The Lighthouse Diary Entry 6: Works of Students As Part of the Library Collection

The International School Manila I know as a child has a Children's Media Center where I would visit during summer break. Of the many collections of books in the library, there was a special shelf for books made and written by students. Most of the books were short stories and collection of folktales, poetry and essays written in English class. The librarians and teachers in ISM value their students literacy journey that they included them in the library's collection.

As an eight year old reader, seeing books made by kids and reading them made a lasting impression. I discovered that shelf filled with books, bound by hand and some by a binding machine written by kids my age and older. There were stories similar to The Little Prince with towering trees and starry skies. There were books on folk tales jazzed up into crazy and contemporary versions from old motifs (this was in the 80s). I was in awe. I wanted to write too! So, I did by starting a journal. It was only years and years later that I gathered up the courage to write my own stories.

In Xavier School, while working as a school librarian in the Early Education unit, I teamed up with Nursery and Prep teachers for book projects. Our boys made picture books, wordless books, counting books and flash cards they can use for telling stories. I kept them in a special cabinet. Now I wonder if those books and storytelling flash cards are still in the EED Library.

Fast forward to where I am today.

Imagine my joy when I discovered a packet of zines on my table one morning!

The zines were made by our grade 10s and our English teacher donated them to the library. What precious additions to the library's collection! Apart from the Personal Projects and copies of Extended Essays, I am a proud curator and guardian of these "books" and student made projects. 

A few years ago, I was part of the team who organized the Early Readers Online Project. Our high school students made stories for readers in the early grades and these are all accessible on our school's website. The stories can be downloaded for free. Visit the Community and Service of the Beacon Academy.

Ah, a few of the many things I love about my job. - being a part of the creative process as well as designing structures for data and information access so knowledge can be derived from them thrills me to no end (I know I am geeking you out!) The best thing is, I get to curate, chronicle, and document these symbols and representations of thought and creativity. What a privilege!

I know so little. Yet, I am happy knowing only this much.

Ronnie del Carmen and the Risk of Making Mistakes

Last Tuesday, I was fortunate to be invited to listen to Ronnie del Carmen. He is an animator and film director at Pixar Animation Studios. If you visit his Twitter account, he has a very cool description of what he does and what he is. He is a Quantum Temporal Continuity Engineer. Simply put, he is a storyteller.

For forty five minutes, he talked about his history as a creative and the back stories of the works he has done in the Pixar and Disney studios. It sounds like ordinary stuff, something that can easily be accessed, but what made his presentation meaningful was his talking points about the creative process. Here are snippets or "sound bites" I got from his talk:

* You felt it. You experienced it. That is storytelling.
* You need to hear from your storytelling brothers and sisters to know what is working and what is not.
* Creativity thrives in exploration.
* Prepare to be wrong.
* Storytelling and creativity are valued in any industry.

By the time he was at the Q and A part, I was already welling with pride to be a part of the Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY), because, our current effort in promoting quality children's literature and young adult literature has been very creative. The attempt to try out new things and innovate began with the National Children's Book Awards of 2010. It is not perfect. It presents many challenges. But the process of instituting this new mechanism of raising the bar in children's book publishing in the country involves collaboration (particularly with the NBDB), a lot of mistakes and a tremendous courage to take risks. As far as my experience goes, limited as it is, we have kept our ears on the ground. True creativity begins when one listens, empathizing with people who are at the battle field.

I look inward.

There is nothing else to do but to go back to the origin of things.

My what if: research plays a big role in the creative process. Introduce and present research writing as a way of telling a story. After all, what is personal touches on the universal.

Think Tank Project 2015: Revisiting Goals

Decluttering and decorating helps me think!

This year, I am applying a concept and a process that I have learned in one of our PD (professional development) sessions in school to actual library practice. I am calling this approach as the 2015 Think Tank Project where design thinking is the methodology I will use to plan programs and services for library patrons and users.

Design Thinking is espoused by David and Tom Kelly, authors of the book Creative Confidence: Unleashing the Creative Potential With In Us All. It is a four cyclical process where participants go through periods of Inspiration, Ideation and Experimentation, Synthesis and Implementation. To strengthen the approach, I am applying Roger von Oech's Creative Whack Pack as strategies to see me through the entire process.

To start, I am looking at the services and programs the library staff has delivered for the first term. Picking out three "take aways" from an informal survey I conducted during in-service training, I will think through and reflect if the "take aways" and the library services and programs agree or adhere to each other. This way, I am able to analyze and explore current practices with insights from library patrons. The patrons I gathered insights from being the teachers.

From here, I write questions to ask myself and my staff. We will do this individually and as a group. These are the questions I have written:

a. How did the library support student research during the 1st term?
b. What helped teachers in facilitating research when they asked assistance from the teacher librarian?
c. What mechanism did the library staff use to inform the community of new resources?
d. How did the community respond to these mechanisms?

This is only the first part, which is Inspiration. Ideas and insight are generated from a context and/or a content. The questions I crafted help me Explore what is current and in front of me. This exploration is like a whack on the head (von Oeck) at seeing what is obvious. Sometimes, we can get answers to questions by looking at the resources we currently have.