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HISD to eliminate librarians and convert libraries into disciplinary centers at NES schools
Not worth a post as top level thread on it's own; but hilariously dystopic enough to post here. It's only one (admittedly large and important) SD, but this is the type of shit Margret Atwood would write about as a totally out there thought experiment.
Hopefully enough people get mad it stops there.
The idea that you need an advanced degree in "library science" to help school children pick out books is absurd. They'll still have the books, it just sounds like they're getting rid of the librarians and using the space for other things as well. I don't think every school needs a full library with dedicated staff.
And anything that "increases inequity" can't be all bad.
The important thing you need a librarian for is choosing the books to go in the library, not working with the kids. Unfortunately, library science programs are just leftist indoctrination nowadays, so having a librarian is actively harmful if you don't want to further leftist indoctrination.
I have to disagree there, because the results of our school being part of a specific project to get a library with a dedicated librarian, for disadvantaged schools, really did make a huge difference. Yes, choosing the books is important, but it was about working with the kids as well: finding magazines and books that boys (in particular) would read, the kind of boys who hate reading, struggle with school textbooks, have little to no support for education at home, and are in danger of falling behind in literacy. The kids who would leave school not knowing how to read beyond a very basic level, if at all.
Working with teachers and parents. Planning and holding events (e.g. getting a writer of YA fiction to come give a talk, the Darren Shan books if anyone knows them). Making the library a place the kids wanted to use. A ton of other things beside which honestly did make a huge difference.
If it's the kind of "let's pack the shelves with books about how it's okay to be a sex worker to pay for your trans hormones" librarian activism, I totally agree. But if you get a properly trained school librarian who knows about working with kids in disadvantaged schools, it really is a benefit and a resource for the school.
Do you really need a degree in 'library science' to achieve this?
It seems like the activities you're describing have little to do with the library themselves and could be performed by anyone with pedagogical experience (or any other 'social' type work with kids) and not necessarily a 'proper' librarian with a degree in 'library science' (this is your tiny school library, not the Library of Congress). Of course, modern pedagogy has also been overrun with woke ideology but that's a discussion for another time.
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