As the famous Howard Gardner attests, we all have different areas of strength and different interests or “multiple intelligences”. Yesterday I gave a bunch of Washington Post newspapers to my students, they proceeded to DEVOUR it! One student was working away furiously on the soduku puzzle, two boys were reading the comics, two others were reading about the Washington Redskins, one girl was reading about the Emmy nominations in the Style section, you get the idea (one boy actually wanted to check stocks!). I had the students use their smart phones to download the Washington Post App and showed them a cute commercial promoting the Post’s app for the iPad.

When I circulated around the classroom not only were the students reading the paper version of the Post, but those who had apps were actually reading articles on their smart phones. The students that had iPads were interested in downloading the Post app and asked if they could bring the iPads in with the app on it. The newspaper whetted their appetite for world news, graphic stories (comics), puzzles, and other articles that they found interesting. Whatever the students were interested in, they read about, and as we know, the more a person reads, the better writer they become, test scores are higher and in general, we become more interesting , knowledgeable people.

I thought this commercial was really cute!

I was stunned after I finished reading this book and had to reflect on the contents of it for a few minutes. It’s been decades since a book has had such an effect on me. This work will make activists and advocates out of all of us; a beautiful story about a quadriplegic who has to try to make it in school with the “normal kids” and how with the right aide and assistive technology, she shows the world who she is!

Congratulations Sharon Draper on a beautiful work!

http://digitalstorytelling.coe.uh.edu/intro/DS-intro.htm

Something I will be doing with my students is digital storytelling. Below is an example of a digital story I created using Animoto.com:

http://static.animoto.com/swf/w.swf?w=swf/vp1&e=1315869373&f=fkQpgCqOc8Bt12QSpwvheg&d=184&m=a&r=360p&volume=100&start_res=360p&i=m&options=

Take a look at the following article from the New York Times.  I think this article gives tremendous insight into what we should really be praising our children for!

Scroll down to Hans Rosling’s video on global health and wealth, do you think the advent of the internet and the subsequent proliferation of mass information even to those without computers had something to do with literacy, and as a result, better health and wealth?  Consider the definition of literacy below:

Literacy is the ability to identify, understand, interpret,

create, communicate and compute, using printed and

written materials associated with varying contexts.

Literacy involves a continuum of learning in enabling

individuals to achieve his or her goals, develop his or

her knowledge and potential and participate fully in

community and wider society’ (UNESCO 2005: 21).

As the UNESCO report states, this nor any other definition of literacy is permanent.  Literacy is dynamic and ongoing, and thus the definition of literacy changes as our world and the cultures within it changes.

What has happened in the world?  Not just after the industrial revolution but after World War II….we have become an ever increasing global society and with that comes a responsibility to contribute to those communities, nations and cultures that may not be where we are in terms of education and literacy. Consider what google is doing in conjunction with UNESCO:  http://www.google.com/literacy/  (Unfortunately, I couldn’t add an image from this site , but it’s a great resource for teachers or anyone interested in literacy)

Post your thoughts..I’de love to hear what you think!

Guernica, by Pablo Picasso

What Sir Ken Robinson is saying is that schools are placing importance on “x + y = z”, anything else doesn’t count.  After I failed Algebra in high school, I felt like a failure, it seemed that my poetry awards, musical talent and imagination didn’t matter.  I don’t consider myself a librarian; while I certainly purchase and promote award winning books, appropriate non-fiction to support the upcoming school science fair, etc., what I pride myself on is getting to know my students, what their likes and dislikes are and to point them in the right direction to something they may enjoy. To be a true educator is to be a teacher and promoter of the arts.  As Sir Ken Robinson has said in previous videos, lectures, and books, schools are educating their students out of creativity.

What I tell my students as young as kindergarten is that each and every book in the library is someone’s idea.  Do they have ideas?  Can they write? You bet they can.  If they can draw a picture, they can tell a story, if they can act something out, they can tell a story and everyone LOVES a good story don’t they?   When Picasso made his infamous painting “Guernica” he was telling a tragic story that took place during World War II.  When Beethoven wrote his 9th Symphony, he was telling a story.  Life is a story and the library is where a reader or anyone with an inquisitive mind can find some of the best stories ever;  but is an even better one yet to be written?

To teach a child it must come from the heart….when a teacher or librarian shows genuine love for their students and subsequently uses words that also come from the heart, it’s no wonder that when these elements come together we have not only taught a lesson, we have touched a soul..and isn’t that our purpose?

With credit to Ken Burns and PBS for the extraordinary documentary “The Civil War”.  Perfection.

After Sir Ken Robinson stops giggling, he will tell you why my battle is a hard one but one I gladly embrace…

First we must teach our children the words themselves, THEN…..over the years, we as librarians, teachers, parents must facilitate the child’s use of that word for dialogic purposes…not just “blah, blah, blah”.   We are obligated to allow the child to discover the true power of the word and to use it in such a way that they cannot be oppressed by even such a thing as a simple advertisement.  Take a look at one of my favorite scenes from the movie “Monthy Python and the Holy Grail”…

This is exactly what the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire had in mind when he observed his fellow citizens not fighting back against a system of government that oppressed them because they could not express themselves.  They did not know how to read so that became his first goal, to eliminate illiterates from the lower classes..he developed a system of teaching adults to read that only took a few months and the Brazilian government was threatened by this.  At the time, if you couldn’t read, you were not allowed to vote.

This may be an extreme example of how the printed word, both read and spoken benefits the world as a whole but if we as citizens of the free world don’t continue the emphasis on the printed word and how it does way more than just tell a story then we too may fall into the same trap.  The library has been and will always be a center for the expression of the word itself, a place for people to come and think and then all things are possible!

For more on Paulo Freire go to –  http://www.freire.org/

A friend of mine posted this video which explains in four minutes what has happened to 200 countries over 200 years.  Using digital graphic organizers and narration similar to that of a sports commentator, Hans Rosling explains how health and wealth have increased in the world and disparities among countries made smaller as a result of the industrial revolution, geography and democracy.  This is how our children learn in today’s world; what does a library have to do with this? Librarians as well as teachers in general are “information concierges”, guides or “Sherpas” (if you will).  As the student finds information on their own and reflects on it in the form of blogs, or other means of social media, long term retention, assimilation, synthesis and creativity are fostered.  This is amazing because students today learn to solve issues more easily and faster than ever before all while collaborating with other people around the world.  The library is the place where the printed word and digital research come together, the past AND the present, and there is a place for both!  Enjoy!