By Jonelle St. Aubyn
On Saturday, February 1, 2020 I attended my first ever Treasure Mountain Canada Think Tank Symposium. Although I was excited to present my paper on Hosting a Human Library in Our LLC, I was even more excited to learn from all of the other presenters that were going to be there. Truth be told, I was a big Twitter fan of Diana Maliszewski, also known as MsMollyTL and I couldn’t wait to hear her speak about her experience taking students book shopping to include them in the process of adding to the collection. Her paper was called Toward an Understanding of the Impact of Youth Involvement in Purchasing Resources for the School Library Learning Commons and Issues of Equity in Participant Selection. I thought her idea was brilliant and I wanted to learn more about how she did it, who she chose to take shopping and what impact it had on student engagement in her library learning commons.
Her presentation was definitely as amazing as I thought it would be. As she discussed the methodology that she used to include student voice and choice in her library, the wheels started turning in my head as to how I could apply this ideology to my own school. Would high school students want to come shopping with me? What criteria should I give to them to help them make appropriate selections? Who do I choose to participate in this initiative? Although I had so many questions as to how I would make this idea become a reality, I was so excited about the possibilities and what it would mean for our library learning commons.
After the symposium ended, my school started our second semester. We were heavily booked with classes that wanted to try our new database boot camp program that we were offering. I had to delay my plans to get started on figuring out how to best involve students in book shopping for our LLC. My new plan was to get started after the March Break. I had planned a getaway to the Dominican Republic and I thought I would be rested and ready to go to get this program off of the ground. Little did I know that Friday, March 13 would come and the pandemic was going to significantly change life as we knew it.
Like everyone else, I assumed that we would have an extended March break and that we would be returning to school in early April. Unfortunately that did not come to pass as the pandemic situation was far more serious than I initially had thought it would be. We were thrown into the world of remote emergency teaching, distance learning, or whatever terminology best suited the situation that we found ourselves in. The library learning commons staff had to evolve very quickly to meet the new and ever changing demands of the situation that we were in. Everything was virtual, from research lessons, to author visits to staff meetings; our entire world shifted from being face to face to being online. It was an extremely challenging situation for both the staff and our students.
Despite the unusual circumstances that we found ourselves in, I still wanted to move forward with Diana’s idea of including our students in the book buying process in our LLC. Truthfully, it wasn’t an ideal time to be starting this initiative, but I still wanted to move ahead. The first thing I needed was to develop specific criteria that students could use to help guide them to books that would be beneficial for many students. As my colleague and I worked on the criteria, I realized I didn’t want to stop at just the books. I wanted to include them in all aspects of the LLC. So we included a non book item and an item of furniture that students felt would enhance the physical space of the LLC and meet the needs of our diverse group of students.
Once our criteria list was complete, we needed students! Having worked closely with the leadership classes in the past, we felt that this would be a great group of students to start with. Not only did we think their teachers would be on board with this, but we also felt it would be a great opportunity for them to demonstrate the leadership skills that they had learned. Leadership teachers Susan Bell and David Price were immediately in favour of working with us to engage their students in this project. Teamwork makes the dream work and we were fortunate to have immediate support during this challenging time.
We knew that student participation might be lower than expected, given that so many students were struggling to adjust to their current situation and we didn’t want to make this part of their assessment. We simply asked any students that were willing to participate as best they could. Students were given the criteria for selection of the items and were asked to record their responses using Flipgrid. Our school has Flipgrid fever and it was a tech tool that many students were already familiar using.
sticker.
Between the two classes we had nine students participate. Initially we were a little disappointed with the less than stellar response but we understood that it was going to be a challenge to garner any participation at all. However, once we saw the Flipgrid video, we were pleasantly surprised at the amount of thought, care and detail that students gave when making their selections! It was amazing. We had requests for motivational and self-help books that would be inspiring, for bean bag chairs to make the introverted students who sit along the wall at the back of the library more comfortable, more DVDs for students who couldn’t afford streaming services and Rubik’s cubes for students who were fidgety in class. We had requests for posters with motivational slogans and small, framed art work. The amount of care and attention to detail that they showed when making their selections went above and beyond our expectations. All of their choices would have a direct impact on making the LLC a more warm and welcoming place for all students.
Given that I had some budget left due to the pandemic, I went ahead and purchased all of the book items that the students requested. Due to the pandemic, the bean bag chairs and Rubik’s cubes were left to be purchased at a later date. The posters and artwork will be purchased this school year despite the closure of the LLC so that when we are open once again, the students can see that we were listening. We also plan on tagging every item based on students’ requests with stickers that say “student selected” to show our students that their voice matters to us. We also plan on running this program again with this year’s leadership students and hope to expand the program by setting up a “Speaker’s Corner” (as per Mrs. Bell’s suggestion) to allow students to tell us what they feel is needed in the LLC.
None of this would have been possible without Diana’s paper sparking a desire in me to try to bring her ideas to life in my own school. We strive to be equitable and inclusive in our LLC and the best way that we can ensure that we are meeting our goal is to include the voices, choices and opinions of those we serve. Although I wouldn’t recommend starting this process during distance learning while a pandemic is going on, it was a very worthwhile initiative that we felt was quite successful. I cannot wait to see where this takes us in the future and the positive impact it will have on our students.
Jonelle St. Aubyn. With a Bachelor of Kinesiology and Bachelor of Education, Jonelle has had a rather unconventional path to becoming the full time teacher librarian at Louise Arbour Secondary School in Brampton, Ontario. She began her teaching career with the Peel District School Board (PDSB) as a Health and Physical Education and Family Studies teacher. Knee surgeries led her to transition from Physical Education to the School Library Learning Commons in 2015. Jonelle was one of the team members that revised the Teacher-Librarianship Additional Qualification course guidelines for the Ontario College of Teachers. She is also the recent recipient of the OSSTF District 19 Inspiring Moments Campaign and the Teachers Life Exceptional Educator Award. Jonelle is a fan of YA novels, Netflix, tattoos, music, working out and teaching!