Wisdom, Confidence, and Experience Feel Good

I promise this post won't be completely positive and sincere, but it will be much more so than often. This morning, after all, I was struck with a thought that I shared on Facebook as:

Over 20 years in this profession and I finally feel like I'm getting really proficient in some aspects of the job. Wisdom, confidence, and experience feel good.

A number of factors have played into the feeling, including the success I had with the workshops I partially shared in my last post. I felt my facilitation skills were particularly good on the third day. My storytime ability keeps growing. Other areas as well. And a good presentation last night. I was asked to speak at a local elementary school's Family Literacy Night. It took me a while to figure out how I wanted to approach the event, but something finally clicked and everything fell into place. I was happy with the slides and script I developed, but even more so my ability to speak fluently without reading from the script. To effectively articulate the ideas with spontaneous wording and share them on the fly even when they weren't the exact ones I'd carefully crafted in advance.

Since it's on my mind, I'll share the scripted presentation here.

Good evening and thank you for having us. I am a Youth Services Librarian from the Library. This is  our Latino Services Outreach Librarian. We are here to share some ideas for providing a good literacy environment for your students away from school. Ways to engage them in reading.

At the heart of anything and everything we would encourage you to do is one simple idea: reading should be enjoyable. Reading is a fun activity. It should be something your students want to do with their free time, something they look forward to doing and are excited about. They need to see people they respect enjoying reading. They need help finding things to read that they will enjoy. And they need reading to not be presented as work.

There are exceptions, but most activities we engage in either feel like work or feel like play. When something becomes work, it’s not something we want to do for play. It’s no longer fun. So the biggest thing you can do is help reading feel less like work and more like play for your students. And what makes something feel like work? When someone else forces you to do it. When they tell you what to do, how much to do, when to do it. When they judge and evaluate it. When they “pay” you for it. For many students, that’s all reading has ever been. Teachers and parents force them to read, tell them what to read, when to read, how much to read, we test and grade their performance, and we reward them for doing well. That makes reading work, which takes all the fun out of it. It prevents reading from being play. The key, then, to recreational reading, is to avoid any of those things that make it into work.

Everything we suggest is about finding ways to make reading more fun.

An example: Is it work or is it play?

Reading is a skill. And like all skills, the way to get better is to practice. The more someone reads, the better they get at reading. It doesn’t matter what they read, so long as they do it and, hopefully, do it a lot. So there is no such thing as bad reading, since anything they read improves their ability to read. All reading is good reading. And the more they enjoy what they are reading, the more motivated they’ll be to read more. So if we want our students to get better at reading, we need to find them things to read they’ll enjoy, so they’ll read more, which will make them better readers.

One thing that can become an issue to this approach is the idea that students have to read books that are at a particular level. Age level, grade level, Lexile level, whatever measure you might encounter. For recreational reading, throw away the idea of reading levels. They are a tool that can be useful in classroom settings, but the rest of the time they become a shackle that limits freedom, choice, and fun. If students want to attempt to read something that is above their level, let them. They’ll put in the effort to figure it out because they’re enjoying it; or they’ll get frustrated because it’s too hard and give up. They’ll rise to the challenge if it’s fun, they’ll find something else if it’s work. At the other end of the scale, don’t worry if they want to read something below their level. Remember, all reading is good reading, so even when the reading is easy it’s still practicing the skill and improving their ability. Even if it’s something simple. Even if it’s something they’ve read before. So long as they are reading, they are getting better at reading.

Another idea that can become an obstacle is the idea that students must be reading “quality literature.” That they need to read big chunks of text with no pictures and a good message. That is not necessary. All that matters is that they read. Anything that makes it fun. They don’t even need to read books. When they read a magazine, they are reading. When they read words on a computer, tablet, or phone screen, they are reading. When they read a note from their friends, they are reading. When pictures are part of the story, they are still reading. All reading is good reading.

The key then, is helping your student find what he or she enjoys. There is no one right or best answer to the question what to read. Everyone is different, so everyone will have different reading tastes. And different moods, so what they enjoy might change from day to day. Maybe they want to laugh. Maybe they want to be scared. They could be looking for excitement, or struggle, or friendship. Sometimes they’ll want something that feels real, other times they’ll want to escape. For some people a certain period in history feels magical, for others dragons and unicorns, for others technology. Maybe they’re in the mood to learn more about a favorite passion. The options are unlimited. They just need to find whatever it is that will be fun.

One of the biggest things readers look for in a good book is a mirror. When they open the pages, they want to be able to see themselves. They want characters that look, sound, and feel like them. Settings and experiences they recognize. People who know the lives they’re living. Or they want to see their worries, hopes, and dreams expressed. They want to find their interests and passions. Their emotions. They need to find themselves represented in what they read. That’s what it means for a book to be a mirror.

Of course, that is not always the case. Sometimes they are looking for a window that lets them take a look at something outside of themselves. They want to see what the world is like for others. Other settings, other cultures, other periods in history. Something fresh and new. Something that will stretch them. And that is great if that is what they are after.

But if the only choices we offer them are windows, they are likely to lose interest in reading as a fun pursuit. Most of the time, they are hoping to find mirrors.

An example putting some of these ideas into action: The Guys Read Charter.

For once, read the slide.

Parent behaviors

• Model the behavior – Kids need to see you reading
• Fill your environment – Things to read should be everywhere
• Talk about it – Make reading a social activity
• Read aloud – Kids are never too old to enjoy it – Hearing reading improves reading (also: audiobooks)

You don’t have to do this work alone, because you have the Library to help you.

• If you don’t know, using the library is free.
• Because the library belongs to you. You have already paid for it. You own the books, the computers, the buildings—all of it.
• Getting a library card is quick and easy.

Ask for help finding what you want.

• Librarians – We work for you. It is our job to know the collection and connecting you to it. We love helping you find things to read that you will love.
• Displays and Browsing – We always have lots of good things for you to discover when you visit.
• Booklists – Our website is full of lists of recommendations for you to explore.
• Catalog – There are many ways to search and many trails to follow.

Tour the website:

• Main page
• Catalog search
• Item records
• Holds
• Kids page
• Booklists
• Homework page
• Brainfuse

Questions

So, yeah, that was that. Not too deep. A bit over 20 minutes. For parents and kids.

Since I'm being so earnest, I have to admit that this is the best cookie fortune I can imagine. I've never really been able to answer questions like "Where do you see yourself in five years?" or "What do you want to be when you grow up?" or "What do you want to accomplish?" or even "What are your goals?" Really, this is all I've ever sought.

Well, no, not all. Because I want that for others, too. And my life will feel meaningless unless I'm doing something with it to help others find that as well. My job, for instance. Especially aspects like the one in the previous post.

Some recent related reading:

Survival Of The Friendliest: How Our Close Friendships Help Us Thrive

Very few people understand that your social relationships can actually change your health. They can change your cardiovascular system, your immune system, how you sleep, your cognitive health. How could this thing that exists entirely outside the body affect whether you're likely to catch a virus? And yet that's exactly what we now know that social connection does. We thought of loneliness as this difficult emotion, but just an emotion. And we think of friends as this lovely thing — but it is actually a matter of life and death. And there's this evolutionary drive to connect. People think all the time about competition and survival of the fittest, but really it's survival of the friendliest. . . . 

The Science of Being ‘Nice’: How Politeness Is Different From Compassion

Recent research suggests that our tendency to be “nice” can be separated into two related but distinct personality traits: politeness and compassion.

We see these differences play out in social decision making, where politeness is linked to being fair and compassion to helping others. . . .

Politeness refers to our tendency to be respectful of others versus being aggressive. It’s about good manners and adhering to societal rules and norms — what we’d see in upstanding, decent folks, or “good citizens”, if you will. In contrast, compassion refers to our tendency to be emotionally concerned about others versus being cold-hearted — what we’d see in the proverbial “good Samaritan”.

Clearly, these two characteristics often go hand in hand, but they also diverge from one other in interesting ways. For example, studies on political ideology show that politeness is associated with a conservative outlook and more traditional moral values, while compassion is associated with liberalism and progressive values.

One view is that politeness and compassion are linked to different brain systems — politeness with those governing aggression, and compassion with those regulating social bonding and affiliation. We see some evidence for this in neuroimaging research, where compassion — not politeness — is related to structural differences in brain regions involved in empathic responses. . . .

Polite people don’t necessarily help those in need, but they are fair-minded and peaceable. Meanwhile, compassionate people aren’t necessarily even-handed and rule-abiding, but they are responsive to the misfortunes of others.

Why the Best Things in Life Are All Backwards

The most fundamental components of our psychology are paradoxical. This is because when we consciously try to create a state of mind, the desire for that state of mind creates a different and often opposite state of mind from the one we’re trying to create. . . .

But this extends to most — if not all — aspects of our mental health and relationships:

Control – The more we strive to control our own feelings and impulses, the more powerless we will feel. Our emotional life is unruly and often uncontrollable, and it’s the desire to control it that makes it worse. Conversely, the more we accept our feelings and impulses, the more we’re able to direct them and process them.

Freedom – The constant desire for more freedom ironically limits us in a number of ways. Similarly, it’s only by limiting ourselves — by choosing and committing to certain things in life — that we truly exercise our freedom.

Happiness – Trying to be happy makes us less happy. Accepting unhappiness makes us happy.

Security – Trying to make ourselves feel as secure as possible generates more insecurity. Being comfortable with uncertainty is what allows us to feel secure.

Love – The more we try to make others love and accept us, the less they will, and more importantly, the less we will love and accept ourselves.

Respect – The more we demand respect from others, the less they will respect us. The more we ourselves respect others, the more they will come to respect us.

Trust – The more we try to make people trust us, the less inclined they will be to do so. The more we trust others, the more they will trust us in return.

Confidence – The more we try to feel confident, the more insecurity and anxiety we will create. The more we accept our faults, the more comfortable we will feel in our own skin.

Change – The more we desperately want to change ourselves, the more we will always feel as though we are not enough. Whereas, the more we accept ourselves, the more we will grow and evolve because we’ll be too busy actually doing cool shit to notice.

Meaning – The more we pursue a deeper meaning or purpose to our lives, the more self-obsessed and shallow we will become. The more we try to add meaning to others’ lives, the more profound impact we will feel. . . .

And how do we do this? By letting go. By giving up. By surrendering. Not out of weakness. But out of a respect that the world is beyond our grasp. By recognizing that we are fragile and limited and but temporary specks in the infinite reaches of time. You do it by relinquishing control, not because you feel powerless, but because you are powerful. Because you decide to let go of things that are beyond your control. You decide to accept that sometimes, people won’t like you, that often you will fail, that usually you have no fucking clue what you’re doing.

And, finally, some happy nonsense from InspiroBot.

source

Keep in mind that you're in utter despair

and don't forget to blame it on some vast

conspiracy against you. It's never your own

fault.

A surefire mindset to achieve happiness. Sadly, I've known people like this.

source

Entropy is life's way of saying

One simple definition of the scientific concept of entropy is the tendency for all things to move from a state of order to disorder. So, yeah, I think this phrasing gets it just about right.

source

Let's make the future a

thing of the past

In time. Don't rush it, because it time we will.

source

To avoid inconveniences,

trust the librarytionality of

humans.

Does Librarytionality = Library + Rationality? That's a nice thought. Or maybe it's simply the essence of my presentation above. I could live with that.