How Students Are Hurt By Replacing School Librarians and Libraries with Computers
There are many ways to enlarge your child’s world. Love of books is the best of all.
~Jacqueline Kennedy
Happy School Library Month to school librarians across the country! We have always known librarians and libraries provide vital support to students and teachers in our public schools. But for years school districts have let go of qualified librarians and they have closed school libraries.
This is often attributed to the growing presence of online learning. In Jacksonville, cuts to school libraries have been fierce with the idea that digital is better and schools must “evolve.”
But there is little research to show that competency-based education (digital learning) or more computer use helps students do well in school. A research study by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in 2015, indicates that students do better with less screen time not more. The report suggests that when it comes to technology “too many false hopes” have been raised. With so little, if any, research to indicate tech is better, why throw out what we know works?
Adding to this, a new report explains to us what happens when students lose their librarians and libraries. Without decent library services in their public schools, students How Students Are Hurt By Replacing School Librarians and Libraries with Computers:
