March/April 2005
Stories of Value
Debbie Abilock, Editor
About a year ago I heard 88-year-old Jane Jacobs, known for having redefined 20th century urban planning, speak about her advocacy strategies for livable cities. She asserted that the most useful information she ever provided city planners was “the stories,” and she urged the audience to "tell the stories" because they have the power to persuade at a deep level.
In this themed issue “Student Voices,” Knowledge Quest features the words of students telling their stories about school libraries. In the Ohio study Ross Todd and Carol Kuhlthau used an open-ended question to gather evidence from students of how they benefitted from their school libraries. I think you’ll agree that the student testimony they provide puts a compelling human face on the study’s quantitative data. In other articles you will hear the voices of students of all ages describing heartfelt experiences in school libraries.
We all have stories, the most compelling of which originate with our students. I learned this one year when a group of core teachers in my school cut sustained silent reading (SSR) from the schedule in order to give themselves more “teaching time.” In the first weeks of school, when I polled students about what they felt they wanted to learn this year, my suggested options including “time to read what you want.” It was insidious, I admit, but I was electrified by students who were mourning their loss of free reading time coupled with their litany of after-school commitments, including sports teams, tutoring and homework. So, I simply instituted SSR at the beginning of each fixed-schedule middle school class that I taught.
A month later during the Q&A period at Back-to-School night, one parent challenged the unofficial SSR time arguing, that middle school students had “so many more important things they ought to be learning.” As I was mentally marshalling a response warning the parents and faculty about the decline in reading among middle school students, his son, an ardent science fiction reader who had been making good use of those SSR minutes, turned to his father in exasperation, “But, Dad, SSR is my favorite class!” The audience chuckled, there was a smattering of claps and giggles from students, and SSR remained. At the end of the school year when students were routinely surveyed by their advisors as to where they had felt they’d done their best learning, many students listed silent reading. We were a community of readers - that support made SSR a sacrosanct part of the schedule for years.
A charming story, yet the “backstory” to this issue is more interesting to me. While seeking submissions I put out a broad call to site-based librarians, librarian-authors, school library professors and other educators. Their responses startled me. I learned that a preponderance of our profession doesn’t ask their students for advice or feedback or help ---about their teaching, their programs, or even about the resources they provide. “I know what the kiddos think about library research,” said one librarian. “Evaluate me?” laughed another, “that’ll be the day!” “I barely cover the required material,” demurred a pre-service instructor.
Perhaps I just hit a group of naysayers – please write to tell me you are not one of the above! If our students are not invited to join the conversation - to have choices and to suggest changes - how do we know that they believe in the benefits of our programs and will support them in times of upheaval? I learned today that, in the nearby Bay Area town of San Mateo, the high school librarians are on the cutting block. Also during the same week, in a schizophrenic turn of events, the same town’s public library announced that a donor is covering a science center and a science librarian. At a special meeting of the San Mateo Union High School District, the student member of the Board argued:
“Librarians are not expendable personnel; they are an essential resource to students. With all due respect, we students will not receive the same quality of services that our librarians currently provide from library assistants. Ironically, in the absence of librarians, it is likely that many of our college-bound students would graduate lacking many of the research skills necessary to succeed at universities.”
A Stanford student, a graduate of one of the town’s high schools, spoke in support of retaining the high school librarians. He added that Stanford’s specialist librarians give him business cards so he knows they are there to support his research efforts.
I’m not advocating that you go out and make business cards. We know that, in a school library, a personal relationship and prompt help are more appropriate than the hype needed to link a name with a face at a large university. Yet, it stands to reason that we cannot sustain our positions if students aren’t sold on our value long before the funding discussions occur among their parents.
That begins by uncovering what our students value (and don’t) about our work with them and our programs. While an advocacy initiative can build student awareness of our program, their learning journey is what they will cherish. The powerful stories of which Jane Jacobs spoke emerge from experiences, not advertisements.
How can we create an arena from which compelling stories will emerge? In the unbalanced power relationship between us and our students, it is primarily up to us to develop a climate for honest feedback. When students like to learn because the work they are asked to do is scaffolded to be challenging but not threatening, when they can ask questions, suggest changes and make choices – in short, are respected as learners - and when they believe that their efforts have purpose and meaning beyond grades, students will trust us. Thus student feedback begins not with an end-of-year survey, but with our very first interchange.
A caveat. If you aren’t ready to become vulnerable, to ask important questions, hear honest responses and do something about the criticisms, don’t ask. Certainly, don’t ask “fake” questions. My son’s bedtime question to my grandson. “Would you like me to read Hondo and Fabian or Guji Guji before I turn out the light?” is appropriate for a two-year-old but would feel transparently manipulative to an older child. One high school librarian invites her students to select all the paper magazine subscriptions she orders: “We keep back issues at least two years, and circulate them all.” Another adds an invitation on every assignment to redesign it, as long as the student can show understanding of the skills or knowledge. A third SLMS brings real library problems to his students – everything from evaluating subscription databases for the following year (right down to their cost) to reworking the school’s Acceptable Use Policy in light of new technologies. Naturally schools have rules over which we may have no control. However, the gray area between what is or is not within our purview is strikingly different from school to school. As in the case of “fair use,” it may be that we unconsciously limit ourselves well beyond the actual laws or rules that are in place. And, after all, the making of such judgments is good practice for democracy as well as for school.
As trust builds you will gather passive information from listening and watching carefully. However, you will also want to develop active mechanisms for collecting feedback. One school librarian asks his students to answer anonymously on a file card at the end of class "What question(s) do you have?" or “How did that activity work for you?” a procedure which helps him gauge his effectiveness. Another mounts her homework on a blog, so that she can use student posts to help her plan the next class. A third appears in a surgical mask and gown at the end of every large project to invite her students to do a “post mortem.”
Decide first what you want to know and what you will do with the information. Fill your assignments with opportunities for feedback. Flood your library with invitations to comment. Fuel your teaching with questions and stories. Then your students will tell stories of self-efficacy and independence - compelling testimony about the value of school libraries.
Classroom Climate
Angelo, Thomas A., and K. Patricia Cross. Classroom Assessment Techniques : A Handbook for College Teachers (Jossey-Bass Higher and Adult Education Series). 2nd edn, San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1993.
Doll, Beth, Steven Zucker, and Katherine Brehm. Resilient Classrooms; Creating Healthy Learning Environments for Learning. New York: Guilford Press, 2004.
Egan, Kieran. Teaching as Story Telling; An Alternative Approach to Teaching and Curriculum in the Elementary School. University of Chicago Press, 1989.
Erwin, Jonathan C. The Classroom of Choice; Giving Students What they Need and Getting What you Want. Alexandria, VA: ASCD, 2004.
Koshewa, Allen. Discipline and Democracy; Teachers on Trial. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999.
Pressley, Michael, et. al. Motivating Primary-Grade Students. New York: Guilford Press, 2003.
Wolk, Steven. Being Good; Rethinking Classroom Management and Student Discipline. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2002.
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