Knowledge Quest on the Web:
May/June 2002
Special full-text reprint with embedded links of the "Homepage" column
exclusively on the KQWeb
Shifting Perspectives
Debbie Abilock, Editor
If humans had only one eye, artists would not need to create the illusion of depth in their paintings. In Visual Metaphors, Evelyn Hatcher identifies three major forms of perspective: geometrical, illusionary, and conceptual.1
In geometrical perspective, the closer objects appear at the bottom of the painting, while those farther away are seen above them on the canvas. In illusionary perspective, a road's parallel lines converge in the distance toward a vanishing point. Conceptual perspective manifests itself through symbolic representations: the most important person in a painting is indicated by larger body size and a more prominent position, or an object is viewable from many sides simultaneously, as in the analytical cubist paintings of Picasso or Braque. From the disparate signals received from my two eyes set slightly apart, my brain constructs an image with visual depth. So too, as I read my daily newspaper or watch television reporters on location in the Middle East, my mind attempts to assemble a bigger picture, seeking a broader context or perspective beyond the personalized, fragmented, and dramatized events rapidly unfolding.2
Adolescence in the twenty-first century presents similar challenges to our understanding. We need to assemble a complex portrait of this age group from disparate and even alarming data. On March 21, the New York Times reported on a study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicating that suicide is a growing problem among black youths ten to nineteen years of age.
From 1980 to 1995, 3,030 black youths committed suicide, and the rate increased by 114 percent (from 2.1 to 4.5 deaths per 100,000 persons).3 Just a month earlier, my school was buzzing with discussion about verbally brutal adolescent "mean girls" and the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse's report that one-third of the nation's high school students binge drink at least once a month.4
This issue of Knowledge Quest, written predominantly by educators outside the library profession, provides valuable perspectives on serving the 43 million young people aged ten to nineteen who will inhabit the United States by 2020.5
Begin by understanding the perspectives of these authors, then build on your new knowledge to create better programs and services for adolescents. Look beyond the current news filled with stereotypes, loaded descriptions, controlled information, and partisan positions to understand how you can teach today's teens.6
Become familiar with the care, education, and development of young adolescents by reading the research in The Journal of Early Adolescence and using the Adolescence Directory On-Line (ADOL), an electronic guide to Internet information on adolescent issues.7 Share what you learn with your faculty. Rather than feeling powerless in the face of the serious challenges of educating adolescents, enrich your own perspectives on teen literature by exploring Gallo's interviews with twenty-four writers for young adults.8 Use booktalks from "Tantalizing Tidbits for Teens" and find new reading selections for your literature discussion groups in Darby and Pryne's new multicultural bibliography or in "First Contact", a beginning reader's advisory for science fiction and fantasy.9
Gain geometrical perspective on your teen programming by experimenting with SLMS practitioner Milam's weekly InfoQuests or by adapting ideas from youth services librarian Edwards' month-by-month Teen Library Events.10 Renew your conceptual perspectives by initiating discussions about reading strategies in both film and texts with your English teachers.11 Reexamine your curriculum development process to see that it does indeed differentiate between and challenge learners.12
We have all faced the challenge of assembling a picture out of personal events. March 21 felt very much like late-breaking news to me. It was my son and daughter-in-law's fourth wedding anniversary. As we all celebrated over sushi, my husband and I were delighted to learn that Damon and Maria are going to have a baby! and stunned to realize we'd be grandparents! "Are we that old?"
March 21 was also the first of two days on which our three-year-old NoodleTools, a free Internet resource for educators and students, went down without warning.13
In between the hundreds of e-mails we received from users informing us that the site was not accessible, we finally learned from our ISP that NoodleBib, an interactive bibliographic composer, was eating up a huge amount of bandwidth on their server. They had intentionally shut off access to all interactive content.14
We all know that personal perspectives should always be assessed within the larger contexts. I am reminded that March 21 marks the vernal equinox. I also remember March 21, 1965, when civil rights demonstrators led by Martin Luther King Jr. began marching from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.15 Rosie O'Donnell, Johann Sebastian Bach, Gary Oldman, Florenz Ziegfeld, and Phyllis McGinley were all born on March 21.16 Is there a big picture to be seen here? I find myself imagining a cubist painting, rather than drawing the logic of parallel lines or a geometrically designed canvas.
It is our human nature to expect and even to strive to create a larger perspective.
It is also our obligation to view our students with clarity and empathy. Without arriving at such perspectives, we remain isolated on the island of the one-eyed Cyclops.
References and Notes
1 Evelyn P. Hatcher, Visual Metaphors: A Methodological Study in Visual Communication (Albuquerque, N.M.: Univ. of New Mexico Pr., 1974), as described in Paul Martin Lester, Visual Communication: Images with Messages (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 2000), 37-39.
2 W. Lance Bennett, News: The Politics of Illusion, 4th ed. (New York:Addison Wesley Longman, 2001), 37-38.
3 "Data on Teenage Black Men Show Rise in Suicide by Gun" New York Times National Desk, 21 Mar. 2002, <http://query.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F30A10F73B5C0C728EDDAA0894DA404482> Accessed 1 Apr. 2002.
4 Margaret Talbot, "Girls Just Want to Be Mean" New York Times Magazine Desk, Feb. 24, 2002, <http://query.nytimes.com/search/abstract?res=F30F14F9355B0C778EDDAB0894DA404482 > Accessed 1 Apr. 2002; National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, Teen Tipplers: American's Underage Drinking Epidemic, Feb. 2002, <http://www.casacolumbia.org/usr_doc/Underage1.pdf> Accessed 1 Apr. 2002.
5 U.S. Census Bureau, Population Division, Population Projections Program, 2000, Projections of the Total Resident Population by Five-Year Age Groups and Sex with Special Age Categories: Middle Series, 2016 to 2020, <http://www.census.gov/population/projections/nation/summary/np-t3-e.txt>. Accessed 1 Apr. 2002.
6 Bennett, News, 252-59. The Journal of Early Adolescence is available through Sage Publications, 2455 Teller Rd., Thousand Oaks, CA 91320; 1-800-818-7243; fax 1-800-583-2665, <http://www.sagepub.com/Shopping/Journal.asp?id=163>
7 Indiana University Center for Adolescent Studies, ADOL: Adolescent Directory On-Line, <http://education.indiana.edu/cas/adol/adol.htm>
8 Donald R. Gallo, GEMOnline: Authors 4 Teens, 2000, <http://www.authors4teens.com>. Accessed 1 Apr. 2002.
9 Ruth E. Cox, Tantalizing Tidbits for Teens: Quick Booktalks for the Busy High School Library Media Specialist (Worthington, Ohio: Linworth, 2002); Mary Ann Darby and Miki Pryne, Hearing All the Voices: Multicultural Books for Adolescents, Scarecrow Resource Guide Series, no 2. (Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Pr., 2002); Bonnie Kunzel and Suzanne Manczuk, First Contact: A Reader's Selection of Science Fiction and Fantasy (Lanham, Md.:Scarecrow Pr., 2001).
10 Peggy Milam, InfoQuest: A New Twist on Information Literacy (Worthington,Ohio: Linworth, 2002); Kirsten Edwards, Teen Library Events: A Month-by-Month Guide, Greenwood Professional Guides for Young Adult Librarians (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Pr., 2002).
11 Bonnie O. Ericson, ed., Teaching Reading in High School English Classes (Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 2001); John Golden, Reading in the Dark: Using Film As a Tool in the English Classroom (Urbana, Ill.: NCTE, 2001).
12 Carol Ann Tomlinson et. al., The Parallel Curriculum: A Design to Develop High Potential and Challenge High-Ability Learners (Thousand Oaks, Calif.: National Association for Gifted Children/Corwin Pr., 2002).
13 NoodleTools: Smart Tools, Smart Research, 1999-2002. <http://www.noodletools.com> Accessed 1 Apr. 2002.
14 Damon Abilock, "A Note to the NoodleTools Community" 28 Mar. 2002, <http://www.noodletools.com/note.html>. Accessed 1 Apr. 2002.
15 New York Times Learning Network, On This Day: March 21, <http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/0321.html>. Accessed 1 Apr. 2002.
16 Ibid.
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