Poor Mark Hasiuk - Wrong Again!

In his most recent attack on our beleaguered Social Responsibility Team, Mark Hasiuk of The Vancouver Courier ("Vancouver school bureaucrats unleash bizarre theories on race and culture: Budget cuts spare ‘Diversity Team", April 19, 2011) tries again to target the good work being done by our respected teacher colleagues.  Their work enables many students to thrive and succeed who might otherwise not; I can think of no educator who could support Hasiuk's position.  That includes me, the district librarian he refers to in his concocted account of the removal of books.  No such thing ever happened, in a district that annually celebrates Freedom to Read Week in February, nor would it, and it is upsetting to think that there are people who, perhaps because the system didn't offer opportunities to learn to think critically about issues and the importance of corroborating evidence, might just believe him.

Here is what Suzanne Hall, District Librarian in Maple Ridge, wrote in response to one of Hasiuk's attacks on the same target:  You, sir, are remarkably misinformed! Teacher-librarian Moira Ekdahl of the Vancouver School District has clearly refuted your claims about book-banning in her blog.  This letter was published!  Here is what she is sending in response to this most recent attack:

Dear editor:

Mr. Hasiuk’s latest misinformed, misleading rant about the Diversity Team certainly proves how important their work is. Again, his column reflects a lack of background knowledge, selective hearing, and the arrogance needed to make personal attacks. Why is his reaction so personal? Since much of the Team’s work is aimed at preventing all three of those faults, I am left to wonder: feeling threatened by a broader perspective, Mr. Hasiuk?

Suzanne Hall, District Librarian
District Facilitator: Mentoring
Chair of Professional Development Committee, M.R.T.A.

My full response to his last articles was posted during Spring Break in the Reader Soapbox section online.  "Vancouver’s teacher-librarians keep books in student hands: School libraries do not ban books, have plenty of works by Dickens" (March 23, 2011).  How insulting is that to be put into the soapbox category when you want to set the record straight and are a most credible source!  Forgive me -- soapbox, did you say?

VSB TL Cecil Baird sent a letter on behalf of the VTLA that was edited and published on March 23:  Teacher librarians enjoy autonomy.  While I take this section from Cecil's longer letter, the letter clearly indicated teacher-librarians are not under any mandate to remove books!  I don't think Hasiuk gets the "autonomy" part or the need we feel to ensure all students find themselves and people like themselves fairly portrayed within accounts and images they encounter in our schools and curriculum and resources and the particular attachment teacher-librarians have for freedom of expression. The last blast took place during Freedom to Read Week.  Cecil wrote,

Teacher Librarians in Vancouver have a great deal of autonomy and defend freedom to read as a major tenet of literacy.  In my experience, there are actually few books removed from shelves, which is testament to the fact that we are getting it right. Nothing gets weeded from the fiction shelves of my school's library that doesn't contain inappropriate content, meaning works that are not sensitive to genders, sexual orientation, or cultures, or that are not damaged beyond repair .... Teacher Librarians choose materials based on a wide set of criteria including quality, appropriateness to curriculum, and reader interest.


To say more, there is a cultural aspect beyond your own worldview that must be considered when making these decisions. Thanks to the VSB team for their consultations. Nothing is mandated by them, and we defer to their expertise in cases where we are unfamiliar with the subject area ....


Cecil Baird, Co-President, Vancouver Teacher-librarians' Association

Read also Steve Mulligan's letter to the editor, Diversity Team Saves Lives (March 23).

The Vancouver Courier editor Barry Link did contact me to let me know he does include my blog address so I know that inquirying readers could find the truth if they could find the soapbox.  Some besides our own district readers actually did, as Suzanne's response would indicate.

Did I forget anything?  No, except thanks again, Team, for what you do for us and for our students.

Oh, DEAR ... and so we read!

Thank you, Minister Bond.
Education Report: 2008 October 31

and this Gold Star is also for Steve Mulligan for

drive-by readings at FIVE schools

on National School Library Day

and for his on-going attentiveness to school libraries --

Thank you, Steve, from all district TLs.

Vancouver schools took part in DEAR on October 27 National School Library Day with enthusiasm. Our Trustees and BCSSTA office staff read at 11 am, Education Minister Bond read at 11 am, colleagues at Learning Services and MLST were observed reading and eating "School Libraries: The Heart of Literacy" chocolate bars , and staff at The Vancouver Sun read too.

October 28, The Vancouver Sun:

Here's a "snapshot" of what you could have observed in our schools:

• Van Horne experienced a rare silence throughout the school
  
• Henderson featured some readers dressed as favourite storybook characters
  
• Trudeau readers with painted faces listening attentively as firefighters read to them
  
• Tillicum's “the reading train” ran down the entire central hallway, complete with whistle stops and loads of book-talking


• Mt Pleasant kicked off One Book, One Class for November and Steve Mulligan did two readings


• Weir's guest readers included Maryann Kempthorne, Angela Brown, Gary Little, Denise North, Steve Mulligan, and VPL children's librarian, Noreen Ma


• Carr students camped out and read in tents; Steve Mulligan appeared here too for a reading!
  
• Moberly invited Wally Oppal; see the picture with Wally Oppal (see blog, October 27) in the blog archives for October 27
  
• Gladstone has silent reading every morning; they read again in the afternoon and teachers were seen nibbling the same chocolate bars as were featured here in Learning Services and elsewhere (but then a student at Gladstone had designed them, so that made it okay to eat chocolate!)
  
• Tupper students got their heads into the brand new school library books
  
• Templeton stopped everything from 10:30 - 10:50 am, as agreed by Staff Committee, and it worked so well that a number of teachers will be incorporating a stop and read on a more regular basis

What's new?

Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable Hycroft Event - November 12, 6-9 pm, 1489 Macrae Avenue, just east of 16th and Granville. Light refreshments after the presentations. Street parking only.

Special Guest Kathy Stinson plus BC authors and illustrators will be presenting their
new children's books

BCTLA Forum posting by Val H this week has generated a flurry of commentary. Read: "Flip This Library: School Libraries Need a Revolution/School libraries need a revolution, not evolution," by David Loertscher in School Library Journal, 11/1/2008. The article begs the question, so how might this look?

My new Australian friend, Patricia Carmichael, whom I met at the IASL Conference, is presently working on her PhD at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales. To see how this might look read a summary of a program that offers one version of a program that incorporates the notion of "learning commons" click here and scroll down to the last summary. Consider also that our local university libraries both have Learning Commons within their campus academic library programs.

James Henri suggested revolution to us in August; we need to focus on the teachers, he said, and if we see that the learning that takes place in school libraries is integrally tied to the needs of 21st century learners, we need to find ways that it can evolve with our leadership to better support the learning styles, experiences, and interests of our educational community, including teachers and students. We need to explore ways of building our programs on the "google" concept ... if they build it (the program, the curriculum, the learning landscapes), they will use it. What we have built needs to be carefully considered for nudging along the continuum or we risk being rendered obsolete.

Remember, we are at the start of a revolution and the outcome will be uncertain and it will be stressful along the way. But we most assuredly need to ask ourselves, is what we have been doing working? Is it the best way to serve our educational communities?

Multi-vendor Display and Chapters Workshop

This year's event seemed a great success. Those of us who enjoyed Chapters/Starbucks hospitality had a great opportunity to shop in "gaggles" and hone in on the real bargain-price items, as well as hot new reads for students. Maryann's workshop provided plenty of direction for program and collection building. There were more secondary resources than last year and will be more next year too. Wednesday seemed busier than Thursday, but everyone seemed to be very focussed and deeply occupied with that most challenging part of our job, shopping!

Workshop with Judith Comfort

A few of us "secondary types" spent late Thursday afternoon at Churchill with Coquitlam TL Judith Comfort exploring the possibilities of her approach to technology integration, a strategy she calls multi-level resource-based online learning. Click here and check out some of the Teaching Activities. The group is going to try some out together ... stay tuned for how we do. And thanks, Judith, for a very interesting afternoon. We were a keen audience.

7 from Greg Smith's Social Studies "Top Ten" List

Being Victorian. Welcome to Victoria BC circa 1858-1914! Visit this great new site with an innovative format and written for Social Studies

Green Learning. Comprehensive, fun and free lessons aligned to the BC curriculum and designed to help students participate in their own learning regarding today’s complex energy and environmental issues.

History of Quebec. Get to know La Belle Province a little better. This site has all the information plus great self scoring tests and tutorials.

History Wire. HW invites your perspectives, stories and opinions on the relevance of history in understanding current events, the importance of history education and much more.

Law Courts Education travels BC. The Law Courts Education Society of BC will hold 6 regional law workshops for teachers in early 2009. Kelowna, Prince George, Surrey, Coquitlam, Vancouver and Victoria. Contact Marylou Leung at marylou.leung@lawcourtsed.ca or call 604-660-9874 to attend.

Online Publishing for Social Studies Teachers. Check out Judith Comfort’s site on why, what and how to publish as well as a portal to other great Social Studies resources.

Women in World History. This unique site is full of information and resources to help you learn about women’s history in a global context.

OCTOBER is School Library Month

Very busy week ... but blog is done just before midnight!

Thanks to David and the Grenfell crew for the great "Let's do Lunch" session today. We ate sushi and reviewed the bevy of wonderful electronic resources that are much more readily available now that some schools have BCeSIS! Being able to work with an entire staff in this way was a real opportunity to promote teacher-librarianship as well as resources. In preparing for this workshop, I took my direction from Mary, Lorraine, Wendy, Linda ... and then phoned Sylvia at the last minute when the technology failed us. In case you didn't know, I can't believe how extremely fortunate I am to work with Vancouver TLs!

Also had a great day at the Surrey SFU campus this week where ERAC resources were the subject. Photos in the next blog ... Heather Daly from Coquitlam, our BCTLA president, and I took a quick lunch-time tour of the library of our dreams. And I wondered how many classes I would have attended at SFU Burnaby campus if the shopping mall had been two floors down by escalator. Quite the place.

One other highlight of the week was the Ministry webcast after school at Thompson. The focus on the topic of assessment for learning is both interesting and important to both teachers and teacher-librarians. The next webcast is scheduled for January.

This weekend will find me pushing to submit my summary of the IASL conference for publication in the upcoming issue of The Bookmark. I am re-writing the back-blog for publication.

Let's Celebrate in October!

There are lots of Pro D opportunities this month: check the Pro D Connections. Consider Accounting for TLs, eLibrary and Culturegrams (this week), or TL Studio. Refer TOCs to the 2-part Horizon/School Library training.

DEAR: Val H's blog offers all the materials and ideas you need to promote Drop Everything and Read on October 27 in your school. Thanks, Val.

Also, resources from the IASL for International School Library Month are available at School Libraries Online. Great posters and bookmarks, for example, and lots of ideas: As part of the celebration of International School Library Month 2008, you or your association can become members of the IASL. Why not celebrate school libraries by becoming part of a worldwide organization. Information regarding membership can be found on the IASL website (but I recommend you send a request to post-date your membership to January as presently memberships run for the calendar year).

From Rick Mulholland, a former BC teacher-librarian and currently Coordinator of the celebration for the IASL:

The ISLM (International School Library Month) committee is experimenting with ways to reach school library personnel. One way of doing this is to add another way for school library personnel to share ideas, links etc on school library celebrations in preparation for International School Library Month, the committee has started a blog. It can be accessed [here] .... As the subtitle says this is “A place for school library personnel to discuss International School Library Month. This blog is intended as a supplement to the main ISLM page.” Please contribute to this blog. Cheers, Rick.

Upcoming Events:

BCTLA PSA Conference: Mission Literacy: Teacher-librarians / Not-so-secret agents of change -- there's easy online registration and also a blog for information about the location, workshops, and related links.

Sarah Guilmant-Smith, Teacher-Librarian Helping Teacher & Curriculum Support in Surrey, has asked me to share this upcoming event with you:

Mike Eisenberg, of the "Big 6" information literacy program, is coming to Surrey's Focus Day for a day-long session on November 21, 2008. Details about registration can be accessed here at the Surrey website.

More Resources:

For great social studies links, click onto links on the BC Social Studies Teachers' Association Website .

From Linda Hof's Webbits a website to complement goals for sustainability:

Gapminder -- In London, riders on the Tube are reminded to "Mind the Gap". On this website, you are reminded to mind a variety of gaps, whether they be in income inequality or quality of health care. This website was created to promote "sustainable global development and achievement of the UN Millennium Development Goals by increased use and understanding of statistics and other information." The site offers visualizations for questions like"Which country has the best teeth in the world?" and "Who gets what: Farm subsidies." Find such information under the "Latest News" area, and also check the videos, "Gapcasts," and world charts, or use your own own set of statistical indicators to create your own Gapminder-like bubble graph. It's a powerful tool. (Internet Scout Project 1994-2006)

From Alan Zisman:
Cyberbullying: new phenomenon or the playground gone online? By jtimmer@arstechnica.com (John Timmer)

A study of Internet using teens reveals that much of the cyberbullying they experience differs from their real-world experiences only in terms of the medium. To paraphrase von Clausewitz, cyberbullying may just be childhood by other means. "The authors feel strongly that the fact that real-world bullying strongly predicts cyberbullying and the parallels in behavior both suggest that cyberbullying may not actually be a distinct phenomenon .... These findings further underscore the continuity between adolescents' social worlds in school and online."

Also there's a new edition of the VSB publication "Responding to Cyberbullying" from Learning Services; your administrator probably received a copy. This might be an item for circulating from the school's Professional Collection.

In the News:

Books for the Elementary collections from Steve Mulligan will be arriving soon. In case you didn't see it, I am including the article this week on our now-retired colleague Susan Harman. It perfectly underscores the need for the continuing work of our Diversity/Anti-homophobia consultant extraordinaire. Has he brought lunch to your school yet? Thanks, Steve, on behalf of the elementary school library programs:

---

A mother’s plea to keep her gay son from harm
PETE McMARTIN VANCOUVER SUN
The Vancouver Sun page B1
02 Oct 2008

Here we are today, 40 years after the Stonewall riots, 35 years after the American Psychiatric Association removed homosexuality from its official list of mental disorders, 30 years after Denmark became the first government to recognize civil unions...read more...

Tech Tags: The Vancouver Sun newspaper Westcoast News

_____________________

Globe & Mail (2008 August 20) Arts Funding Cut

The Tories are committed to cutting $44.8-million in spending on arts and culture by April of 2010, The Globe and Mail has learned. As criticism of recent cuts continues, ... details of several new cutbacks are emerging ....The most expensive of five new cuts approved in February was the $11.7-million Canadian Memory Fund, which gives federal agencies money to digitize collections and mount them online. Also chopped were the $3.8-million Culture.ca Web portal; the $560,000 Canadian Cultural Observatory; the $5.64-million research and development component of Canadian Culture Online; and the $2.1-million Northern Distribution Program, which distributes the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network signal to 96 Northern communities.

Funding to the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Magazine Fund will also drop by $1-million and $500,000 respectively. July brought another round of cuts, a Heritage Department spokesman said, which included the previously reported $300,000 Audio-Visual Trust, the $1.5-million Canadian Independent Film and Video Fund, the $2.5-million National Training Program for the Film and Video Sector and the $7.13-million Trade Routes, in addition to cuts and reductions totalling $3.4-million to the Stabilization Project and Capacity Building elements of the Canadian Arts and Heritage Sustainability Program.

In August, you might have heard the outcry in response to cuts to Arts funding. Have you read any Atwood lately? Here's a little not-so-light reading. Margaret Atwood's recent volley in response to Stephen Harper's cuts to the Arts has set of a firestorm of response. Here's the link to her article in The Globe and Mail (Sept 24, 20008) for your consideration. In our role as stewards of Canadian culture, there is surely cause for us to be concerned.