To ALA or Not?

Someone on a list I'm on recently posted that they were hesitant to renew their ALA membership because of the recent ALA press release scandal.  You can read about it on Librarian in Black here: http://librarianinblack.net/librarianinblack/alastatements/. The person who posted asked the group what they thought about renewing their memberships.  Below is my response.

I'm not a member of the ALA, but I work with them on issues concerning Equity, Diversity and Inclusion.  I'm on the ALA EDI implementation Work Group and I try to represent marginalized people who can't afford membership or conference participation (among other things).  

I would say that ALA has been made progress due in large part to work by people like Melissa Cardenas-Dow, Trevor Dawes, Martin Garner and many others who are strongly committed to EDI in ALA and in libraries in general. 

I would also say that the constituency should scrutinize candidate's actual work on EDI.

In my blog post on the 2015 ALA election I explicitly state that there was only one real candidate who seemed to address EDI.   

https://lowriderlibrarian.blogspot.com/2015/03/ala-election-candidate-analysis-from.html

That candidate was JP Porcaro...

It seems that, up until recently, the ALA has not really taken this issue seriously. They have focused on programs that teach marginalized people how to operate in oppressive systems without creating any real change. Instead, there should be a focus on changing the structural barriers and structural racism that exist within the organization. This kind of structural racism has caused the ALA to make little to no progress in the area of ethnic representation in the library field.  Look here for some information on this:  https://lowriderlibrarian.blogspot.com/2014/09/little-to-no-progress-in-ethnic.html .

ALA is too expensive, is too financially restrictive and is too exclusive for many librarians to participate in a genuine and engaged manner. ALA is making slow progress in this area, but it is making progress. I would say that ALA is listening and things are changing slowly.  

Some things that would help ALA create change:

• Strong leadership who emphasize the importance of, and the dedication to ED,I as an organization
• Putting more money toward EDI and making it a real priority in the organization
• A more diverse (in all areas) membership to increase new ideas and development of the organization
• Structural change that makes the organization more accessible to people who can't go to conferences and who can't pay full membership dues 
• More discussion before making press statements that seem to support fascism
• A more meaningful relationship with membership. 
• It should be something more than just getting a copy of American Libraries in the mail every so often
• Less of a European hierarchical infrastructure and more of a participatory flat infrastructure 

ALA  and libraries in general seem to be a very classist organizations with the majority of librarians who are 2nd generation of deeper middle class. This impacts work in areas such as community engagement, programming and staff relations. This also impacts areas like LIS research--where there is nary a study on White-supremacy and Information in the US; where the area of Culture and Information Literacy has been hardly touched.  

I am hopeful ALA is changing in the areas mentioned above. 

I'm tired, but there is still a long way to go!

Respectfully, 

Max Macias 

Crowdsourcing Great Teaching @ the NW Great Teaching Seminar

I attended the NW Great Teaching Seminar this week and it was life changing. This seminar is part of the National Great Teachers Seminar Series. It lasted five days and was held at the amazingly serene and picturesque Menucha retreat in Oregon's Columbia River Gorge.  There were over 30 other seminar participants!

Scenic views were readily available

All attendees teach at community colleges, but come from various disciplines. Based on the premise that the real experts on teaching are those who teach, the seminar was led by five amazing individuals: Linda Gerber, Phil Corliss, April Fong, Doug Dickson and Jan Woodcock. Following a "flexibly rigid" format, meals were held at 8 am, 12 and 6 pm daily; the rest of the schedule revolved around these times.

Jan Woodcock

Humor, experience, practical knowledge, active engagement, integrated learning and game-centered teaching made this seminar a life-changing experience for me.

Mingling of ideas

The format also included each of us writing an Innovation paper (first day activities) -- a one-page paper outlining a successful teaching innovation the teacher has implemented and a Problem paper (second day activities) -- describing an ongoing issue the teacher experiences.

Exchanging these writings, we broke up into smaller groups and discussed the innovations and problems, using a Socratic questioning method designed to help the individual sort it out on their own. These papers create a great pool of knowledge, solutions and inspiration.

Then:

Emerging themes (throughout the rest of the seminar) -- themes that arose the first two days as we went over the Innovation and Problem papers.

And finally:

Large group discussions: giving teachers a chance to obtain crowd-sourced answers to questions.

Large group discussion

I learned something, literally every two minutes, i.e., teaching students to nod their heads, maintaining student boundaries when it comes to classwork and the importance of trying new things and not being afraid to change it up. Many common solutions, tips, and other techniques carried over from one discipline to the next.

Outdoor discussion in perfect weather

I was struck by the common love and passion for teaching and helping others held by the entire cohort. It was a positive, supportive, and stretching event for all involved.

Opportunities for exchange abounded

Learning opportunities also consisted of small and large group communication and crowd-sourcing answers, games, interpretive dance along with time for recreation and building rapport. Recreation included hikes at Multnomah Falls and surrounding area, bike riding, reading and writing, etc. The meals were fabulous. All in all, this was one of the best learning experiences I have ever had. I was pushed out of my comfort zone, which in turn, created fallow ground for greater learning.

I highly recommend this seminar for educators. The Great Teacher Seminars are available throughout the country. 

Class of 2015

From the GTM website:

“The National Great Teachers Movement is called a ‘movement’ because it is not associated with, nor does it constitute a corporation or an organization of any kind. Thus, it serves no institutional or commercial interests. There is no headquarters or address, and there are no officials, owners, employees or politics. There are no manuals or handbooks, only a few simple guidelines [Editor’s Note: This web connection created by Steve Smith after the 2nd GT colloquium in 2001].

Everything is passed on by oral tradition in order to prevent the development of any form of true believership or fixed procedure, which might come to be followed to the letter and of which the educational profession would soon tire. The many annual Great Teachers Seminars throughout North America, and now in several foreign countries, exist and persist only because of the initiative and selfless ambition of people who want to share the experience with teachers in their own geographic area.”