Photosynthesis

“Why do we do what we do?” asks a colleague over the cranking of coffee machines in the Everett Café. I flip through the numbers and think through the presentations: an estimated 1,500 events since the inception of the Gottesman Libraries’ Education Program, enhanced by introductions at professional conferences, staff meetings, and the events themselves. I remember describing the needs and interests — the “hard” and “soft” c’s (community, culture, collaboration, and celebration) of our “key constituents”– in our efforts to build a signature education program; the long train ride to SUNY LA; lesser journey to NYLA;  recent proposal to IFLA.

Mindful of the enormity of the charge within the nation’s largest and arguably best graduate school of education, I ponder the realties: tuition-laden students deserving of great, free events and activities; utilization of beautiful spaces for and by our members; extension of learning outside the regular classroom; need and desire to recognize contributions to education in all forms – verbal, written, artistic, intellectual, technological. The Education Program’s mission is conceptually simple: “inform students, faculty and staff about the latest thinking in education, in ways that engage members of the community with one another and with a broad range of educational experts – and provide understanding of work being done throughout the college.” But deeper comes the realization of this new form of learning that shapes itself in the continuing process of education – a natural, organic way of growing minds and strengthening the program.

It is, rather, process — not goal. It is how we work with others, listen, and respond. It is the excitement of a spontaneous idea for a new offering, careful planning, and gracious way in which we deliver. It is the route to learning through shared experience on common ground, right here and now, using diverse programming models –a finely blended and flexible approach to cultivate onsite and online educational opportunities.

We apply Socratic method to explore key topics in the wide field of education – offering a freestyle medium, in which answers to questions can’t be predicted, flow of dialogue, anticipated, or satisfactory answers, ensured: a highly creative model for dialogue and discussion as modes of inquiry, where meaning is constructed in the beauty of the moment, and meaning re- (or de-)constructed in pursuant conversations.

We host more formal events, “stand and deliver”, for many of our guest talks, namely the colloquiums of the academic departments. The Powerpoint tendency is more defined, yet the talks thrive, prompting study and research into highly relevant topics in education, psychology, and health. Like high school math teacher Jaime Escalante, guest speakers challenge Teachers College members to higher levels of achievement through the power of knowledge – an ambition shared by instructors of library workshops, hands-on or via coffee hour, spanning federated search engines, grant tools, communication strategies, the six word memoir, and other subjects.

Comprising readings and conversations on themes, or more lecture-like in delivery, book talks are attuned to the author’s speaking style and book content. For the music program there is diversity of style, genre, and performance space — whether cozy in the café, or more “concert-like” in the adjacent atrium. With a large foreign student body, come news stories from around the world, complemented by weekly educational displays on a variety of educational topics to further support media literacy in a casual setting.

There is a new logo and the Summer 2012 expansion of the Education Program to include multiple resources, all ambitiously home-grown: educational applications, blogs, innovative curriculums, exhibitions, and scholarly publications largely initiated by EdLab, the research, design, and development unit within the Gottesman Libraries – its work contributing to the “improvement of educational institutions today and the broader evolution and reconfiguration of future educational services.”

From concept or idea, room booking to text, we share the review of promotional pieces, plus editing and design using new templates and fresh images. To spread the word, we integrate various social networks, formal and informal, internal and external:  library newsfeed; Pressible and Vialogues; TC Message Center and daily  digest;  TC and library calendars;  websites, e-boards; departmental list servs; Facebook and Twitter; topped with Pocketknowledge, our digital archive.

If “promotion is furthering the growth of a service – not just telling people about it”,* we invite discussion of methods. I think of photosynthesis, the process in which green plants and other organisms transform light energy into chemical energy — and understand how we develop. The program (plant) channels the people (sun) to make education (food); promotion (chlorophyll) is the magical compound that grabs the people (sun) and starts the whole process.

* Kathy Dempsey, Author of The Accidental Library Marketer

Photosynthesis 2

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Enjoy them, a present, for all, shining true,

Heralding the attendees of collaborative events,

From September through December

On the calendar we went.

In the halls of great Gottesman,

With lively spirit and cheer,

We donned music, displays, a new tier

Of Socrates, films, scintillating speakers,

Cool book talks, and Vialogues’ captures.

People traveled from Germany, Canada, Washington, D.C.,

Vermont, Carolina, and even New Jersey,

Red Hook, Long Island, not to mention the United Nations,

Bringing fresh perspective, meaningful conversations.

There were talks about talking, rights for children,

Slam poetry, hip hop health, and liberal education.

A new series of movies on teachers and schools,

Posed oodles of questions, all the politics and rules,

Explored child’s play, the realm of imagination,

Infused special needs to widen our horizon.

We mashed up technology on Mondays in Russell,

Stayed current with Zuccotti,

Probed relationships and virtue.

We pondered our city,

As we scouted historic news,

For stories on Cannes, Rome,

Guggenheim, Ole Opry, to name but a few.

Books came alive with the presence of authors 

Who discoursed on diversity, Chicago arts, and many others –

Global curriculum, HIV, immigration of teens,

And the best of black experiences at two Ivy leagues.

We delved into confidence, character, philosophy in teaching,

Through seminars in innovation,

Oh, so far reaching!

Our gallant audience, seven twenty in sum,

Decked the halls to applaud

Sixty-eight events, not just one!

Violin,  cello, voice filled the air,

Guitar, bass, vibraphone rang clear up the stairs–

A remarkable range of gifted musicians,

More and more faculty, student, and staff contributions!

What a wonderful semester, stuffed like a stocking,

Merry tidings we bring, Santa is knocking!

Blue Jenny rides on, 

A Schwinn sleigh in the night,

Sprinkling crystal ideas,

In her mid-winter flight.

To the top of TC,

To the tip of one-twentieth street,

Dash away, prance away,

The Spring Program we’ll greet!

****

Related Posts

• Tipping the Hat… to the Education Program*
• One Horse Open: Fall Education Program
• Process in the Education Program
• Spring Flowers: Cultivating the Education Program
• Balance and Momentum: Spring Education Program

David Kirp makes it sound so sensible and easy, citing as a top model the Children’s Aid Society, a New York charity that provides critical services to children and their families.  Compare that with the Harlem Children’s Zone,  whose motto is “Doing whatever it takes to educate children and strengthen the community.” Some of Kirp’s ideas were scrutinized by participants, among them TC Professor Sharon Lynn Kagan,Virginia and Leonard Marx Professor of Early Childhood and Family Policy and Co-director, National Center for Children and Families, and Fiona Hollands, Adjunct Associate Professor of Education, Education Policy and Social Analysis.  Watch the film capture and read the live blog by members of EdLab to help judge for yourself if and how children can be placed before education and at the center of policy.

Referencing Our Book Talk:  Kids First, with David L. Kirp, on Tuesday, 3/22, 4-5:30pm

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What do I do?
What do I do?
This library book is 42
Years overdue.
I admit that it’s mine
But I can’t pay the fine–
Should I turn it in
Or hide it again?
What do I do?
What do I do?

Yesterday Frank Webster and I discussed something I’ve been pondering lately…what would happen if we stopped charging overdue fines? Would a flash-forward to 5 years from now reveal an abandoned library, empty of shelves and patrons, tumbleweed rolling through? Or would our stacks be full of happy, carefree patrons, free to spend their extra money in the café?

I’ve done a little research in Library Literature & Information Science Full Text , subject tag “Library Fines.” There aren’t too many articles suggesting something so radical; in fact, there’s a survey included in a December 2005 Journal of Librarianship and Information Science article that collected a majority of almost 1,000 responses from Nigerian college students indicating that an increase in library fines was a good thing. 57 percent believed higher fines would “instill discipline” and 39 percent said it would “make library books available and accessible,” while a low 13 percent felt that high fines would discourage patrons from using the library. A February 2007 School Library Journal article proposed alternatives to fines for kids and teens. I’m not too keen on their suggestion to have kids work off their fines with duties like cleaning books, but I do like the idea of crediting $2 per hour for in-library reading marathons.

I did find one academic library mentioned where this policy has been tested. Eric Roger Green, library director at Lamar Community College, writes of his library’s success in not charging overdue fines, which he says has made patrons more likely to use the library since they’re not being “punished” with a daily penalty.

Green mentions something that would be essential at TC–we would still need to bill for replacements for long-overdue books, and I’d recommend we keep the fine system in place for reserves, laptops and recalls.

The only way to know the payoff for sure is to try it out. What’s the worse that could happen?

I'm sure it won't be this bad.