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Re: the missing issue
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From: Maia Cheli-Colando <maia_at_littlefolktales.org>
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:27:59 -0700
Marc,
Okay, if we're talking about teen & preteen boys and their interests, regardless of social or moral value... would we suggest a Playboy club?
I'm not being facetious here, honestly. :) My point is that the cultural standards in America about violence are as unresolved as the cultural standards about sexism (and the two are entwined, of course).
It *isn't* just a librarian's job to provide everything readable. Certainly in the context of school, the adults have a responsibility (as adults do in most mammalian communities) to bring up our young in community-healthy behavior. We also have a responsibility to the other children in school - making a safe space, so they don't go offing themselves through direct or indirect means (e.g. suicide and bulimia).
What the school librarian purchases, and certainly that which the librarian endorses (to pretty much any child, a club will be seen as an adult endorsement) has a direct impact on the safety and moral and social and emotional growth of the children in his or her community.
So if we are going to create a focus group, I believe we should always be thoughtful about the impact on the children and community in question. There are times and places... and there are not. About violence? You and I might disagree. When I look at the reality of perpetual warfare in which our country alone is involved... when I look at children learning about exotic battle techniques and having NO idea of the reality of life for many Palestinians, Lebanese, Israelis, Tibetans, southeast Chinese, Pakistanis, Afghanis - to name just one corner of the world... I wonder. When I look at children learning about violence without understanding it in a compassionate, visceral way... when I look at how many young women are abused by young men... yes, I have hesitation in glorifying a glamour of violence.
I don't myself see it as that different from Playboy. Porn is not about real women, it generally distances young men (and older) from the real young women in their lives (let alone distancing young women from those young men). Glamour violence puts a mystique over real violence - distancing the emotion, and making it harder to find the energy to make change. I do think we all suffer the consequences - the whole damn planet, and especially those of us who've lost anyone close to it.
I'm not saying that we should never teach about battle, or war, or violence. But I don't think we should make it something pretty and fun. Because it isn't.
One can say that librarians should all support all reading interests... but we can't support all things equally at all times - even the earth can't manage to do that, and thus we have evolution and extinction and change. We aren't some crazy, time-warping superpower that can be all books to all people. We make choices about where we spend our energies. Do we have to pretend these choices aren't deliberate and considered, do we have to make them subconscious? Or abandon our choice-making wisdom to the desires most loudly spoken?
In my gut, I have the sense that librarians will always be in the center of the storm... because what we read is such a deep part of what we humans are, and what we will become. And my gut sense is also that the sooner we embrace and anticipate that storm, that we accept that as librarians and teachers we are part of the communal struggle for self-definition -- what we humans are, and are meant to be; what we will do, and whether we will survive... the sooner we admit that books matter as much as we feel they do, and understand that people will fight against them if they are already fighting against the ideas contained within... the easier it will be to persevere, and support each other.
But then, I'm generally a fan of the direct route. :) Schools are our churches, in so many ways, and libraries our doctrines. They hold our children's lives for so much of the day. I ask, how do we want those lives held?
Cheers, Maia --
Maia Cheli-Colando Arcata, Humboldt Bay, California -- blogging at http://www.littlefolktales.org/wordpress -- -- or drop in on Facebook! --
Received on Thu 14 Oct 2010 10:27:59 AM CDT
Date: Thu, 14 Oct 2010 10:27:59 -0700
Marc,
Okay, if we're talking about teen & preteen boys and their interests, regardless of social or moral value... would we suggest a Playboy club?
I'm not being facetious here, honestly. :) My point is that the cultural standards in America about violence are as unresolved as the cultural standards about sexism (and the two are entwined, of course).
It *isn't* just a librarian's job to provide everything readable. Certainly in the context of school, the adults have a responsibility (as adults do in most mammalian communities) to bring up our young in community-healthy behavior. We also have a responsibility to the other children in school - making a safe space, so they don't go offing themselves through direct or indirect means (e.g. suicide and bulimia).
What the school librarian purchases, and certainly that which the librarian endorses (to pretty much any child, a club will be seen as an adult endorsement) has a direct impact on the safety and moral and social and emotional growth of the children in his or her community.
So if we are going to create a focus group, I believe we should always be thoughtful about the impact on the children and community in question. There are times and places... and there are not. About violence? You and I might disagree. When I look at the reality of perpetual warfare in which our country alone is involved... when I look at children learning about exotic battle techniques and having NO idea of the reality of life for many Palestinians, Lebanese, Israelis, Tibetans, southeast Chinese, Pakistanis, Afghanis - to name just one corner of the world... I wonder. When I look at children learning about violence without understanding it in a compassionate, visceral way... when I look at how many young women are abused by young men... yes, I have hesitation in glorifying a glamour of violence.
I don't myself see it as that different from Playboy. Porn is not about real women, it generally distances young men (and older) from the real young women in their lives (let alone distancing young women from those young men). Glamour violence puts a mystique over real violence - distancing the emotion, and making it harder to find the energy to make change. I do think we all suffer the consequences - the whole damn planet, and especially those of us who've lost anyone close to it.
I'm not saying that we should never teach about battle, or war, or violence. But I don't think we should make it something pretty and fun. Because it isn't.
One can say that librarians should all support all reading interests... but we can't support all things equally at all times - even the earth can't manage to do that, and thus we have evolution and extinction and change. We aren't some crazy, time-warping superpower that can be all books to all people. We make choices about where we spend our energies. Do we have to pretend these choices aren't deliberate and considered, do we have to make them subconscious? Or abandon our choice-making wisdom to the desires most loudly spoken?
In my gut, I have the sense that librarians will always be in the center of the storm... because what we read is such a deep part of what we humans are, and what we will become. And my gut sense is also that the sooner we embrace and anticipate that storm, that we accept that as librarians and teachers we are part of the communal struggle for self-definition -- what we humans are, and are meant to be; what we will do, and whether we will survive... the sooner we admit that books matter as much as we feel they do, and understand that people will fight against them if they are already fighting against the ideas contained within... the easier it will be to persevere, and support each other.
But then, I'm generally a fan of the direct route. :) Schools are our churches, in so many ways, and libraries our doctrines. They hold our children's lives for so much of the day. I ask, how do we want those lives held?
Cheers, Maia --
Maia Cheli-Colando Arcata, Humboldt Bay, California -- blogging at http://www.littlefolktales.org/wordpress -- -- or drop in on Facebook! --
Received on Thu 14 Oct 2010 10:27:59 AM CDT
