My job title is Early Literacy Specialist, and I’m pretty I would neither have that job title, nor would my job even exist (in it’s present form), without Every Child Ready to Read. I discovered ECRR shortly after it was introduced in 2004 and it was, in all honesty, career-changing. I was hooked on empowering parents through 5 simple practices (or, 6 skills in the first iteration) to help their children get ready to read and fascinated by the brain science behind it. Libraries around the country, including mine, began being more intentional in their storytimes about talking to parents about how the things they were doing were helping children develop vital pre-reading skills. ECRR changed the focus of storytime from the child to the parent. Has this change in focus been effective, though? Are we having an impact? It was, then, with great pleasure that today I attended Susan Neuman’s…
Author: Mary Kuehner
Checking My Bias, Guerrilla Storytime, and Meeting My ALSC Colleagues: #PLA2016 Day 2
My second day at #PLA2016 started with an inspiring and motivating session by Verna Myers who talked about moving beyond “colorblindness” (which is not a real thing, let’s face it) and acknowledging our biases. She offered several takeaways that will keep me thinking (and talking) for a while, including: Moving from the golden rule – treat others as you’d wish to be treated – to the PLATINUM rule: treat others the way THEY want to be treated. This will mean having conversations. We each need to do a “bias inventory” and acknowledge our own biases and the cultural lens through which we view the world. If we don’t notice differences, we are in no position to MAKE a difference for those who experience challenges due to our, and other, biases. I admit I have a bias about children’s librarians. I think they’re all AWESOME and the work they do CHANGES…
Awesome Friends, Anderson Cooper, and (Adult Beverage) Storytime at #PLA2016
I love attending conferences not only for the professional development opportunities but also for the chance to meet in real life many of the amazing people I count on as my online professional network. Yesterday, #PLA2016 started off in the best way possible when I was able to meet two of those lovely and talented people – Lisa Mulvenna (see her post about her visit to the basement of my library) and Holly Stork-Post, one of my fellow Storytime Underground Joint Chiefs! Today the goodness continued with Anderson Cooper’s excellent opening session talk. I’m an early literacy librarian; I don’t read a lot of “grown-up” books. But his book – about a year of (email) conversations he had with his mom Gloria Vanderbilt about things they’d never talked about – sounds quite interesting. I’ll have to put it on hold! However, the best bit of the conference today came after the…