Welcome!
This topic page is designed to foster a dialogue about teaching the whole child, with an emphasis on research and inquiry through the school library. We will explore how we are meeting (or struggling to meet) the challenges and opportunities inherent in our efforts to enable our learners to make sense of the information that threatens to overwhelm them and to collaborate with our classroom teachers to create a culture of inquiry in our schools. I hope you'll visit often to read new selections of curated resources and engage with me and my guests in continued conversation.
Barbara K. Stripling
Barbara K. Stripling
Connecting Cultural Responsiveness and Inquiry
by Barbara K. StriplingBy surrounding students with books where they can see themselves and learn about people who are not like them, some librarians believe that they have built a culturally responsive library. But, the focus on building a diverse collection and guiding students' reading is only a small part of a school librarian's responsibility for creating a library program that respects students' differences, enables all students to build on their identities and cultures, and teaches them the skills and attitudes to become motivated and empowered lifelong learners. Successful, independent learning requires students to engage socially, emotionally, and culturally, as well as academically. Library programs are in a unique position within the school to take a "whole child" approach to teaching and learning by developing an instructional program that responds to the identities, cultures, strengths, interests, and curiosities of the students. Read More >>
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![The Intersection of Inquiry and Cultural Responsiveness [30:07]](https://schoollibraryconnection.com/assets/mediaserver/SLC/2283/2283201s.jpg)
As more states and districts implement standards of cultural responsiveness, educators find themselves with an opportunity to enhance their curriculum, and meet the challenges of doing so in a digital landscape. In this video conversation, Barbara Stripling talks with New York City school librarian Vincent Hyland about how to bring key traits of cultural responsiveness into libraries.
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The skills and attitudes of cultural responsiveness can be integrated and taught throughout the inquiry process. Here, Barbara Stripling shares the integrated alignment of skills of digital inquiry with cultural responsiveness skills for every phase of inquiry that she recently developed a team of school librarians in New York City.
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In this article from Edutopia, U.S. history teacher Jeffrey Hinton talks about how culturally responsive inquiry learning blends aspects of culturally responsive teaching with the high cognitive demand of inquiry-based learning for an engaging and student-centered approach to teaching and learning.
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Inquiry-based instruction and culturally responsive education go hand in hand. In this article, educator Melissa Seggelke discusses how naturally these two important practices work together to strengthen student's confidence and passion for learning.
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The heart of personalized learning is personal—students have a fundamental role as partners in the learning process where their voice is instrumental in maximizing impact of the experience. In this article, Allison Zmuda and Beth Campbell explore how teacher-librarians can provide opportunities to amplify student voice with their students and colleagues.
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Harvard's Democratic Knowledge Project collaborated with librarians to help partner libraries learn about the Ten Questions for Young Changemakers framework, experiment on their own, and develop new learning modules and program resources to help other librarians implement the Ten Questions to cultivate civic learning.
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In this article from Edutopia, educator Julia Benedith argues that successful and impactful culturally responsive teaching is a village effort, and members of the community can help you hone these skills.
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In this article from Edutopia, Teague Tubach chronicles the arc of a project-based learning (PBL) experience, from the parent's email that inspired it through an in-depth research process and culminating in interactive public exhibit. When PBL is personal to students, it can provide more than just content knowledge—it can also foster important connections.
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The AASL standards, as a guide for library programming, call on us to have a specific focus on preparing our students for their journey as global citizens. Our students need to be prepared to face the tough conversations that surely await them in school and beyond.