Support Indigenous Literacy in NT schools by staffing them with TLs

It can’t hurt Indigenous Literacy Day that they have the Prime Minister’s wife as a patron.  I wonder if she knows how poorly off school libraries are in the NT?

95% of NT schools have NO school librarians!  which may go a long way towards explaining illiteracy.

Most schools in the NT have budget of less than $1000 per year for their libraries.

School library collections in NT remote schools (the majority) do not have a large range of resources often used to develop pre-reading skills such as  big books, games, puzzles, posters and charts. Students in these schools do not have access to magazines, maps,  or newspapers which are especially useful for reluctant readers (often boys) and teenage readers.

Nearly half the schools in the NT do not have access to traditional learning technologies such as videos, DVDs, CDs and CD-ROMs.

So is it any wonder that we must try to do something to help indigenous students to learn to read?

Our own local teacher librarians group did its bit by purchasing donated books of local children’s literature reviewer, Dr. Kerry White (The Source).  The book sale that kicked off at the Illawarra School Librarians Association meeting on 2 July at Wollongong Public School finished with almost $2000 raised for the Indigenous Literacy Project, http://www.worldwithoutbooks.org/.

We can also help by supporting our colleagues in the NT in lobbying federal members regarding staffing and resourcing of school libraries there.  They have written to their local minister of education:

The Australian School Libraries Association: Northern Territory Branch (ASLA NT) wishes to bring to your attention the growing trend towards the removal of teacher librarian positions in many schools in the Northern Territory.  We are very concerned about the negative impact this trend will have on student learning.

Let’s support them with a message to our local federal members to let them know there are many ways we can support indigenous literacy. The most significant one would be by resourcing quality school libraries staffed by certified teacher librarians.

Tell them that studies in the US, Canada, Australia and the UK have provided strong evidence that school libraries with certified teacher librarians can have a positive impact on student literacy and learning (Jones 2007, Lance 2000, 2002, etc., Small 2008, Todd 2003, and others). These are some of the findings: Student reading scores increase. Students read more. Students say they enjoy reading more. Students are provided with “materials that present more diverse points of view and that better support the curriculum.” Students score higher in (US) English Language Arts tests. Students have increased cultural identity. Collections of print and digital resources to support teaching and learning are more dynamic. Students value teacher librarians as teachers, when they are helped to become independent critical information seekers. (Further reading at http://hubinfo.wordpress.com/background/research/)

Indigenous Literacy Day?

A good day to write a letter!!  Perhaps project manager, Karen Williams  karen@indigenousliteracyproject.org.au would also forward a letter to patron Therese Rein (I don’t suppose anyone would have her email address?).  Perhaps Ms Rein could gain someone’s ear to support our colleagues in the Northern Territory in making sure every school has a well-resourced library and a teacher librarian to support indigenous literacy.

Cheers,

Georgia

Let’s say it again

Has mid-winter malaise set in with you too? Hard to take myself away from a good book in front of the fire, until I rouse myself to remember every Australian child needs a good book too!  And someone to recommend it.

So let’s say it again.

We need to let politicians and the public know how inequitable school library services are in Australia, whether we have nice new BER “infrastructure” buildings or not.

Northern Territory remote schools have no teacher librarians (TLs). Western Australian primary schools have no TLs appointed. Victoria and the ACT count TLs as part of teaching staff, may or may not have a teacher deployed in the library and do not require that teacher to be a teacher librarian.  Probably one in ten public primary schools in Victoria have TLs and more and more secondary teacher librarians are being replaced by less expensive librarian options.

An Australian Education Union survey of South Australian government school library staffing in 2001 found that “a third of all schools are understaffed and/or staffed with unqualified personnel” (Spence 2002). South Australian teacher librarian positions are under further threat in current enterprise agreement negotiations. Even in Tasmania and Queensland, principals are being forced by inadequate staffing budgets to downgrade staff in school libraries, often to clerical positions.

It’s not good enough.

Meanwhile, since the early 1970s, NSW primary schools have been staffed with trained teacher librarians.  While too often used for teacher relief planning time (and therefore unable to easily plan collaborative teaching themselves), they nevertheless are professionally trained in collection management, literacy support, leadership, collaborative teaching and other unique whole school skills.

If we are talking about equity, if we are talking about improving literacy and information literacy, if we are talking about authentic, resource-based learning and quality teaching, we must agree that ALL Australian students deserve professional school library services managed by professionally trained teacher librarians.

Write to your federal and state representatives now. Write to your national and state parent associations. Write to your national and state teacher unions. Write to your capital city and local newspapers. Pass this message on to your friends, colleagues and decision makers now.

And don’t be fobbed off by federal members who say it’s the state’s responsibility.  In the past, immense measures were made federally to improve Australian school libraries. In the present, here are some questions to ask your local federal member.

What can and will the federal government do:

• to assess the current quality of all school library staffing, funding, and scheduling?
• to tie funding so that states can and must adequately staff and fund school library programs and services?
• to ensure inclusion of the role of teacher librarians in all literacy, information literacy and quality teaching and learning policies and documents?
• to develop national school library standards?
• to increase teacher librarian training positions in university programs?
• to include an understanding of the collaborative role of teacher librarians in preservice teacher training?

Ask direct questions, until you get direct answers.

Now to copy and paste a few letters, and get back to my good book.  Lucky me.  I always had a good school librarian.

georgia

A Timely Letter

Sometimes the response from a politician is more than just a form letter!  Barbara Braxton’s letter to her ACT Chief Minister and Minister for Education has been referred to the review panel which is right now looking at the employment of teacher librarians.

As the ACT Minister for Education stated,

While I certainly share your view that qualified teacher librarians contribute considerably to the delivery of high quality teaching and learning opportunities for students, the continued shortage of suitably qualified staff is an impediment in recent times has made this difficult to achieve across all ACT public schools. 

The Department of Education and Training is currently conducting a review of employment arrangements for teacher librarians which is due to be completed later [this] year. I have asked that a copy of your letter be provided to the review panel and that the key issues of recruitment and training be addressed as part of the review.

Thank you for raising this issue with me.

The complete letter and its response can be found here.

You never know what taking that few minutes to write a letter might result in.  If each of us wrote such a letter, to federal and state members, what new thinking, and changes, might be initiated!

Letters to editors

Well done to hubber Kerry for this letter to the editor in the Brisbane Courier Mail, who kindly added a photo for emphasis.  Click here to see. 

Have you written to your local paper lately?  Well, what are you waiting for?  Let us know if you are successful and we will add it to the “advocacy in the media” page.

Yet another perspective on reading

Thanks to Nella for not only sending a letter to Julia Gillard, but also sharing it with us all. The issue of reading during school holiday times also highlights the importance of reading. I admit  I was unaware of the Summer Reading Program, and am happy to be able promote it here. Click here  for Nella’s letter.

“Many studies have shown that, during school holidays, especially during the long summer holidays, children lose reading skills and have to spend the first two months of the year relearning skills they had prior to the holidays.  In homes that do not have a reading culture or strong parental literacy skills, this produces a significant loss of literacy skills.”
Also check out the website for the Summer Reading Club.  Read what superpowers our Australian authors would like to possess! I have to get off the computer now, my 7 year old daughter is getting desperate to explore their activities for kids.

Further reading

We’ve been getting some traffic via a mention on the State Library of Victoria’s youth literature blog, so I thought I would return the favour. Some interesting snippets are to be found there.

Speaking of traffic, it’s certainly been busy here.  We’ve had over 1,000 page views this week,  so it’s surprising that we are not even half way to our target of 100 letters to Julia Gillard by the end of the week.  Have you sent a letter yet? Here’s a recap.

1. Read this brilliant article.

2. Send an email to our federal education minister, Julia Gillard, making sure to include this link to the article. 

 http://www.theage.com.au/news/opinion/how-to-help-our-young-enjoy-reading/2008/01/11/1199988585644.html?page=fullpage#contentSwap1

Include a short note about why this is important for you, your school, your students, your own children.

3. Send us a message to let us know you have completed step 2.

There, that’s not so hard, is it?

Letter to the editor of SMH

Congratulations to Sharon McGuinness for her brilliant letter that appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.  You can read a copy of the letter here.

It’s a pity that the SMH added the heading “librarians key to this plan”.  Perhaps they should get a few more emails pointing out that Sharon actually wrote of TEACHER librarians, which is not quite the same thing.

Send your letters to:

letters@smh.com.au
Fax: +61 (0)2 9282 3492
Snailmail: GPO Box 3771, Sydney 2001

All letters and email (no attachments) to the Herald must carry the sender’s home address and day and evening phone numbers for verification. Letter writers who would like receipt of their letters acknowledged should send a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Ideally, letters will be a maximum of 200 words.

We’ve got mail!

Our stats tell us we have plenty of readers, and slowly but surely, we are getting the feedback and input we were hoping for. 

Here’s a letter written by a NSW primary TL, sent to her local member this week.  We appreciate the opportunity to share it with all.

“…it is essential that more computers are supported with more resources for libraries in terms of time and wages for increased Teacher Librarian and clerical support hours or the new computers will be of no more value than slapping bandaids onto a gaping wound. “

Hubber writes brilliant letter

Resident Hubber Georgia has penned an excellent letter to her local members.  Click here to read it.  I’m sure she won’t mind if you use some or all of it yourselves.