March 14, 2014: Remarks at the Association of Children’s Librarians Annual Institute
On March 14, 2014, I was invited to speak to the Association of Childen’s Librarians of Northern California at their annual Institute in the beautiful San Francisco Main Public Library.
Here’s the substance of the talk I gave. In re-arranging my address to the ACL for publication here, I decided to flip the order and put the call to action first and the reasoning behind it afterwards. Enjoy!
CALL TO ACTION: Five key ways children’s librarians can support STEAM learning and creativity/collaboration/communication/critical thinking in the classroom.
City librarians can:
- encourage math literacy by setting up a time and space for math circles (just like story hour). See this UCLA professor’s work on nurturing math circles in Los Angeles. This can be adapted for a wider range of age groups and abilities. Down with math phobia! Let’s make math puzzling and problem solving a fun family activity.
- foster hands-on learning in STEAM with well-curated tools that Makers use, patterned after the Berkeley Public Library’s Tool Lending Library (useful items could be potentiometers, PVC pipe cutters, Arduino kits, soldering irons, etc). Why should only the people who can afford to buy a potentiometer to measure voltage be able to do so, when a useful measuring tool like that could be available to anyone who needs it? A branch of the Oakland Public K-12 News Network | March 14, 2014: Remarks at the Association of Children’s Librarians Annual Institute: