Back to Afterschool: Why Informal Learning Afterschool

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Do you have a maker space?

Do you provide STEM-based programs?

Do you work with community partners?

Do you have afterschool programs and services?

If you answered “yes” to any of those questions, I have another question for you, “why?”

nina matthews photography why imageThe reason I ask is that a lot of times I hear library staff working for and with teens talk about the great programs they sponsor and develop with teens – robot making and coding and creative writing – but I don’t hear much about the why. And, it’s that why that is most important. I know it might not seem like it, but it is. Why? Because it’s the why that helps make sure that the programs are going to help teens grow up to be successful academically and in their personal lives. Because it’s the why that is what funders and elected officials and community members are going to want to know in order to decide if your program is worth funding or supporting in another way.
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Back to School Week: Collaboration is a Thing You Do NOT a Learning Outcome!

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For years and years and years (I’ve worked in libraries for a long-time) I’ve talked about and heard about the importance of school and public library collaboration. And, over the years, I’ve talked about and heard about how hard it is to be successful in this area. It actually seems to me that the challenges and barriers that I’ve been talking about and hearing about for a couple of decades haven’t really changed. And, they certainly haven’t gone away.

image by George Couros on the best ways for leaders to use technologyThe fact that conversations remain the same over a long period of time, got me thinking – Maybe we are going about this the wrong way. Maybe, instead of the focus being on what we regularly call school and public library collaboration (the thing we do), what we really need to focus on is what is required in order to have positive lasting outcomes/impacts for students and teachers (what we want to achieve). This was brought home to me this week when I read the post Building Relationships Through the Use of Technology by George Couros. The ideas embedded in the image he included in that post (shown on the left) really resonated with me.
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