I always enjoy attending the annual North Carolina School Library Media Association conference, getting to find out which books are popular, which trends and issues are affecting school librarians across the state and country, and networking with other school librarians. This year was no exception.
The theme was School Library Renaissance and in an era in which school funding has been so drastically cut in North Carolina and school libraries are considered by many as optional/luxurious rather than essential, the theme was not only appropriate but almost alarm-sounding. Libraries that look the same and librarians who use the same practices of 20 years ago are in danger of disappearing. Like many industries that thrived in the US decades ago using practices that are now antiquated, we have to reinvent ourselves.
Laurie Halse Anderson was the featured luncheon speaker on Friday. I looked forward to her speech as Wintergirls is one of my favorite books of all time. She talked quite a bit about censorship. I have read several of her books, many of them deal with difficult and controversial themes. The most recent, Chains and Forge, deal with slavery during the American Revolution. The third book in this trilogy, Ashes, has been downloaded to my Kindle via pre-order and is on my short list of books to get to quickly. The brutality of slavery is often glossed over as either a thing of the past, too difficult to discuss, or both.
I also got to meet Kwame Alexander, whom I have hoped to meet in person ever since I read Crossover. My library has three copies of Crossover and Booked, and I cannot keep them on the shelves; they resonate so well with kids who enjoy sports and hip-hop style poetry. Getting a selfie with him may have been the highlight of my weekend.
In addition to the author sessions and speaker inspiration, I always go to the conference for ideas. How can I get out of the rut of "students research this topic using the encyclopedia and Ducksters, students listen to this book and then write about it" and branch out into something fun and creative? Guided inquiry is being promoted in my district, and the idea of having students come away from a topic with "three facts and a question" to share out might get them to take more ownership. Green screen presentations through an iPad app can be used for e-travel to habitats, readers' theater and other story retelling. The Chatterpix app was fun to clown around with (I gave a basketball a mouth and had it say "I am a basketball, I look forward to being in the hands of a man named Kemba Walker so I can be shot through a net") and the presenter said that she uses it to give her cat a mouth and have him sing Christmas carols (uh-oh, look out, anyone getting holiday cards from me, although my cats would say "Jingle Bells, what's wrong with you, there's no food in my bowl") but it can also be used for K-2 kids to retell stories.
I did two sessions on Makerspace ideas and got a link to another presentation; this year one of my most successful lessons has been having 2nd graders do torn paper collages in response to the book No Mirrors in My Nana's House and seeing the beauty in everything. The students were engaged and really understood the idea that beauty is abstract and subjective as well as understand one method that award-winning illustrators have used in books. I was looking for more ideas about that. One that was presented was the use of straws to make a container that would hold an egg and keep it from breaking. I did this project when I was in junior high in the mid-80s; it was a math project then. It was good to see it reinvented as a makerspace project and connected with the popular book Who Pushed Humpty Dumpty?
In one session the presenter gave the uses of a 3D printer; my reaction to 3D printers in the past had been that they were too expensive for the use and practicality. I have changed my mind after seeing it used for architectural representations and fossils.
Overall a fantastic two days, one of the best I have attended, and I have gone every year since 2012.
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