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The Newsletter of the Learning Round Table of the American Library Association
September 2019 “School ends, but education doesn’t.” Volume 36, Number 1
LearningExchange
New ideas to share? Send your articles to the editor at
[email protected] Continued as IDEAL on Page 5
Navigating the big questions:Learning tools for change at IDEAL ‘19
Allison Porch Marketing Coordinator, Carol Stream Public Library
The best advice my mother ever gave me was, “You don’t know until you ask.” Now that I’m grown up, I live by the idea that it’s better to boldly ask a question, even if the answer is unsatisfactory, than to remain in the dark. For the four years I’ve been working as a marketing coordinator in a suburban public library, some questions have been brewing: When I am speaking for the library, how does my personal perspective create barriers to communicating with this community? The community I serve is made up of over 30% people of color. About 33% speak a language other than English at home. Almost 10% of this community left high school before graduating, and 9% live with a disability. What am I--as a white, middle-aged, graduate-degree-holding, able-bodied woman--missing when I speak to this community?
With the objective of shining some light on these awfully large questions, I applied for and won this year’s Pat
Carterette Professional Development Grant to attend the Advancing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility in Libraries and Archives (IDEAL) Conference in Columbus, Ohio, at the beginning of August. Library workers are famous for their love of questions, so it’s maybe no surprise that I went to a conference with a few questions and left Columbus with a list of new considerations.
For example: We like to say that “libraries are for everyone,” but the experiences of minority groups tell us otherwise.
2 LearningExchange September 2019
The LearningExchange is the official publication of theLearning Round Table (LearnRT) of the American Library Association.
It is distributed free to members of LearnRT and is published quarterly in September, December, March, and June.
Editor: Colleen Hooks
LearnRT Officers:President: Cheryl WrightVice President: Kimberly Brown-HardenSecretary: Lindsay O’NeillTreasurer: Cassandra Collucci
ALA Staff Liaison: Danielle Ponton
Web site: http://www.ala.org/learnrt
Subscription rates:4 issues per year
U.S. and Canada:$25 a year.
Outside the U.S. and Canada:$30 a year.
SUBSCRIPTION questions (e.g. missing issues, address changes) should be sent to:
Danielle PontonALA/LearnRT50 E. Huron StreetChicago, IL 60611Fax: 312-280-3256
CONTENT questionsshould be sent to:
LearningExchange Editor [email protected]
GENERAL questions about LearnRT should be sent to:
PRESIDENTCheryl Wright (2019 - 2020)Indianapolis Public [email protected] VICE-PRES./PRES. ELECTKimberly Brown-Harden (2019 - 2020)
Indianapolis Public [email protected]
SECRETARY Lindsay O’Neill (2018 - 2020)California State University - [email protected]
TREASURER Cassandra Collucci (2019 - 2021)Somerset County Library [email protected]
IMMEDIATE PAST PRESIDENTAngela Glowcheski (2019 - 2020)Sequoyah Regional Library [email protected]
PAST PRESIDENTDustin Fife (2019 - 2020)Western State Colorado [email protected]
BOARD MEMBERSKatherine Kimball Adelberg (2018 - 2020) Texas State Library and Archives Commission [email protected] Maisha Duncan Carey (2019 - 2021)
University of Delaware Library, Museums, and [email protected]
Betha Gutsche (2018 - 2020)OCLC/[email protected] Patrick Hoecherl (2019 - 2021)Salt Lake City Public [email protected] Tracey Letmate (2018 - 2020)Multnomah County [email protected]
Natalie Starosta (2019 - 2021)North Riverside Public Library [email protected] Newsletter Editor (Ex Officio)Colleen HooksOrange County Library [email protected]
LearnRT HandbookDid you know that LearnRT has a handbook, outlining LearnRT projects, roles and responsibilities of board officers, committee chairs, and other pertinent planning information? You can find the handbook on the LearnRT ALA site, http://www.ala.org/rt/learnrt and then selecting the Handbook Committee. This is an incredible tool that several of our members worked very hard on. It makes serving on a committee or on the board a little bit easier, and helps to provide continuity of leadership.
LearningExchange September 2019 3
President’s MessageCheryl Wright, LearnRT President
ALA Annual 2019 is in the books and it was a successful conference for the Learning Round Table. Our pre-conference, Diversity and Inclusion Unconference was a great success, with over 40 attendees learning how to host an unconference revolving around the topic of Diversity and Inclusion. There were lots of great ideas that blossomed out of this session and hopefully the attendees have now learned how to pull off their own unconferences.
Our Chair’s Program, Implementing Equity and Diversity Training was a panel discussion with fellow library leaders and trainers. They discussed how they have introduced equity and diversity training to their employees. With over 100 attendees, this was once again a great sharing of ideas and information. There was also a lot of networking happening!
Part of the mission of the Learning Round Table is to serve as your SOURCE for staff development, continuing education assistance, publications, materials, training and activities.
You can learn more about the Learning Round Table on our website at http://www.ala.org/rt/learnrt or through ALA Connect. Our Facebook page is https://www.facebook.com/ALALearning/.
The members of the Learning Round Table are looking ahead to see what is on the horizon for our profession, and also staying current with what the training community is currently tackling. This helps us to develop publications, training, activities, and education assistance that will support your training needs.
How can you benefit from LearnRT? Visit our website and Facebook page, see what we are doing. Network with other trainers through our list serv or ALA Connect.
LearnRT Listserv: subscribe and manage settings by visiting lists.ala.org ALA Connect: If you’re a LearnRT member you are automatically a member of the LearnRT group on ALA Connect. Log in and turn your notifications on to receive updates and notifications.
I have found this group to be welcoming and helpful. You can get involved at any level you wish – jump in with both feet, or just receive the information that is distributed and move on from there. However you wish to interact is okay –just know we are here to help in any way needed and if you like to get involved, we have many ways to help you accomplish that goal.
Thanks for a great conference and let’s remember to learn something new every day! ▪
4 LearningExchange September 2019
Libraries SupportingMath Literacy
The way we think and talk about math impacts how future generations interact with it. Mathematics permeates every aspect of our lives and is necessary to accomplish basic tasks such as understanding statistics, managing money, or figuring out store discounts. Dictionary.com defines mathematics as, “the systematic treatment of magnitude, relationships between figures and forms, and relations between quantities expressed symbolically”, but really, mathematics is much more than that. Math allows humans to express interpretations of the changing world around them visually and symbolically. Math tells a story and is inextricably linked to literacy, which is why librarians should be working with patrons on math literacy.
Mathematics has a complex relationship with humanity. To begin with, Quarksto Quasars points out on their weblog Futurism that, “mathematics does not have a clearly defined, universally accepted definition. However it is safe to say that anything that studies the interaction between quantities, variables, structure, and change, is mathematics. Mathematics is not a tangible thing, but actually an abstract concept…This is because
mathematics is the expression and quantification of basic logical concepts, and then it builds on those logical concepts to form increasingly complex concepts.” This ability to describe the interactions of the universe via mathematics leads many experts to argue that A. math is a language and B. math is the only human constant through civilizations, cultures, and time. Neil deGrasse Tyson states, “Math is the language of the universe. So the more equations you know, the more you can converse with the cosmos.” The ability to converse with the universe, other cultures, and/or alien life forms requires patrons to have math literacy skills. “Mathematical literacy is an individual’s capacity to identify and understand the role that mathematics plays in the world, to make well-founded judgments,
Nadine KramarzReference Librarian
Lee County Library System, Fort Myers Regional Library
Continued as Math Literacy on Page 6
LearningExchange September 2019 5
IDEAL continued from front page
What are the ways in which people who come to a public library translate, hide, change, or diminish their lived experiences in order to “fit in” with the library’s established culture? How does the Dewey Decimal System codify inequality? How does bias, on the part of both the publishing industry and the librarian, affect the kind of materials we offer? If the demographics of a library’s staff and board of trustees aren’t reflective of the community, how does that impact patrons? How does a library’s physical space reflect the dominant culture, and how might that make people in minority groups uncomfortable in that space? What groups are overlooked when planning outreach and community engagement? Obviously, these questions are big picture, but big pictures start with small strokes.
Luckily, the conference introduced me to a whole ecosystem of folks both in and out of the library community who are creating tools to enable all of us to explore these questions and change our own little corners of the world.
Here are some examples:
● Kimberlé Crenshaw, an esteemed legal scholar, spoke about the origins of intersectionality, a term she coined in 1989. Whether you are familiar with the term or not, I highly recommend her TED Talk.
● August 2019 marked the 400th anniversary of the arrival of the first enslaved Africans in Virginia. Nikole Hannah-Jones, an award-winning
journalist and MacArthur Genius Grant recipient, spoke about the importance of confronting the true depth and impact of the United States’ reliance on slavery for nearly 250 years. For an introduction to her work exploring racial segregation in schools, here’s an interview she did with NPR’s Terry Gross back in 2017. ● Anyone who’s engaged in social justice work should learn the Communication Recovery Model, a step-by-step process for learning how to receive feedback and recover and learn from verbal missteps. If everyone learned and practiced this, the world would change!
● Two librarians from Iowa State University shared how to facilitate staff book discussions on social justice topics and spur discussions that could lead to a positive impact for patrons. What better way to engage library staff than with a book club? Brilliant!
● And, putting it all together, the authors of Diversity and Inclusion in Libraries: A Call to Action and Strategies for Success discussed their new book. I’ve got a hold on a copy, and I can’t wait to get it. I recommend this conference for anyone in the library world who has an interest in making “libraries are for everyone” their mission statement. I am so grateful to the members of LearnRT for providing me with the opportunity to ask the big questions in hopes of illuminating the answers together. ▪
6 LearningExchange September 2019
Math Literacy continued from page 4
and to engage in mathematics in ways that meet the needs of that individual’s current and future life as a constructive, concerned and reflective citizen (OECD 1999).
Math literacy, like basic literacy, is necessary in order to meet that individual’s needs, make good judgments, and be a good citizen. In the United States of America, we have a math literacy problem. According to the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), in 2017, “29 percent of U.S. students did not meet the test’s baseline proficiency for math.” Data gathered by Pew Research shows U.S. students consistently falling below the 50th percentile in math. A key reason for this disparity is that educators do not teach math literacy skills. According to Professor Po-Shen Loh at Carnegie Mellon, “math is a language that builds upon itself, and not understanding the foundations of math is like not understanding the roots and structure of a language.”
Viewing mathematics as a way to communicate information provides a completely different framework for how students should learn math concepts. Recognizing the library’s role in promoting math literacy builds up patrons’ basic literacies skills. Consider this revolutionary literacy approach from the Concourse Village Elementary School in the Bronx. This elementary school suffered
from low math literacy and basic literacy skills. In order to address this issue, teachers fused math and basic literacy in order to cement both skill sets. By using narration to map out problems, teachers build reading comprehension. By making their thinking visible, students are able to make observations, problem solve, and ask, what do I know and how can I use it to get the information that I need? This approach to math moves away from rote memorization and moves learners towards abstract concepts that build math literacy.
Libraries should embrace math literacy as another form of literacy that libraries can use to build basic literacy and information literacy. Libraries can support math literacy through stories, such as The Doorbell Rang by Pat Hutchins or Flatland by Edwin Abbott Abbott or by incorporating math and logic problems into programs. Talking about math as a tool of communication instead of as a set way of answering questions empowers students to recognize math, not as the result of a predetermined equation, but as a way to see and talk about the world. ▪
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