Advocacy
Course
Considering Values and Priorities [9:47]
- Learn how to identify who the decision makers are in your community.
- Learn the importance of understanding your decision makers' values.
- Learn ways to align decision makers' values with your library needs.
Who are the decision makers? Think about it. Who is responsible for deciding whether the library stays open or not, whether you have a fixed or flexible schedule, whether the librarian is full or part time, whether the librarians computer lab is updated or not. The people who make the decisions that impact the library, whether directly or indirectly, are the main people you need to target in your advocacy efforts.
So how do you know who these people are? With local decisions, it's usually straightforward. If you want to increase your collection budget, ask yourself who sets your collection budget? If you want to see changes made to your district's filtering policy, ask yourself who approves these policies? Perhaps you'd like to start a makerspace in the library who needs to approve that action? The answers will vary depending on your school and district. It may be your principal school board, the PTA, a technology director, a library director, or someone else entirely. But it's up to you to find out.
If you aren't sure where to start, your administrator is always a good place. They often know the answer, but more than that, it's important that they know your goals for the library and how those goals will improve student outcomes. Even if they aren't your decision maker, they can be good advocates. So talking to them and explaining what you want to do and why is always a good first step.
Not all advocacy goals are local ones. Perhaps you would like to see a school librarian at the Department of Education or state library in your state? Maybe you see a need for statewide databases or want to make sure that the ones you have are kept. Maybe you'd like to see more school librarians, not just in your school or district, but across the state with goals like these. The answers can be harder to find, but by no means impossible.
As with your school level goals, you'll want to start by reaching out to the person who knows the most about the situation. It's also wise to start at the lowest level and work your way up. So if you'd like to see a school librarian at your state library, contact your state librarian. Your path may take you to your state library association, to state representatives, or to your Senator or Congressman at the National level. It can take time to find the right person, but be patient and persistent and you'll be rewarded.
When you finally find the individual or organization that you need to engage with, don't let their position dissuade you. I've known many school librarians who were afraid to reach out to their Senator or representative because they were worried they didn't have anything to offer. In fact, elected officials want to hear from you. They want to know what is happening in their constituency. And you have the expertise to tell them.
No matter who you are trying to influence. It is critical that you understand what they care about and what their goals are. In other words, you must understand their values and their goals. So that you can effectively personalize your message. Values are our attitudes around specific issues. To persuade someone, you need to understand where they fall on a continuum of ideas about the topic. Understanding their position will allow you to personalize your messaging, which will make it much more effective.
When you know someone well, you are likely to know their positions on different issues, but you may not automatically know the positions of your decision makers. With public officials such as superintendents and school board members. You can pay attention to how they vote, the comments that they make in meetings and the communications they author. These will give you clues to how they feel about issues that impact libraries such as literacy, diversity, critical thinking, or research skills.
If you can't discern someone's position on the issue you wish to speak on, consider taking a general survey of their positions on related issues. For example, you may want to know what your superintendent thinks about student privacy issues, but are unable to locate anything directly relevant. However, your superintendent has spoken favorably providing effective mental health support to struggling students. Research has showed that privacy or a lack thereof can impact people's mental health. Therefore, you might be able to draw a link between the two values to help persuade your superintendent to support efforts to improve student privacy.
Starting a values-based conversation is always an option as well. A values based conversation is a strategic approach to a conversation that allows the advocate to promote their issue while simultaneously learning the attitudes of their audience. The more about your audience's values, the more effective this type of conversation will be. No matter how you obtain the necessary information, knowing the values and attitudes of your audience will help you to craft a more meaningful and effective message.
Persuading others is difficult, but we do it all the time when we recommend a book to a friend or family member, when we suggest a particular meal at a popular restaurant, when we decide what show to watch together as a family, sometimes a suggestion is enough to plant the seeds of an idea. And sometimes more work is required. The degree of difficulty is, in large part, due to the difference between your attitude around the topic and theirs.
We can think about our attitudes and values as falling on a spectrum. At one end are those who are strongly in favor of the idea. At the other end, people who are strongly against a person who falls in the middle will be more open to New ideas. The farther, a person is to either side of the spectrum, the more difficult it will be to persuade them to change their mind.
Once you've done the research to determine where a person falls on the spectrum, you can adjust your message accordingly. For example, imagine you want your school district to mostly get rid of internet filters in high schools. You need to convince your school or district technology director. But they hold strong values around protecting children from harmful websites. Their strong position will make it harder to convince them.
You have two choices. Change your ask to reflect a more middle of the spectrum position, such as asking for a mechanism that allows teachers to bypass the filter with a password. Or present your argument in a way that reinforces the attitudes of the decision maker.
Presenting your argument in this way requires some craft and practice, but it's worth the effort. In our example, we know that our technology director cares about student protection and believes that strong internet filters will accomplish this goal, we know that changing their mind about this is unlikely. Instead, you may wish to frame your message as one of ensuring that young adults learn how to protect themselves without the safety of the school environment. And of course, as you can imagine, this argument may not be successful the first time around.
Advocacy takes time and persistence. While you certainly do not want to pester someone, it's perfectly reasonable to share new evidence, ideas or suggestions periodically. In fact, the more frequently you interact with the person you wish to influence in a positive way, the better your relationship with them will be. And the more influence you will have.
Determining your decision makers' values is an important step to tailoring your advocacy message to suit their needs. Understanding where they fall on the spectrum of ideas about the topic allows you to personalize your messaging to make it more effective. You can only persuade or influence someone if you know where they stand. From adjusting your ask to reinforcing the attitudes of your decision makers, it is crucial to your advocacy goal to be able to adjust your message to fit your audience.
In this lesson, we look at the idea that values fall on a spectrum, leaning towards strongly agreeing or disagreeing with the topic at hand. Once you know their values, you can begin to craft your message to better influence your decision makers based on their values. Using the chart on page 4 of the Course Packet (found in the Resources above), fill in an attitude chart to use in determining how you should tailor your advocacy message to best fit your decision maker's values.
MLA Citation
Rinio, Deborah. "Advocacy: Adjusting Your Advocacy Message." School Library Connection, December 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2294999?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2295445
Working with people you know, you are more likely to know their positions on different issues and easily adjust your messaging. However, in order to have a far-reaching advocacy goal, you will need to work with public officials like your superintendent or legislators and that can prove more difficult. Paying attention to their voting history, what they say in meetings, and publications they post are all clues to how they feel about issues surrounding your goal. Read the SLC article below and then complete the Reflect & Practice activity below.
In this lesson, we learned different ways to determine your decision makers' values in regard to your advocacy goal. When working with people you know it is easy to determine where their values fall on the spectrum. However, when you are dealing with public officials or new constituents in your learning community, you need to be able to research their values and adjust your talking points accordingly. After reading the SLC article above, use the chart on page 5 of the Course Packet (found in the Resources above) and brainstorm on different ways to better understand who you're speaking with.
MLA Citation
Rinio, Deborah. "Advocacy: Know Who You're Speaking To." School Library Connection, December 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2294999?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902.
Entry ID: 2295446
Additional Resources
About the Author
MLA Citation
Rinio, Deborah. "Advocacy. Considering Values and Priorities [9:47]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, December 2022, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2294999?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/2294999?learningModuleId=2293921&topicCenterId=2247902
Entry ID: 2294999