Library Service for Children in Migrant Detention Centers

So I have just come back from four weeks touring the National Parks of America. Along the way I watched my fair share of News coverage on the deaths happening along the border. The picture of the father and his daughter still makes me tear up.

I’m not proud to say that Australia’s record of detaining Children is any better. But what gave me heart was listening to the passionate Americans I met along the way who were horrified by what was going on. Who were going to be out there protesting and challenging what was happening.

This article on the provision of Library services to Children in Detention Centres will inspire you. Americans who are standing up and helping out, give me hope that change can happen.

 

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“Host bodies”

Read the interview of Florida House Speaker José Oliva as he refers to pregnant women as “Host bodies”.

He claims to be a libertarian who thinks abortion is the defining challenge of our time. I think he needs to go back and rethink his opinion of freedom of choice.

Circulating Ideas – Teen’s Mental Health

This is a great interview from Circulating Ideas and Deborah Takahashi author of Serving Teens with Mental Illness in the Library.

I really loved the idea of Mental First Aid, and I attended a session on this a few years ago when I was working on the front desk of a rural high school. I highly recommend attending a course, you will learn a lot.

Tony Stark – Marvel’s Cinematic Masterpiece

I love this post about Tony Stark – Marvel’s Cinematic Masterpiece.

Tony is flawed, just like me and you, and yet he still is capable of stepping up when he needs to. I love him as an example I can use to my own child – as they begin the voyage of teenagerhood. That we have to make mistakes, to learn from them.

Literacy First

Well I sort of fell of the blog recently, my life became exceptionally busy with additional paid work, and a new volunteer opportunity.

You see I volunteered to become a Reading Tutor at my child’s Public Primary School. It’s a school that is focusing on putting Literacy First this year. So I go in and spend a morning with students, listening to them read, and working with them building up the skills and confidence to read.  It is incredibly enriching for me, a Librarian and voracious reader. I’ve got a voracious reader as a child, (a blessing I count each and every reading session I do), who took to reading like a child who loves books. They read daily, often the first to pull up a chair at school when they arrive, pull out the one of three books they take with them, and start reading.

But the students I’m working with, don’t have the same opportunities to books as my child and I did. They exist in a world of tablets, games consoles, and mobile phones. I talk with these students about any reading they might have done, and listen to them tell me otherwise.

So when I came across this article, I was heartened to see, that turnarounds in literacy are beginning to happen. It makes me more determined to turn up each week and help out. I do believe that if we can turn more children onto the magic of reading, we will see improvement across their academic careers.

 

How will you prepare for the future?

For inspiration and ideas please go to the Zero-Waste Chef.

How to Cope With Environmental Guilt Syndrome (EGS)

A really great reminder, by the Zero-Waste Chef,  for those of us who are trying to make the world a better place, but aren’t quite living up to our own self imposed model of it.