Category: Ponderings

Wikipedia-shaming – article by Dr Joyce Valenza

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Friday afternoon, low energy, flicking through my inbox cleaning things up. Behold! The School Library Journal digest email – the Wikipedia-shaming line catches my eye.

Dr Joyce Valenza (all around legend in the teacher librarian world and lovely person to have dinner with at EduTech in Brisbane 2014) has written an article about student perceptions of Wikipedia. This has come out of research she is currently pursuing regarding “students’ information choices” (see the article for details).

One of the things I found most fascinating in this article was the graph comparing helpfulness and “citability” against age of the student. Generally speaking these two qualities were inversely proportional, ie the more helpful Wikipedia was, the less likely students were to use it as a reference. The other key point for me was that as students moved higher up the educational ladder Wikipedia became more valuable.
The quotes from the older student participants make it clear that they understand the strengths of Wikipedia very well – it can be great introduction to complex topics, clearly structured, very current and with comprehensive reference lists linking to online sources. The barrier is established attitudes to Wikipedia as a source, which Dr Valenza characterises as a negative judgement of Wikipedia’s brand, whereas a more useful approach would be consideration of the quality of each specific article based on authority, currency, relevance and references.

I am left with some questions – what would my colleagues think of students using Wikipedia? Should they suggest it as an introduction to new topics and a source of references? Should it be used as a lesson in determining reliability of content? In fact it occurs to me that it is probably easier to find references for information in Wikipedia than in many other online sources! Should it be equated with traditional encyclopedias – again giving credibility to the information if adequate cross-checking is evident?

A very interesting article, I am glad I came across it and may well see what reactions I can stir up amongst my teaching colleagues by sharing the findings!

 

Over-correcting?

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I just read an article from the Guardian about YA novels and the effect on authors and publishing of social-media backlash events…

I’m left wondering how it would ever be possible to please all the people – one of the examples was where an author was pressured to change or remove their book because it contained a racist character. (Disclaimer: I have not read the book in question) What I am wondering is whether the point of that character was to illustrate what racism is and how it affects people, including targets, bystanders and perpetrators. I’m not sure how it would be possible to reveal the effects that racism has on a person without having a racist character in the mix somewhere.

I’m also fairly horrified at the tales of online trolling, abuse and death threats targeting authors who have written something that someone else feels is not sensitive enough towards a marginalised group. The use of social media to mob someone is always unpleasant, but I don’t think it solves anything. Another writer noted that rather than being on the attack, these moments of disagreement should be an opportunity for “constructive dialogue”, and I couldn’t agree more. If reading books is supposed to be a way to walk in another person’s shoes, then talking about our different styles and preferences would be a great way to further enrich our shared understandings.

It’s all about your attitude

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I came across this blog post last week. The author Jeff is writing about someone else who inspired him with the suggestion that so much of the issues in our schools could be prevented or reduced if everyone started with The Golden Rule – treat others as you wish to be treated. So that student who you find incredibly irritating because they are forever asking the same question 5 minutes after you explained it to everyone else – if you were in their shoes, you would want to be treated with patience and respect, so rein in the growls of frustration and be your best self.

Jeff also notes that to grow beyond the most basic application is to recognise that we are not all the same – sometimes people would prefer a different approach than we ourselves like, so perhaps should we go that one step further and “twist the Golden Rule just a bit, moving from treating others as we would want to be treated to treating others as they would want to be treated”.

This is a thought-provoker for me – how do I treat my colleagues? My students? My family? Am I behaving they way I would want others to act towards me? Time for some self-reflection.

Justified censorship or overly sensitive?

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There’s been a great discussion on the Tassie school library listserv this week regarding the book “Six White Boomers” and whether, in light of Rolf Harris’s recent incarceration for sexually abusing a number of young girls, this book should be removed from the shelves.

Wow, this is tricky. There is no excuse, ever, for abusing children. (Or adults for that matter).

But.

Puzzle

Do we judge each book and resource in the Library by the personal lives of each person involved in its creation? At what point should external factors determine the inclusion or exclusion of an item? Secondary students studying the events of the 20th century read speeches by Hitler and other war criminals. I remember the furore when evidence was presented against Lance Armstrong, and some particularly clever responses reclassified his various biographies as fiction. Similarly the book “Three cups of tea” has since been proven to be more of an idealised parallel universe than a factual recount of Greg Mortenson’s charity work in Afghanistan.  In contemporary biographical works I find it difficult to locate titles concerning great sportsmen which are suitable for a primary school readership – many recent publications are too revealing of the warts-and-all details to be appropriate for younger readers. Thus the book content is the key factor in disqualifying these titles – give me some which skilfully skate past those more adult troubles and I will joyfully purchase them for my shelves!

It seems to me, then, that my key criteria is what is appropriate for my students to encounter first-hand. Our youngest readers, who most enjoy “Six White Boomers”, are not likely to have unrestricted or unsupervised access to the internet to search for and find distressing details of Rolf’s disgrace, therefore I see no harm in keeping one of the few fun, Australian Christmas songs that do not rely on out-dated outback imagery and Strine. If we were looking at a book for older readers, such as Year 6, and searching for the author were to result in a great deal of information/pictures that would be inappropriate and upsetting for that age group, then I would certainly think long and hard about whether that specific title should be purchased.

Improving the way we praise

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“Sweet words are like honey, a little may refresh, but too much gluts the stomach.” Anne Bradstreet

I stumbled across this article about giving the kind of praise that promotes healthy self-esteem rather than narcissistic views of self and abilities. That click led to some other articles on the same topic, looking at Praise vs Feedback, Praise for Girls, and another referencing the excellent Verizon video showing how conservative views of what girls should and shouldn’t do can deter them from tackling things like science and engineering.

I work in a boys’ school, so in my professional life the girl-focussed articles are less directly relevant, but the core message is still important: we must take care to show children with our words and actions that we value their efforts.

Things I am taking from this reading on a dreary Friday afternoon:

  • from the work of Carol Dweck: praise the process eg “I can see that you have worked really hard to write this story/ improve your piano playing/ latest achievement of any kind”
  • give the child your time and undivided attention: it proves that you value their actions (this is pretty hard in a class of 25 students when at least 5 of them are asking for help at any given moment)
  • superficiality and throw-away comments do more harm than good

More than anything else this feels like something that has to be an attitudinal shift for teachers (and parents), because it requires real effort to slow down and focus on one thing long enough to find that meaningful connection. In some areas that comes more easily than others – in conversations with my students about books they have enjoyed, it is easy to relax into a discussion about likes and interests, not least because that is likely to be a one-on-one or small group discussion. Finding times within a frantically busy lesson to pause beside someone and let them know that you saw their thinking and correction of their own spelling mistakes (for instance) is a lot harder.

And this weekend I will be listening to the way I talk to my daughters and son, looking for ways to give them the kind of feedback that shows I value them as young people who are growing into confident, capable individuals whom I will support in whatever direction they choose to travel.

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