Shopping Students

On Tuesday, April 16, 2019 the annual spring GTA Resource Fair was held at the Better Living Building on the CNE grounds. Organized by Saunders Book Company (a Canadian vendor and distributor), it's an opportunity for school library professionals in TDSB and some of the surrounding boards to browse through and purchase the newest titles available from a wide variety of different Canadian book sellers, such as Tinlids, Beguiling, Another Story, A Different Booklist, etc.

I've written about the GTA Resource Fair before - way back in 2011 - and talked about my practice of bringing students along to help me select books for the school library. For the 2018-2019 school year, we weren't able to attend the fall fair because I was at the ECOO BIT18 conference. That meant I had more money than usual for our school library shopping. Another difference for the spring fair was that I had the pleasure of bringing many more students and a classroom teacher.

This year, as part of our SIP (School Improvement Plan) goals, money was allocated so that the junior and intermediate classes could improve their classroom libraries so that it would be more diverse and representative of the many lived realities of students in Ontario. The junior/intermediate teaching team decided to further empower their students by choosing a few from each class to select and purchase these books on their behalf. Our Grade 6 teacher and division chairperson, Lisa Daley, accompanied the students. Since we had 22 students instead of my usual 6, we took the GO Train there and back.

Our students took their mission very seriously, and demonstrated some admirable character traits while they were at it.

Financially Responsible

Each grade team had $500 to spend on resources and the students were extremely careful not to go over their allotment. They kept track of their spending and checked in with me and Ms. Daley quite regularly. No wild spending sprees here!

(This is a photo of several of our students browsing and calculating with Ms. Daley advising.)

Fair-Minded

I wondered aloud at one point why students were purchasing so few books at a time. They explained to me that they wanted to distribute their funds equally to as many different vendors as possible. In other words, they wanted to spread their business so that many companies would get a benefit. How generous and considerate of them!

(This is a photo of students purchasing books for the Grade 8 class from Glad Day Bookstore.)

Collaborative

We did an "overview" of the GTA Resource Fair and pointed out who the employees / owners were from several companies. The students would ask these knowledgeable people for recommendations. Andrew Woodrow-Butcher from Beguiling and Maria Martella from Tinlids were particularly helpful. The students did not just blindly accept their suggestions, but considered them seriously.

(This is a photo of Maria from Tinlids suggesting a few books.)

Joyful

Okay, I know that joy isn't a character trait like cooperation, respect and honesty are - but the students really enjoyed shopping. They were proud of the book choices they made. They used their prior knowledge of the kinds of books they already had in their class collections to inform their buying. We even texted one of the junior teachers who didn't go on the trip just to ensure that we weren't buying a title they already had.

The body language in this photo says it all: look at the wonder of all these brand new books!

Ms. Daley talked about the pressure and intense responsibility she felt in making these decisions on behalf of other teachers - we really wanted to choose books that the students and teachers would appreciate. I think the team did a phenomenal job of making selections. The students tried hard to pick books that didn't just interest them, but were beneficial to others. The "proof in the pudding" was that they couldn't wait to start reading their choices.

Strong

Another unexpected positive trait - the GTA Resource Fair is a "take-away" fair, which meant that we had to transport all the books we picked. Usually this isn't a problem - we just pack it tightly in my car and drive back to school. This time, it involved a lot of carrying as we hauled our treasure back in boxes and bags all the way from the lake to the northernmost reaches of our school board. This was probably the least favourite aspect of our trip, but the students took it in stride. I think Ms. Daley and I are in better shape than some of our students, but at least they didn't miss any physical education during our trip; it was unintentionally incorporated!

(This is a photo of a large group of our students carrying boxes and bags out of the building.)

The vendors were delighted to see our students and the TDSB Library Services team were fantastic in terms of their positive attitudes and the speed at which they processed our library books. Big thanks to Andrea Sykes, Program Coordinator for TDSB Library Learning Resources Department, the TDSB Library Services team, our principal, Bill Parish, for allowing us to go and providing the money to make it possible, all the vendors at the GTA Resource Fair, Ms. Daley and our wonderful students. I can't imagine shopping for books any other way.