Welcome!

Research shows that children are more successful in school and beyond when they feel their identity is respected and when they experience a variety of people and cultures unlike their own. As a librarian, being responsible for providing an environment that celebrates diversity is undoubtedly a daunting task. This page seeks to explore ways to help create a place that allows students to feel safe, welcomed, and valued. It also strives to be a place where open dialogue happens. I invite you to be yourself and share in this safe space. As we learn from others, we can explore ways to establish a brave space that empowers all who rely on us for help.

Elizabeth Barrera Rush
District Library Specialist, Texas

Becoming More Inclusive Starts with Us
by Elizabeth Barrera Rush

The most rewarding and successful thing I ever did as a librarian was to give every student the opportunity to select their own topic for research. My goal was to teach relevant research skills, to give the students the ability to discern which method of presentation was best in the context of their topic, and to have them communicate their findings to an audience. It just made sense that if a student would draw upon their own life experiences, a self-selected topic would make it easy to practice the skills I wanted them to learn.

However, for two years, I had a difficult time convincing the students that personal interests or curiosities were valuable, important, and legitimate places to begin an information quest. For me, this begged the question, what caused my students to believe that the things that were important to them were not worthy of being studied in school? Read More >>

Column

Thinking about Anti-Bias Education

After attending two days of workshops with Teaching Tolerance, a project of the Southern Poverty Law Center, Anita Cellucci walked away with a clearer understanding of the work that needs to be done to move our schools toward anti-bias practices.

Feature

Know Better. Do Better

Matthew Winner reflects on his practice: "It took me several years in education before I really started to see the students I was teaching. This article is my attempt at communicating in words that which has been working in my heart since I first saw my students with this new clarity."

Feature

Finding Yourself in the Library

Our identities, our assumptions, and our perspectives affect how we interact, communicate, and work with our students and teachers. Who we are also affects our instruction in our classrooms and libraries. School librarian Deanna Harris writes about our need to understand ourselves better, increase our cultural awareness, and understand the diversity within our schools and communities to improve our library media programs.

Lesson Plan

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You Educator Guide

Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You skillfully recounts a counter-narrative of the history we think we know and defines what it means (historically and today) to be a segregationist, assimilationist, or antiracist. To support student understanding of the complex histories of race and racism in America that Stamped lays out, consider these book pairings and classroom ideas.

Video

Family History and Cultural Identity: A Conversation with Gail Lukasik [32:12]

Elizabeth Barrera Rush sits down to talk with Gail Lukasik, author of White Like Her: My Family's Story of Race and Racial Passing, to learn about Lukasik's newly discovered biracial heritage, and her thoughts on the nature of both racism and cultural acceptance.