Now this is outreach!
A friend posted the following link to my Facebook page: Acclaimed Colombian Institution has 4800 Books and 10 Legs . We talk about outreach, but this goes above and beyond. In short, this tells the story of a rural Colombian teacher who has taken it upon himself to see that his neighbors have access to books. Every weekend he loads his burros with books and travels into the countryside to deliver books to his neighbors. It’s an amazing story of dedication. Be careful, though, it might make you feel like a slug.
November 6, 2008 @ 9:16 am
Dear Molly,
Thanks for this blog post. I will share it with my students- I just read That Book
Woman to 1st graders. It is a beautifully written story of the WPA funded horseback riding, mostly women, outreach “librarians” in Kentucky in the 1930’s.
It’s illustrated by David Small.
I asked the 1st graders to write and draw a sentence about the book before they went to get their new book. I hear some grumbling at first and then in a little while each child can’t wait to read their sentence!!!!
One child from a tough background wrote (approxiamately)… “I like Cal. I like when Cal learned to read. Cal is my friend and I am his friend.” That was a novel, coming from this little guy and that was what we educators call
IDENTIFICATION!!!!
Your comments are making me rethink some of my rules- ie. sitting….. we teachers always have to weigh the control factors we need or think we need to keep a class together.
I’ll always remember a little girl who would not sit during storytime- she was looking out of the window- I felt that she had a problem. the class was not happy that I let her stay there. After the story when I spoke to her, she told me that her house was over that way and that she was afraid that her Daddy was hitting her mommy!!! After telling me her fear, she went about the business of finding her library book.
Thanks for blogging,
Susan