The Learner Diet

 

 

Before the cutesy invasion of trite quote wall signs, we relied on coffee cups to express our inner snark. I remember I used to have a favorite mug with big white letters that read, “if you are what you eat, then I am fast, cheap and easy.” Pondering our relationship to information, media, and news these days makes me think of that coffee mug. Everything these days centers on easy and fast. The speed at which information comes at us isn’t geared to generate thoughtful analysis but instead offers bite sized nuggets of news to be scarfed down on the way to the next thing. Society likes to cast blame on technology, but our cultural values created the consumption habits not the mechanisms we use. I could spend all day pondering how we got here, but as professional educators the objective is to empower the next generation of solutions for information literacy.

The workload of a school librarian involves so many layers of responsibilities to create and support curriculum for students and staff. The urgency to help students become more involved in their own educational process as critical consumers of information seems to grow with every new report of false or biased news media. The “Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education” from the ACLR aims to create more definitive guidelines for how to implement more inquiry and research-based learning approaches (2015). One of the key concepts in the ACLP framework is the described as, “scholarship as conversation” (2015).  Seeking out perspectives other than our own is such a critical component of understanding complex problems. We all bring to the table own ideas and expectations when we engage in dialog or receive information. When we start to filter out divisions of opinions from the sources we receive information, the imbalances can limit our ability to discover new insights. Identifying our own lens filters as teachers and human beings is great starting point when we consider how to teach students the value of evaluating information and biases.

The list of 21^st Century Student Outcomes from the framework definitions spans your standard school subjects and then spans across broader concepts such as global awareness, financial literacy, public health concerns and civic implications (2015). These once higher-level learning topics are impacting children earlier and with greater ramifications, therefore need to addressed even at even younger ages than we do now.

 We can’t skip over the foundational ideas of information seeking behaviors in our own environments. It takes significantly more time to really assess the quality of information we are sharing with students rather than just what is expedient in the face of busy school days. Practices that require both teachers and students to use various research methods, assess for strengths and weaknesses while examining conflicting information, are vital elements to the information literacy process (ALA, 2015). The shift for me is away from the “us versus them mentality” that is pervasive in making ideas wrong or right. I don’t want to be right anymore. I want to understand. I want to hear and listen. I want to be a part of exploring ideas and concepts with students so that we can slow down the rush on the next thing. I hope we can stop treating education and learning like a trip to Wendy’s and more like a five-star meal made with quality and attention.

 

American Library Association, (2015). Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education",  http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/ilframework (Accessed September 1, 2021) Document ID: b910a6c4-6c8a-0d44-7dbc-a5dcbd509e3f

P21 Framework Definitions (2015) Framework for 21^st Century Learning. https://www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21/frameworks-resources