Read Into This

Lisa Corbett hosts author and stand-up comic Michael McCreary. Michael focuses on how humour has brought light to his autism diagnosis and sharing through comedy is not only hilarious, it's an advocacy piece for neurodiversity. Learning to navigate social norms, including bullying, finding your own identity and voice, and moving out for the first time, this book has something for everyone. Highly recommended for teachers, parents and anyone who knows someone with ASD.

Check out his book:
Funny, You Don't Look Autistic: A Comedian's Guide to Life on the Spectrum
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41005592-funny-you-don-t-look-autistic?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=8P8iNdTnIC&rank=1

How does the digital fluency of teachers act on their willingness to innovate using technology? How can teachers be supported in their efforts to weave digital literacy into their teaching? In this episode, Lila talks with two Campbell River School District Media and Technology Support teachers Shannon Hagen, and Rod Beavis about how far they’ve come this year, and how we all need to lean on and learn from each other to continue to move forward. The district has only recently moved to make Teacher Librarians the technology experts in each school, so this episode gives us a lot to think about in terms of reaching our colleagues.

You can reach out to Shannon on Twitter @haggyshan and www.linkedin.com/in/shannon-hagen-21253952). You can find Lila

Lisa, Beth and Alanna crack open Teaching Tough Topics by Larry Swarz and we uncover the intersections of own voices, gaps in publishing and how much I Read Canadian day has pushed our school literature collections. The pandemic is further highlighting the inequities in our school systems. Lisa describes how tight knit communities seem to ‘make room’ for invisible diversities but have trouble with other intersections. Beth wrestles with global literature and the primary bubble of kindness, and how not until junior levels do students open themselves to topics of social justice. Alanna recalls relying as a parent on the school to talk about the tough topics in that primary level when communication is just forming.

Shoutouts to Jael Richardson, The FOLD (Festival of Literary Diversity), The Knowledge Bookstore, Wali Shah, Lorna Schultz Nicholson, and S.K. Ali

Alanna talks with Rebeca Rubio about the shift from library to learning commons and how having a teacher in the role of programming for school libraries has allowed Richmond, British Columbia to make this shift. Yet the need for ongoing innovation has also grown exponentially so the annual provision of grants for projects has both allowed for concentration on a particular area but also promoted the vision the district has for changes in collaboration, new technologies, and unfamiliar pedagogies. The most successful inquiries had indeterminate endings and only through true collaboration experienced growth.

Resources for further learning:
https://ourdistrictstory.sd38.bc.ca/our-learning/big-ideas-inquiry/libraries-are-changing
The Spiral Playbook http://c21canada.org/playbook/
https://bctladotca.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/from-school-library-to-library-learning-commons.pdf

Shoutout to Trevor Mackenzie

Rebeca Rubio reads her paper from Treasure Mountain Canada called: Innovation Grants: Supporting Professional Learning and Collaborative Inquiry in the Library Learning Commons
https://tmcanada.blogspot.com/p/tmc6-rubio.html

What does work as a public librarian look like during a pandemic? How do you change your approach to client services with almost no lead time? Lisa Noble talks with two public librarians, Erin Kernohan Berning and Karen Bisschop, (one rural, one in a small urban environment) about the challenges and victories of pivoting a public library.

Alanna speaks with elementary teacher-librarian Jennifer Brown about her contribution to Treasure Mountain Canada school library research symposium this year: a website. Jennifer starts each year asking “How can I convince more of my colleagues to collaborate with me this year?” This new website fulfills multiple purposes as an addition to Jennifer’s school virtual learning commons to: incorporate new media types as a model to staff for future lessons; promoting the library’s goals to stakeholders outside of the walls of the school; and also for the pivot in teaching required for remote learning.

Access the website here: https://tmcanada.blogspot.com/p/tmc6-brown.html

Shoutouts to Bitmoji and Tim Peterson.

Alanna speaks with teacher-librarian Jonelle St. Aubyn and Leigh Cassel, founder and Chief Curation Officer of The Digital Human Library (https://www.digitalhumanlibrary.com/). Human libraries really help unlikely relationships to occur and they bring an authenticity to the experience that might otherwise be missing from another form of reading. Whether expertise in a particular topic, or a defining life experience, Jonelle and Leigh agree that the connections made with their human libraries are great catalysts for student inquiry from K - 12.

Shoutouts to the Geneva model of Human Library https://humanlibrary.org/, Royal Tyrrell Museum, 49th Shelf and Burt Bacharach.

If you liked this episode, check out our earlier podcasts with Jonelle:
Episode 4a: Jonelle’s paper about her experience creating a human library https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/ep-04a-title-paper-the-human-library-at-the-louise-arbour-secondary-school-library-learning-commons/
Episode 4b: Our interview with Jonelle about the experience
https://voiced.ca/podcast_episode_post/ep-04b-interview-read-into-making-a-human-library-with-jonelle-st-aubyn/

Beth talks with Trevor MacKenzie (author of Dive Into Inquiry, Inquiry Mindset) about how we honour our students as readers in schools. Whether that’s acknowledging the pace at which readers read, the note-taking style or the genre, recognizing the importance of leaning into our own beliefs about what reading is and why we read when we are working with students. Trevor shares about his routine of reading many books at the same time, voraciously reading many different forms of text to improve himself as both an educator and a person. The main theme that runs through the discussion looks at how teaching and learning from an inquiry stance has transformed reading habits and the mindshift towards empathy and equity that both Trevor and Beth hope comes from our current emergency distance learning situation.

Shoutouts to The Self-Driven Child, The Merchant of Venice, The Hobbit, Into the Wild, Seven Fallen Feathers, and Two Frogs.

Alanna talks with Greg about trying to grow a culture of cross-curricular collaboration in the school library through Phenomenon Based Learning. Now that Greg is teaching with Nipissing University he carries his learning through to the pre-service teachers there. Lots of great strategies for taking creative risks and deepening inquiry in this episode.