Include at James Island Elementary with Beth

While visiting Beth Hale in her library at James Island Elementary School one could tell include was all over her library.  The new books showcase is right at the entrance of the library, on the covers on these new books were many diverse faces of different backgrounds and genders.  Beth explained that her current collection development revolves around diversifying her collection to make sure all of her students feel included.  James Island Elementary has a diverse population of many ethnicities, religions, and socio-economic statuses.  Every year Beth does a Read Around the World unit with her second graders to expand their minds and encourage them to learn about different cultures and countries around the world.  

I got the opportunity to observe Beth expanding the minds of her second graders, for story time she chose to read a biography and autobiography of Malala, both being picture books.  Throughout the stories, Beth would talk with her students about the country of Pakistan and the inequalities women face around the world specifically in education.  After the two stories, Beth worked with the students to locate England and Pakistan on the globe.  With her third grade group, Beth read the story The Wump World which dealt with environmental conservation and pollution.  Throughout the story Beth discussed these topics with her students and they brainstormed possible solutions.  With both classes Beth included issues from different cultures and around the world to help her students be more globally aware of the world around them.  

Include was also present in the maker stations found all around the James Island Elementary library.  There are a total of 10 stations, each with its own maker materials and instructions.  There is no one way fits all when it comes to how students learn.  By providing a variety of stations, Beth has included many creativity preferences for her students.  Below are a few examples of the maker stations found around the library. 

Beth's fixed schedule is packed full, it makes it hard for her to collaborate with classroom teachers.  The art, music, and PE teacher are at JIES three days a week and at another school two days a week, this leaves the library special area schedule full of classes.  If Beth needs to collaborate with a teacher, they communicate through email.  She supports science the most when she can through her library lessons.

A challenge Beth faces when implementing include into her library is working with some controversial topics from around the country and world.  Beth wants to make sure her library is inclusive with its materials, but working with younger students she wants to make sure the topics covered in her lessons does not make anyone feel uneasy.   Overall Beth is doing a great job with include in her library, she was shocked to hear everything I picked out in just eight hours that is inclusive to her students.     

Explore at Deer Park Middle with Loni

Deer Park Middle School is located in North Charleston, South Carolina.  In this library we focused on the foundation of explore especially the tinkering and making standard.  The Loni Lewis is a part of the district cohort Tinker Tubs Year 2: Expand.  In this cohort she is able to check out maker activities for her students to use in her library.  She has also gained ideas about maker resources through this cohort to add to her library.  She has purchased some maker resources on her own, she has had some maker resources donated to her, and she has received grants for maker resources.  

Students know about these resources and love them.  While I was at Deer Park, I was able to observe students coming into the library on their lunch periods to mess around with these resources.  One student had started a Lego car, he continued to add onto his creative project.  Another student wanted to make different shapes and structures out of kinetic sand.  Another student who is a part of the library STEM club after school coded the Ozobots to drive along a particular path he drew.  Lastly I got to observe a female student make origami.  Loni pushed into a math class last week to do a geometry lesson which involved making origami boxes.  This student took to the origami quickly and wanted to come back to the library to learn more about making different origami shapes.  

The Loni was able to collaborate with a math teacher to implement making in to a lesson,  but this is a rare case.  Loni sends out focus emails to specific teachers who may want to collaborate with her using maker resources because she knows many teachers will turn a blind eye to her emails.  She has tried to get teachers on board about the WHY making is important to implement in any area of curriculum, she has been successful with a few individuals but each time she gets someone on board they transfer to another school shortly later.  The teacher turnover at Deer Park is high, each year the Loni has to start over again with a big group of new teachers to the school, overall collaborating with making resources has not been a huge success at Deer Park.  

Challenges with making within the library is present in the students' attitudes.  Students are so used to being told when and how to start an activity followed by when and how to end, they are completely lost when they have a choice to tinker and explore.  Many times Loni sees that students do not know where to begin when making materials are put in front of them, as they get started they always want to know when they should be done, what the end product should look like.  The Loni is working hard to push against this mindset to help them think individually and creatively.  The mindset of the students is not the only challenge, time and space play a part in this as well.  The Deer Park library is small and if a student was to be in the library for a full class period, that would be just under a hour.  Trying to get students to think past limiting their work to just one class period has been a struggle.  She has tried to get students to realize their work does not need to have a limit on it, it is done when they themselves think they are done.  

Collaborate at James Island Charter High with Amy and Melanie

My day at James Island Charter High School, I got to see many collaborations happen throughout the school day.  To start, a teacher called the library and asked if the lab portion was opened 3rd period, it just happen to be so.  Then the teacher asked if one of the librarians, Amy Ball, could teach the website verses databases lesson  from last year to her students, the Amy quickly pulled up her lesson from the previous year, made copies, and was ready to go.  The class came in about 30 minutes later and I got to observe Amy teach the difference between a website and database, and the difference between different databases.  This was not the end of the collaborations, a U.S. history teacher called Melanie Crumpton halfway through the day asking for help on creating a lesson involving primary sources from World War II.  The Melanie and Amy jumped at this opportunity and started finding primary sources for this teacher in databases and print books.  The collaborations did not end here, at the end of the day the librarian that is currently on the leadership team, Amy, collaborated with other members of the staff to update the academic honesty policy for the school.  Each year Amy and Melanie switch who is on the leadership team, they always make sure at least one of them are to keep the library a part of conversations between department heads and administrators.   

There were a lot of interactions going on through the school day between the librarians and the staff, but this is not a normal day I am told.  The Amy and Melanie try to target collaboration with courses that have a little more flexible time to try and collaborate with.  The struggle with high school is so much information needs to be taught in a short amount of time, many teachers do not seek out the library for help or collaborations.  The Amy and Melanie work a lot with a freshmen course in which the students get to explore information literacy in general.  They even do some of the grading for this course to make sure the teachers each year still utilizes the library.  They have their go-to teachers for collaborations, but collaboration is not happening as much as they would like in their library.  

With the challenge of getting teachers to come into the library, Amy and Melanie have a candy jar set up right by the circulation desk in which they keep filled.  This first gets staff members to come into the library, as people drop by to grab candy this allows the librarians to greet the teacher and even have a short conversation about what they are doing in their classes. The Amy and Melanie also send out a "What's New" emails every other month highlighting what is new in the library, they usually get a few responses from teachers asking more about what was highlighted.  Lastly they make sure to host professional developments throughout the school year to get teachers in the library working with some their materials and resources.  

Inquiry at Murray LaSaine Elementary with Sean

At Murray LaSaine Elementary School on James Island in Charleston, South Carolina inquiry is a big part of the school library program.  Inquiry is one of the national shared foundations for school library programs and Murray LaSaine has the opportunity to harness inquiry due to this school being a Montessori school.  Montessori schools allow students to explore their interests through student choice and that is exactly what Sean Muzzy does at MLES. 

Choice and pursuing ones curiosity is pushed in a school such as Murray LaSaine.   This is evident in the library program, when students do not have library time they still have the opportunity to use the library resources to help expand their knowledge on a certain topic.  At Montessori schools students are encouraged to dig deeper into something they want to know more about and are allowed bring it into their learning plans set by their teachers.  Students have a variety of resources to help them dig into their interests more, students have access to the online resources, specifically Mackinvia, at school and at home along with all the library print resources.  The library is a smaller space and operates on a semi-fixed schedule.  Mackinvia is heavily pushed for students to use when the library is full with a class. 

When it comes to collaborating with classroom teachers to implement inquiry into the library program that also supports classroom curriculum, Sean collaborates with teachers on reading with the older students.  The older students are encouraged to explore more about reading themes and topics of interest being covered in their classrooms while expanding their knowledge on a certain topic.  With the younger students, they are encouraged to explore many things that may interest them to help them figure out what exactly are their interests.  This was demonstrated with the lower elementary classes (1st-3rd combined).  The students had read the story "Who Wants a Tortoise" from the South Carolina book award nominees list for 2018.  Once they learned how a tortoise made a good pet, the students were asked to explore what other animals, any animals of interests, would make a good pet by searching through the Pebble Go Animals database.  The students had a choice in which animals they wanted to learn more about.

Montessori schools allow for a lot inquiry to take place within the students' daily lives, but there are some challenges the school library program faces. With the opportunity to research and explore almost anything, indecisiveness is a inhibitor of students pursuing inquiry in the library.  When there are unlimited options put before students, they can struggle with making their own choices.  In the older students, trying to get them out of their comfort zone of their current interests is a challenge as well.  Many students already know what interests them and they are a little resistant to expanding their research into new things and ideas.  Overall inquiry is thriving throughout the Murray LaSaine library program, but to keep it alive as the students progress through their classes, they need to be constantly pushed past their boundaries.