By Gabrielle Ahuliʻi Ferreira Holt
In 2023, it is almost impossible to escape some form of the “culture wars” being waged in the “battle grounds” of classrooms and libraries. There are book challenges and bans, vocal opposition to school curricula, and the ever looming threats of misinformation and disinformation. Solutions to these problems are evasive; they cannot be addressed with a single-pronged approach. It will take the support and mobilization of an entire network–our network of progressive educators around the world “harnessing the dynamic power of progressive practice for the next generation of students, schools, and democracy” (PEN, 2023). An essential element of this network are our school librarians and the best practices of 21st-century librarianship, which are deeply rooted in a progressive philosophy and pedagogy.
In a progressive school, a library cannot simply exist as a repository of books, and a librarian is not solely the caretaker of those books. On the contrary, the library and the school librarian are dynamic and instrumental components of all teaching and learning at the school. The progressive school library is a space where democratic and progressive concepts are taught, promoted, and reinforced. The progressive school librarian is a teacher-librarian–a champion of free speech and information literacy, as well as a steward of the library space, facilitating community life in the democratic commons. The librarian ensures that the library exists as two interconnected, and complementary pieces; as an institution that provides a critical space central to all school life, and as a home for the thoughtfully crafted library program.
To illustrate this assertion, I invite you into my library at Hanahauʻoli School, a space in which all belong, and where I passionately facilitate a dynamic and progressive education program. I hope you will be inspired to utilize your progressive school’s library in similar ways, allowing the library to serve an instrumental role in your students’ lives.
The Library As A Progressive Education Institution: The Physical Space
At Hanahauʻoli School, the library is a democratic and inclusive space. Our library as an institution serves students and families in a way that creates a sense of community and ownership. With clearly defined policies, programs, support and outreach, this institution is an essential contributor to our school’s sense of community and each student’s confidence in their own agency. Library displays are created with diverse literature as the key component and focus. Themes of the displays focus on equity, justice and inclusion. These displays speak to identity, inclusivity, and our responsibility to one another in this community. Our library program also facilitates a number of traditions that are key to building community and agency, including the Birthday Book program, as described in Birthday Books: Building Community and a Culture of Literacy Through an All-School Tradition by Kristin Baker. Hanahau‘oli Birthday Books not only support the library’s collection development, they empower students to make informed suggestions for book purchases and take ownership of the books as they grow.
Our library, built in 1968, was designed with children’s input and awareness of how children at Hanahauʻoli would use the space. A three-story structure with various lofts and nooks create a physically comfortable space, while a firepole encourages a sense of fun and tactile engagement with the building. Students are welcomed throughout the day–the library is open to all, at all times. Building comfort and independence within the library space is the foundation of a library program, aided by the institution’s intentional design.
The Library As A Progressive Education Program
In addition, the library program seeks to create well-informed, critically-thinking citizens, capable of processing and disseminating information in ethical ways. More than just teaching children to navigate library spaces, the Hanahauʻoli School Library program supports the learning happening in the classroom, while also having its own clear units of study throughout the year. Research skills, information literacy skills, and media literacy skills are all integral components of a functioning democratic society; therefore, it is imperative that our students are given the opportunity to learn and practice these skills with an experienced teacher or guide, the school librarian. In the paragraphs to follow I share how the program applies information literacy as (a) a service to democracy, (b) a method for organizing, and (c) as self-determination.
Information Literacy as Service To Democracy
In a democratic society, we understand that the role of information (and, by extension, the media) can often be represented as the “fourth branch” of government. Information literacy is defined as the ability of the user to strategically gather, evaluate and synthesize information and for the user to be able to ethically and responsibly use that information. Misinformation, Disinformation and Malinformation are all disruptive to (and indeed, antithetical to) the pillars of democracy; namely, the free and open flow of information. In 2021, the surgeon general of the United States declared misinformation a public health threat–but I argue that it is a threat to democracy itself.
It is in this fight against misinformation that a school library in a progressive school must make a stand. If we are preparing students for participation in a democratic society, then we are doing them a disservice by throwing them into a democracy under siege without any tools to combat it. School librarians must commit themselves to direct and reinforced instruction of research and information verification skills.
At Hanahauʻoli, this work becomes more explicit in 4th & 5th grade. We begin by introducing the concepts of information vs. misinformation, and discuss the difference between the two. Having students question why misinformation exists is a vital foundation from which to start. Typical responses from my students range from “for engagement online, which makes content creators money” to “people being actually misinformed and not knowing it.” Children are better versed in these topics than they are often given credit for; for better or worse, the influence of content creators on platforms like TikTok or YouTube has shaped the way they view information.
We then move into the work of teaching a strategy that will help them verify any type of information they encounter, whether it is a news article or content on a social media platform. Here is a strategy I created for my own students, but there are countless strategies media literacy organizations have helped create. Once the students understand the strategy and have discussed the rationale behind each step, they are tasked with using the strategy in practice. They are given a handout to make their thinking visible, and a worksheet that contains screenshots that they need to verify:
I edit/manipulate one screenshot so that there is information and misinformation presented side by side, as we often encounter in real life.
Using their laptops, they are allowed to use any searching strategies they wish, but they must take notes as they work. For this exercise, their actions vary:
Many students navigate to the original “source” of the information; in this case, Reuters. As an aside, an added benefit of this exercise is that they become familiar with credible news sources (I have created screenshots “sourced” from NPR, Politico, Reuters and Associated Press).
Some attempt to navigate to Twitter, but quickly realize social media is merely a platform for information dissemination, and not a source. This is another added benefit of this exercise, as this helps make this distinction concrete.
I also observe many students applying common sense or their already developed news literacy skills; when I had students do this specific activity, a student made the observation that Liz Truss was no longer Prime Minister, which to this student was a “red flag”.
Many have now become experts at “lateral searching”–finding the same piece of information or news posted by another source. This step is when they again have an opportunity to apply their news literacy skills; they often go to a resource they are familiar with.
Each time we have done this exercise, the students have become more confident and efficient at verification. I see healthy skepticism being applied liberally, and strategies being put into practice as habit, not as assignment. As John Dewey states in Democracy and Education, “[A democratic society must have] a type of education which gives individuals a personal interest in social relationships and control, and the habits of mind which secure social changes without introducing disorder.” It is the goal of this curriculum to create habitual & sustained critical information skills.
Special note: Direct instruction in the library program is not un-progressive. When we are battling threats to democracy, it behooves us to take direct action and help our students develop habits that serve democracy in the long run. It is how we help students utilize these skills learned that is an example of progressive education.
Information Literacy as a Method of Organizing
Participation in a diverse democracy is a commitment to social justice. Organizing and activism are tools citizens in a democratic society use to ensure democracy for all. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., one of the most famous American organizers of all time, promoted the idea that education and information are integral to the non-violent direct action movement, of his Six Steps of Non-Violent Direct Action, “Information Gathering” and “Educating Others” are steps one and two, respectively. Via The King Institute,
Identify the issues in your community and/or school in need of positive change. To understand the issue, problem or injustice facing a person, community, or institution, you must increase your understanding of the problem. Your investigation should include all sides of the issue and may include formal research and listening to the experiences of others.
If we desire our students and graduates to be organizers and activists, we must ensure that they understand how to research and how to research well. This concept was put into practice in the spring of 2021 at Hanahau‘oli School, when we tasked our 4th & 5th graders with designing a non-violent direct action as their culminating project of the year. The students were challenged to find an issue they were passionate about solving, and keeping in mind that they had to introduce a “creative tension” in the community, design and implement a non-violent direct action to approach a solution to the problem. Research was a key component in this project; in order to fully understand the problem and its complexities, students were expected to dive deeply into the issue (the history, key constituents, and more.) The project was scaffolded and structured to mirror Dr. King’s process. Students organized boycotts, marches, and drives, and created educational films on a variety of topics for the wider community to benefit from.
Information Literacy as Self-Determination
For Indigenous people worldwide, colonization has meant a severing of access to our native languages, practices and genealogies. When we prioritize teaching research skills to our students, we are empowering them to uncover information that leads to identity affirmation and deeper familial connections. In Hawai‘i, this might look like uncovering the names of relatives, rediscovering those people who inhabited the community we live in, and unpacking the names of the winds, rains and streams of our community in order to increase our understanding of our environment. Finding this information often requires an understanding of where to even start looking–a skill that requires fairly developed research and information skills.
For example, genealogical research is conducted through a myriad of sources: census records, historical newspapers, marriage & death certificates, and more. Knowing where to start is half the battle; once you find a clue in a historical newspaper, you may encounter a roadblock. Without highly developed research skills and strategies, the process will falter. There is a reason librarians (particularly in Hawai‘i) conduct extensive research workshops on this topic alone; getting the information we need is often like looking for a needle in a haystack. Even with my own training, uncovering my genealogy has led to many obstacles–yet, what I have been able to find was only possible because it was taught to me in library school. Emphasizing intentional & strategic research with your students will develop skills that make uncovering such information easier, but it also requires instructors familiar with the resources themselves.
I recommend that you familiarize yourself with resources that aid such research. In Hawai‘i, the University of Hawaiʻi librarians have created phenomenal subject guides, designed to scaffold and support research in areas like genealogy, land research and historical newspapers. Outside of Hawai‘i, I recommend that you connect with the universities in your area to see what work information professionals have done in order to increase access to Indigenous knowledge.
This year at Hanahauʻoli, faculty and staff modeled information literacy as self-determination by using our professional days before the school year began to take a deep dive into our physical place. I set the stage by providing resources for our teachers, and conducted my own research to discover who inhabited our community many years ago, in order to honor those who were stewards of the land before us. Resultingly, as a school we are now more committed to familiarizing our community with the ʻŌlelo Hawai‘i (Hawaiian language) names of the rain, wind and streams. In a future blog post, I will explore in further detail how we conducted such an experiential learning experience for our faculty and staff, and how to facilitate one in your own institution.
Final Thoughts
Information literacy is, and will continue to be, a key piece in the development of citizens in a democracy, and ultimately, self-determination for those citizens. As progressive schools, it is our responsibility to make this a priority while also continually evolving what information literacy means in a diverse society. We must encourage literacy in all realms of knowledge: information, cultural and land. The progressive school library–the physical space and the program–can be a critical lever of change to help move the work forward.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
ʻO Gabrielle Ahuliʻi Ferreira Holt ke kahu puke ma ke kula o Hanahauʻoli, ma Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. He MLIS kona mai ke kulanui o Hawaiʻi ma Mānoa, a he BFA kona mai ke kulanui o British Columbia (ma ka ʻāina ʻōiwi no na poʻe xwməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh (Tsleil- Waututh).
Gabrielle Ahuliʻi Ferreira Holt is the librarian at Hanahauʻoli School in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi. She has a MLIS from the University of Hawaiʻi and a BFA from the University of British Columbia (situated on the unceded territories of the xwməθkwəy̓əm [Musqueam], Skwxwú7mesh [Squamish], Stó:lō and Səl̓ílwətaʔ/Selilwitulh [Tsleil- Waututh] nations.) She is a third-generation graduate of Hanahauʻoli.
