Monday, October 10, 2022

Balance

 Today's reflections are about finding a balance between two different and potentially opposite approaches. 

Library Dragon vs Laissez-Faire

In the fall of 2020, students couldn't use the school library. When school libraries reopened in the fall of 2021, I was delighted to have students back in the space, but I had to restrict how many books they could borrow because we did not have library helpers or adult volunteers permitted to shelve and the job fell on my shoulders. This fall, 2022, our library helpers returned to "work" and in my joy, I have become quite lenient. Book limits? Who cares! Usually, this wouldn't be a problem, but combined with my Summer "Bakers Dozen" Book Borrowing Program, there are many students that have rather large numbers of books out and there are students eager to get their hands on those newly bought titles that have been commandeered by a few. (Demon Slayer, anyone?) 

To rein things in a little bit, I am returning to an old practice I had - the "oopsie stamp" (combined with the new addition of a "yippee stamp"). In the past, if students forgot to return a book, I'd use the "oopsie" stamp in their agenda to remind them to bring the book back. I won't stop them from borrowing a book (unless they have a ridiculous amount of books still at home) but sometimes just a nudge is required. Students have a lot more physical objects they need to keep track of now than were used to when they learned virtually, (jackets, indoor shoes, agendas, lunch bags, water bottles, etc.) so they are a bit out of practice. 

Speaking of keeping track of physical objects, I realized that I had no clue where my original "oopsie" stamp has gone. The original was broken and just a slim piece of rubber, so it's easy to misplace. It was time to redesign and reorder a new stamp. I turned to my own children, who are quite talented at illustrating and graphic design. They pointed out that it'd be good to have a positive reinforcement stamp as well, so that agenda communications between the library and home weren't limited to reminders of jobs that hadn't been completed. 

These are the designs they created. My son drew the visuals himself. The final products will look slightly different but the message is the same.


This will be a lot less onerous than writing individually in every single agenda (like I did on Thursday for two classes). 

Hoarder / Fully Stocked vs Minimalist / Clear Shelves


I tried to use two different terms here so I wouldn't suggest one position was better than the other. On Friday, it was a Professional Activity Day. We had a staff meeting where we organized things like the Cross Country Meet and Remembrance Day; we received training on the new Report Card program, and I cleaned the library.

Keeping the library clean and tidy is a never-ending battle. Complicating things is that we transformed a classroom into a lunchroom and a lot of the supplies from the former classroom have migrated to the library. I'm trying to get the MakerSpace in some semblance of order but it's hard when there's just so much stuff. 

Our MakerSpace leans towards low-tech options, which means having materials to build with is useful. How much is too much? What's good to keep and what should just be pitched? Some educators are notorious hoarders, which can be disastrous or resourceful. However, I've learned that sometimes having less is more. I've been following Kelsey Bogan and Jennifer Brown's work on front-facing library shelving strategies to increase visibility and circulation.

It means culling the collection a bit more so there's room to see what we have. The shelves can't be crammed with books or with materials. I'm reminded of this by Lindsay Carriere, whose paper on weeding the school library collection is up on the Treasure Mountain Canada 7 website. (Congratulations Lindsay and Francis Ngo on the publication of their papers on TMC7!)

Even the way the MakerSpace gets presented might need to change. I had my space as pretty open-ended but I think I need to shake up my approach this year and use some of the learning I obtained during my Kindergarten AQ course to set up some provocations so students can be inspired to use some of the materials. Some of these ambitious plans may need to be put on hold, as I'm holding my first book fair since 2019 this week. Wish me luck!




Posted by at

1 comment:

  1. Lisa NobleOctober 10, 2022 at 1:37 PM

    Whew! That's a lot. I really like the tables with themes. However, I share the library with a high school population as well as my 7/8's. Not sure yet how to make that work.

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)