Tuesday, December 9, 2008
Diversity in The Media Center
Many schools today consist of a diverse group of students. Students come from diverse background and have different developmental levels. The Media specialist is responsible for reaching all stakeholders in the school’s population. I have had the privilege to volunteer at many media centers. A couple of schools that I have visited have a section of books that are in Spanish for their Spanish population. I think this is important for those students who may not have develop a strong command of the English language, in addition parents would be able to read with their children. One of the schools I volunteered at had a massive amount of early reader picture books for kindergarten students. During, their library time the students were able to actually pick out books that they could read. I think this is important in helping them develop their reading skills. One media center had a listening station set up for students so they could come to the media center throughout to the day and listen to books on tape. The media specialists that I have worked with try their best to meet the needs of all of the stake holders in the school’s community.
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3 comments:
Alecia I agree that the media specialist must meet the needs of the school, community, and stakeholders. Everybody's needs must be served. I have visited media centers where they have a collection only for spanish speaking children. This is really handy being that our population is mostly Spanish speaking children no a days. The diverse culture must be able to compete and proform on standardize assessments just like regular American children. A media specialist must modifiy the technology in the media center to accomodate their language in reading and math and other subject areas.
Alecia,
I find that media specialists who shelve the spanish version of the most popular books are really reaching out and providing that comfort level for students. Many of the schools that I am aware of offer the listening stations in the classrooms for the younger students. I was recently introduced to books on tape in the middle school. I found this to be exciting because I was able to feel the excitement from the students as they checked out the tapes and the disappointment from those who were added to a waiting list. It was great to see such young minds exploring this technology.
I didn't think of how diversifying the media center's collection would benefit the parents. That is a great point! I've workded in schools (during the summer) with large Hispanic populations and many of the parents speak little to no English. What a sigh of relief it must be to have books available written in their native language.
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