ISCI 794 Blog Assignment: Include (Post 2)

AASL National School Library Standards for School Librarians

Shared Foundation: Include

For the Shared Foundation Include, I spoke to a high school librarian at a magnet school. In the Include Foundation, school librarians are tasked with "providing opportunities for learners to interact with others who reflect a range of perspectives" (American Association of School Librarians, 2018, p. 76).  The student body at this high school has a range of perspectives with students from different backgrounds in terms of ethnicity, religion, political views, sexual orientation, and gender. To this end, the librarian holds space for everyone to share their views on a topic either through book clubs or discussions. She also ensures this through the collection by selecting materials that reflects the student body population and filling in gaps in the collection when a perspective is missing.

The campus culture is geared towards empathy and tolerance. The library is a space for inclusion in multiple ways: Muslim students have a space to pray during the school day, there is a closed off room where students can have tele-health doctor's appointments at school, and quiet rooms where students can go if they are feeling overwhelmed. The librarian spoke about how they try to make the library space accommodating for everyone. It was exciting to see a school so focused on student needs and providing a welcoming space. The benefits of these efforts were clearly seen in how busy the library is throughout the day, and how the space is utilized by students. This was a great example of how to make the library the "heart" of the school. 

This commitment to inclusion is also reflected in library lessons. According to the Include Foundation, school librarians should provide learners with opportunities to "evaluate a variety of perspectives" and "engage in informed conversation and active debate" (American Association of School Librarians, 2018, p. 76). When creating lessons, the librarian ensures that credible and quality perspectives of both sides of a topic are presented to students. The librarian mentioned how she makes sure to pull sources from both sides of a debate, especially with political or social issues. Students are asked to legitimately evaluate a perspective even when it differs from their own. With misinformation regularly in the media, the librarian also shows students how to make sure the perspective that they are reading is credible on the topic. Particularly with websites, the librarian holds lessons for her students for them to think through who is publishing this information, what sources are they citing, and how to be aware of the writer's perspective and motivation as a step to reading critically. While there is no formal debate settings in the library, students do participate in the Louisiana Readers' Choice program and the library holds discussions of those books. Since these books often deal with social or political issues, the library holds space for students to have debates about the content of the books and relate it to their lives. It was clear that the student body at this school are curious and opinionated, so having opportunities for students to engage with real world topics is an excellent way to incorporate this standard. The commitment to showing multiple credible perspectives on a topic is impressive and shows the value that this library places on inclusion.   

The Include Foundation asks librarians help students be aware of the larger global learning community. When the librarian teachers research skills, she asks students to position themselves in larger conversation amongst scholars on the topic. That way students are asked to really see themselves and their work in a broader context than just a school assignment. The library sponsors a literature conference with students where they present their English research projects as they would at an academic conference. Students make posters with their work and read their papers. Since many students plan to pursue higher education, this provides them with a great chance to practice positioning their work in these academic settings and view themselves as scholars with something to contribute to these conversations. 

The librarian shared that the main challenges with implementing any standards are time management and sharing duties with the other school librarian. The librarian expressed how she makes sure to have the library be involved in as many aspects of the school as possible to make the library program indispensable. There is always a challenge as well with possible parent pushback or censorship efforts. However, this hasn't been a big problem at this school. I enjoyed seeing how an AASL standard was implemented not just academically but with programming, uses of the physical space, and consideration of students' needs. This library program was an inspiring example of how to implement the AASL standards across every aspect of the library. 

Reference:

American Association of School Librarians. (2018). National school library standards for learners, school librarians, and school libraries. American Library Association.