Tag Archives: cultural competence

Classroom-Library Collaboration with the Global Oneness Project

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School Library Month, Part 4

I have been following the work of the Global Oneness Project (GO Project) since it began in 2006. “We aim to connect, through stories, the local human experience to global meta-level issues, such as climate change, water scarcity, food insecurity, poverty, endangered cultures, migration, and sustainability.”

I believe that connecting the GO Project’s work with school-based learning can strengthen students’ opportunities to experience their roles as global citizens who take action to positively support the interconnectedness of all living things.

Being part of a global learning community is a thread woven through standards for students, including the National School Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (AASL 2018). Being involved in a GO Project is one way for students to understand their global citizenship role and share their knowledge with a global audience.

Earth Day, Every Day
As a follow-up to last week’s post focused on classroom-library collaboration for Earth Day, the Global Oneness Project is currently sponsoring a contest for students 13 years of age and up: “The Spirit of Reciprocity: Student Photography and Original Illustration Contest.” Student contestants’ work must be focused on the GO’s mission statement: “Planting seeds of resilience, empathy, and a sacred relationship to our planet.”

Reflecting on one’s relationship with the natural world, this contest centers on the five statements from the work of Robin Wall Kimmerer. botanist and member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation, and author of the book Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed 2015).

In addition to the earth and other sciences, art, and photography curricula connections, the contest participation includes an artist’s statement and components that support the ethical use of ideas and information, including seeking permission from any people who appear in the work and parental permission to participate. I hope you will check it out!

Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming Award
I was delighted to read last month that middle school librarian Amy Harpe, who earned the 2017 Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming Award, has involved students in her school with the Global Oneness Project. (Amy also serves on the Educator Advisory Committee for the GO Project.)

In her 3/1/21 Knowledge Quest blog post “Connecting to Cultures and Communities through Story,” she shares her work helping students begin their understandings of cultures and community through a study of their own community. Making local connections is a necessary step before reaching for global connections.

A summary: Amy launched a GO Project unit for third-grade students with the video Marie’s Dictionary, a powerful 9-minute video about a Wukchumni woman who is the last fluent speaker of her American Indian language. Building from that background of how cultures change, Amy guided students in looking at local cultural artifacts and art: sweetgrass basket crafts of the Gullah people, hula dancing, bluegrass music, and storytelling. Students learned to finger knit as a way to understand craft. They compared various dance forms and learned some steps. They played the spoons in the context of learning about the banjo and other instruments.

To further their study of how communities change over time, Amy expanded the library collection to include books and information related to their community’s history. She invited a local historian to speak with students.  Amy also guided students in examining (copies of) primary source photographs after which they created replicas of buildings in Minecraft. When students ended the unit with a walking tour of their town’s historic district, they had a great deal of background knowledge to spur on their questions for the historian guide.

To learn more about the Sara Jaffarian School Library Program Award for Exemplary Humanities Programming Award, please visit the ALA website. This award is for given to a school librarian serving a K-8 population; the award is $5,000. The deadline to apply is May 5th.

Image Credit
Photograph from the Personal Collection of Judi Moreillon

School Librarians in the News, Part I

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hands1For many years, the Southern Poverty Law Center has been providing information and resources to educators that will help them guide students in exploring and enacting social justice in the classroom, school, community, and world. As a long-time supporter of their work, I was so pleased to open the Fall issue of Teaching Tolerance Magazine to find an article featuring the role of librarians in “boosting cultural responsiveness” in schools.

In the article, Joe Hansen talks about the need for diversity in children’s literature. He cites librarian educator Jamie Naidoo and concludes what the research shows. Children and youth who never see themselves/their culture in print suffer emotionally and developmentally (20). Wisconsin school librarian Crystal Brunelle shares how she met her community’s needs for books that portray diverse cultures and are written in non-English languages. She describes the benefit of diversity to everyone in the school community.

Mr. Hansen notes: “Some librarians also take on instructional roles, working closely with teachers to incorporate culturally responsive materials into the curriculum” (22). This level of collaboration helps ensure that the diverse resources of the library are integrated into teachers’ teaching and students’ learning and are not only an add-on to core curriculum.

Classroom teacher – school/public librarian instructional partnerships can also help librarians contribute to a whole school/community culture of social justice. This helps students, educators, and families affirm the rights and responsibilities to practice cultural competence and make it central to the social and academic program of the school. (Of course, this begins with librarians’ and educators’ self-knowledge about the biases and stereotypes they hold and increasing their own cultural competence.)

Changing the perception of what librarians bring to the teaching, learning, and social justice table is also addressed in the article. This article and the accompanying toolkit is a call to action and great news for school and public librarians. I hope you will make time to read the article and use the “Check It Out! Toolkit,” which is designed to help students increase their understanding of what libraries and librarians can contribute to their learning.

Speaking of librarians in the news, on Thursday I will share my response to author Daniel Levitin’s keynote at Library Journal/School Library Journal The Digital Shift: Libraries @the Center Virtual Conference. Come back for more good news about librarianship!

Works Cited

Hansen, Joe. Check It Out!  Fall 2014. Teaching Tolerance Magazine. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. <http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-48-fall-2014/check-it-out> .

Image from Judi Moreillon’s Personal Collection

Southern Poverty Law Center. Check It Out Toolkit. Tolerance.org. Web. 6 Oct. 2014. <http://www.tolerance.org/check-it-out>.