By Joseph Jeffery
On October 21, 2022 over 300 teacher-librarians from across BC and Canada came in through the glass doors of New West Secondary School and into the wide open space of the grand commons. Another 180 attended a set of limited sessions online, including both keynotes.
After two years of online only conferences we had a goal to come out swinging. To this end we decided to bookend the day with two huge literary names: David A. Robertson and Ivan Coyote. We chose David and Ivan as we wanted authors who were inspiring, but talk about the personal journey of representation. We strongly believe that our students deserve to have a book they can seem themselves in; or as Cherie Dimaline put it at the Ontario Library Association’s Super Conference, “If a library is a neighbourhood then no one should be homeless. Everyone must be able to find a house where they belong”.
At 8:30 the theatre was packed and the overflow in the library buzzing for David A. Robertson. Renowned author of the Misewa Saga, 7 Generations, Sugar Falls, The Reckoner series and the Governor General award winning On the Trapline and When We Were Alone, David kicked off the day in style. Talking frankly about writing as an Indigenous author, about the need for representation and seeing yourself in stories, David captivated the room.
“Charismatic”,
“Engaging”,
“Amazing perspective”,
“Informative”,
“I wanted more”,
“He was worth the whole conference” were just a few of the pieces of feedback we received about David’s keynote. People left the theatre buzzing and ready to learn.
Online attendees had a limited choice of just two workshops in each session. We kept it quite tight as this was our first time trying to run a hybrid model. Last year we had so many issues with zoom sessions and our online platform that we were very worried about our capacity to do more than 2-3 sessions at a time. Ultimately it was fine and next year we would be willing to push it more than we did.
The standout sessions of the morning from attendees were “Capturing History and Identity Through Graphic Novels” by local author Jeff Chiba Sterns, who talked audiences through how he uses art to convey identity and how their students could too; and “Escape Rooms in the Library” by Dita Verma and Megan Riter, which offered a wealth of information on using Escape Rooms and adding some puzzle pizzaz to your programs.
After this was a space for viewing the vendors and socializing. This was the most controversial decision. Some people really enjoyed the flexibility, some hated it and wished it was another session. This was added due to feedback from the last few years of online that people missed the opportunity to connect in person and quite a few people had requested it. As an experiment it was not the success we would have liked it to be and probably wouldn’t be something we would do again.
In the afternoon offerings included “Ozobots, and Micro:bits, and Edisons, oh my – Tech playground” from Nicole Wallace where attendees got to explore various robotics and STEM tools that they might have in their district but might not know how to use; and “School Seed Library” by Jessica Bonin that looked at how you can start expanding your library into helping families with food security and nutrition while avoiding invasive plants.
The day ended with Ivan Coyote, author of Care Of, Tomboy Survival Guide, One in Every Crowd and so many others. Ivan was, as always, a spectacular speaker. They told tales of the heart, from the heart. Connecting with their audience, one of the greatest storytellers in Canada spoke to our shared humanity with raw stories of tolerance and love beating out hate. The whole presentation held the very pointed message “who has already left the room?” from the hate or indifference towards diverse peoples.
“Perfect way to end the day”
“So inspiring”
“I cried, I literally cried”
“Absolutely brilliant storyteller”.
Unfortunately not everyone agrees with the idea that other voices should be heard. Opposing comments felt the conference was “too woke” and that we weren’t “thinking critically” and balancing voices who were anti-lgbtq or anti-Indigenous to make libraries the “true neutral space” they are supposed to be.
Ultimately, the day was a success, but not without issues. There are lessons to learn from how we structure the day, but having two engaging keynotes was well received and we were able to pull off the hybrid format without issue. This proof of concept that we can do both was very important due to the spread out nature of our province. With so many teacher librarians in the interior on limited professional development funds it was great to figure out what we could do to meet those needs.
Joseph Jeffery is the District Learning Commons Teacher-Librarian for SD57 Prince George, BC. He has been a TL since 2013 at both elementary and high school. He is an immigrant to Canada and is Bangladeshi/English on his mother’s side and Ukrainian/English on his fathers’. He supports teachers and teacher-librarian’s throughout the district in resource selection and acquisitions, e-resources, and all types of literacy. Joseph is the BCTLA’s conference organizer.