Durf vragen te stellen
Door Lourense Das
“Denk na over professionals in de
school en neem meer onderwijsbibliothecarissen in dienst.” Dat zegt James
Henri over de onderwijsbibliotheek in
het digitale tijdperk.
James Henri is al ruim dertig jaar een van de leidende personen in de internationale wereld van het onderwijsbibliotheekwerk en heeft meer dan driehonderd publicaties op zijn
naam staan. Hij is momenteel president van IASL1 en initiator en eigenaar van yourschoollibrary.org2, een organisatie
voor online deskundigheidsbevordering. Zijn werkgebied
kent geen geografische grenzen. Tijdens zijn tour
door Europa in maart van dit jaar, was er
gelegenheid hem te interviewen.
Volgens Henri moet de traditionele visie op de mediatheek in de
school op de schop: het is niet
in de eerste plaats een fysieke plek, maar bovenal een
functie in het onderwijs.
Samen met deze visieverandering is het ook
tijd om na te denken
over nieuwe onderwijsconcepten.
Henri steekt zijn
afkeer van het fotokopieerleren, zoals
hij het zelf heeft
genoemd, niet
onder stoelen of
banken. Het onderwijs doet
28 Digitale Bibliotheek dib nummer 4, 2009
geen recht aan de verschillen tussen leerlingen, aan de diversiteit aan leerstijlen, intelligentieniveaus en behoeftes van
leerlingen. Bovendien sluit het fotokopieerleren niet aan bij de
moderne tijd waarin we geacht worden zelfstandig, efficiënt
en effectief met informatie te kunnen omgaan.
Het wordt tijd dat schoolleiders gaan nadenken over wat de rol
van informatie eigenlijk is. Wat is ons informatiebeleid binnen
de school en welke professionals kunnen dit het beste uitvoeren? Dat zijn de vragen die men zich zou moeten stellen.
Vragen stellen is sowieso belangrijker dan het krijgen van
antwoorden. Op basis van vragen is te beoordelen wat iemand weet en nog niet weet. En daarop zou het onderwijs
zich moeten richten. Maar voor vragen is binnen het fotokopieerleren weinig gelegenheid.
De toekomst van de mediatheek in het onderwijs
ligt dus in het kunnen omvormen naar het
leren en durven vragen stellen binnen
het onderwijsconcept. Op basis
daarvan moet de moderne
onderwijsmediatheek
worden vorm gegeven. Dat vraagt om
een intelligente en
innovatieve visie op
onderwijs: de mediatheek is daar een uitvloeisel van. dib
Abonnees kunnen het volledige
Engelstalige interview lezen op www.digbib.nl.
Noten
1
International Association
of School Librarianship:
www.iasl-online.org
2
www.yourschoollibrary.org
DB2009-04JamesHenri
Page 1 of 2
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“Denk na over professionals in de school en neem meer onderwijsbibliothecarissen in dienst.” Dat zegt James Henri over
de onderwijsbibliotheek in het digitale tijdperk.
Door Lourense Das
James Henri is al ruim dertig jaar een van de leidende personen in de internationale wereld van het onderwijsbibliotheekwerk en
heeft meer dan driehonderd publicaties op zijn naam staan. Hij is momenteel President van IASL en initiator en eigenaar van
yourschoollibrary.org , een organisatie voor online deskundigheidsbevordering. Zijn werkgebied kent geen geografische grenzen.
Tijdens zijn tour door Europa in maart van dit jaar, was er gelegenheid hem te interviewen.
Can you give your description of the ideal school library in the digital educational environment?
The answer to this question depends a great deal on the context of the library in the school, e.g. what the school library looks like
and the ideas of the stakeholders about the school library and more specifically about information.
China is part of the digital age and significant educational reform is underway but school libraries are not at the frontline of that
reform because information is expensive! In rural China, where I frequently work, the school library, is typically, a store room with
book shelves tightly packed with unattractive books. In the better schools, this school library will be matched by a reading room
which, typically, will also be an unattractive space filled with tables and chairs.
In other parts of the world some new schools have been designed without either of these facilities. Some unenlightened designers
seem to think that every piece of needed information can be accessed in digital form and that anyone is capable of accessing and
interpreting that information effectively and so schools don’t need a library or a school librarian. This is about as clever as the
decades ago prediction of a paperless office.
It is certainly true that in the digital world, lots of things can be done remotely, from home or from other places, so the nature of
what a school library might be, is shifting. Still, people talk about ‘going to the school library’ .
Does this imply more than digital access to networks?
I see the ideal school library as a combination of provision of access to information and enabling the making of information.
Regardless of the form of that information the school community must learn to ‘play’ with it to leverage learning.
An important issue here is what sort of role does the school community assign to information? Does the school subscribe to ’learning
for the test’ or to deep and meaningful learning that equips both students and teachers not only for today but for the challenges of
life? Does the school community want to enable learners to access different viewpoints and ideas or does information serve to
bolster the status quo?
An evolution is taking place with respect to creation of information. In this context the school library should be an open, attractive
environment where students and teachers can do the things they want to do: having fun; reading; lying on the floor; playing;
debating; accessing text, voice, video; inquire and undertake research; publish photos, movies and so on; make interviews and
presentations and where cheap and portable (handheld) devices are able to be used. Indeed libraries should be much less about
fixed technology and much more about enabling the school community to use the technology that is carried in the bag (notebook) or
in the pocket (mobile phone, blackberry etc.).
In fact the very picture we have of a school library needs to be significantly revised. We should throw out ideas of an appendage to
the main business of school and rework our image as a school inside the library. I want to find teachers living inside this space.
A good example of that was a secondary school library in Lousada (Portugal), which I visited recently; in this library teachers were
working (discussing assessment protocols) in the school library. This means that students can approach them, so besides materials
and resources there are also accessible teachers.
How does the ideal school library differ from the ideal school?
There is no difference. If a school shifts its thinking from learning to the test to learning to learn and employs inquiry pedagogies
then the major focus will be on information. Information and the learner go centre stage and teachers and teaching assume new and
more powerful roles. And in this type of environment teachers themselves must learn every week too. They must play with
information with each other and with the students.
I think the shift in school design is largely consistent with the idea of the school inside the library. You can find schools without
classrooms and without teacher offices. The divide between teacher and student is under threat. Smart people develop schools in all
sorts of places. Remember when churches were designed for look and longevity rather than for purpose. Schools don’t need to be
expensive structures. School can be a shop in a mall or a house in the neighbourhood street. Or a school can be inside a library!
Does this mean the school library as a place is going to disappear?
In one sense, yes! In my ideal school the basic building blocks of the past have been rethought. Those building blocks include:
learners arranged by age, teaching conducted in closed spaces, learning built on ‘subjects’; lack of time for teachers to learn,
teaching to the test, copy & paste, regurgitation, and learners ignored in curriculum design.
We don’t need separate classrooms and different boxes anymore. We need engagement. We can combine age groups where
students can mentor each other together; teachers can cross boundaries and work together. The most important thing is, that we
define what information means in such an environment and in order to discover that, we need risk takers. Therefore it is crucial to
invest in information policy that addresses commercial, ethical and cultural issues and start a debate. And you can see that in
another sense it’s the school that vanished and is now subsumed within a library.
What’s the most important issue in contemporary school libraries?
That depends on what part of the world you’re living in, but in general there is one significant issue and that is the staffing issue.
There are not enough qualified school librarians available and there is the issue of competencies. Important questions in this respect
are: where are school librarians coming from? Who’s training them? Are they coming from public libraries? Are they teachers or
librarians? If they are teachers, what can they add to information policy and if they are librarians, what can they contribute to
pedagogy.
Another important issue is, how many people do you need in the school library? With all the different competencies (information
specialist, web designer, technician, clerk, organizer ...etc.) that you need in the ‘school in the library’, it’s impossible to include
everything in one person. The common practice is, that when the budget in school is tight, all sorts of functions disappear.
Striking is also the fact that schools have hardly changed over the past 100 years: they still look the same. But our environment has
changed: we need a clear information policy in the school and that includes a new vision of the staffing in the school. With that in
mind and related to the new digital environment we should consider getting rid of the teachers and replacing them with school
librarians. Well, of course I don’t really mean that, do I? But I want to see a shift in what is important. A shift away from teaching a
centrally defined curriculum designed by people who think they know what children need towards a curriculum build around
individual students. Then teaching is much more about understanding the learner than it is about being a subject expert and while
many teachers are subject experts, schools also breed teachers who were experts many years ago and have been in a coma for too
long!
Teaching and learning is very important in your vision on the school library and in your workshops and presentations you describe
the ‘photocopy learning’’ – concept; can you explain what you mean by that and why photocopy learning does not foster a healthy
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DB2009-04JamesHenri
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school library?
Photocopy learning is learning something by heart for an assessment test, or, worse still, just offering up what someone else has
done as your own. Photocopiers have their place but no one actually believes that the photocopier has understanding! Memorizing
does not involve understanding. Someone who really understands, knows how much he doesn’t know. Someone who understands
can apply that understanding to new and difficult situations.
The answers to difficult questions are not always nice: they can be difficult and messy. In order to know, we need questions, not
answers. Building understanding includes communication, listening, arguing, discussing.
How does this relate to the development of competent information users?
Competent information users are skilful in asking questions. Asking questions, reveals what you don’t know. Answers don’t do much;
the more questions you ask, the more you will learn.
The point is, are schools equipped to gather information, to ask questions? Are they capable to educate pupils to judge information,
to define criteria and do schools know how much guidance children and youngsters need in this process?
Currently schooling is mostly about mapping the content of the curriculum, not about learning. To implement this kind of learning in
schools, we need information competent teachers. The problem is that most adults are not information competent and that includes
teachers.
You are very critical towards schools and the current education policy. If you were asked to give one single but crucial advice to
school leaders and principals on the development of effective school libraries, what would that be?
I would demand that principals be information literate.
Invite the principal to think about when and how information is being used; what does it mean in education. Don’t look at the school
library, but concentrate on information. The next thing is to let him think about the services he needs for the implementation of an
information policy in the school. How are students and teachers being informed; what are the products that are being used? How is
he accessing information himself? What are the opportunities for the students? Develop an awareness that information is the oxygen
for learning in the school.
A principal who is information literate links information to learning and will automatically work towards an effective school library. If
the principal is enlightened he can start thinking about the role of the librarian. The tools are changing rapidly; the constant factor is
information. The library is not just a place but an environment for problem solving, developing thinking skills and evaluation skills.
The enlightened principal understands that information is not a thing, but an understanding. It is a process, it is what we do, it is to
learn how to live, to grow and ask questions and verify stuff. The key element of learning is the opportunity to experiment in the
process of life. Content is just one opportunity. The way to prove this is to provide him with all sorts of opportunities to use
information. You have to educate your principal and show him information is more than a product. Let him discover information and
find out if he can analyse and scaffold it.
Principals usually make decisions related to learning and the school library based on the lack of skills about how to use information.
In fact he is a photocopy learner himself and the only way to change that is to show him, to make him aware.
The smart principal involves the school librarian in school decision making and in information policy making and does not lock the
school librarian in the library. The information literate principal could build the school within the library!
Noten
1 International Association of School Librarianship http://www.iasl-online.org
2 http://www.yourschoollibrary.org
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