a result of a friend’s Facebook share:  http://www.dadncharge.com/2014/07/banish-playdate.html?m=1.  It got me thinking.  I had several responses pop into my head, a number of them pretty snarky, so I’ll try to clean them up here, both in terms of organization and niceties.

1.  When children are very small, playdates are about the parents, not about the children.  And that’s ok.  Let’s face it, three-month-olds don’t use the phone and they don’t ride bikes.  They don’t care if there are other babies nearby, much less if said babies want to play.  The fact is that parents of little children often need an outlet.  Some need adult conversation because they are at home all day with little people who babble nonsense words.  Some work full- or part-time and appreciate the opportunity to talk to other people who are in the same situation, people who actually WANT to hear about their precious bambino blowing spit bubbles when she smiles or having diaper issues or getting gas after eating squash.  Or whatever.  The point is, it’s not about the kids.  And the adults who it IS about need that time together.  For whatever reason. 

2.  Even though those kids are very small and it is all about the parents, those early playdates can lead to the creation of lifelong friendships.  My best friend for my whole life is Rachael.  We grew up next door to each other.  But we became friends because our similarly situated mothers (who are just night and day in personalities) liked each other and hung out.  Sure, later, we had access to phones and bikes, but, initially, we were friends because our moms were.  And forty years later (man, that makes me a little teary), we are STILL friends.  Similarly, when you ask my kids who their friends are, the ones that top the list consistently are the ones they have known forever.  Because I set up playdates before they were old enough to pick up a phone or ride a bike.  (Yes, they have what I call “friends of the moment” – friends from their class or from camp or from meeting at the park – and sometimes those friends  become long-term friends.)

3.  Frankly, I think this dad is waxing all nostalgic for a time that didn’t exist for many of us.  Maybe he grew up with the ideal suburban childhood with friends around every cul-de-sac or corner.  But not every parent had that childhood.  I certainly don’t have much nostalgia for spontaneous play with all my friends.  Remember Rachael?  Yeah, she was also my ONLY friend who lived near enough to do spontaneous play.  I grew up in the sticks.  If I wanted to see any of my other friends, guess what?  I had to pester my mom to call their mom to set up a time.  Because even though we could use phones and bikes, we couldn’t DRIVE.  Because they lived miles and miles away.  Down state highways (one fondly referred to as “Death Road”).

So, sure, let your kids have spontaneous play as much as they can.  I love it when my kids have pick-up play with neighbors, and I regularly point to the front or back yard and send them on their way to engage in hours of self-entertainment (or really, since there are two of them, in hours of mutual entertainment).  But don’t dis the playdate.