Small Bean - Blog Posts
This Kerry knows his worth ✨
Inequality: Indifference x Insufficiency
Today 300,000 plus Chicago students didn’t go to school today, spending the day at home, hanging out with friends or joining their fellow classmates and over 25,000 educational workers in Chicago who are striking against working conditions and educational opportunities of the Chicago Public Schools.
Along with adequate nursing staff, emotional and mental health support a main complaint from parents is that there aren’t libraries in schools and how that lack of community space deepens the fractures occurring. Linked to the lack of community space in the schools, there is also a lack of bilingual teachers creating another barrier for students who either rely on other students to help them with their work or give up.
The strike has two sides to it: the teachers and the students. The teachers need more pay in order to lessen their financial and connected emotional stress and anxiety so they can focus more on their students and be the best teachers they can. But they are also fighting for their students. By demanding smaller class sizes, mental health resources so student can be assisted before they hit that breaking point, and pushing for school libraries they are fighting for their students now, in their next grade, their next school and the rest of their lives
Displaced, Deserted...Degraded?
Another library institution is school libraries, which if not more crucial to a community to a local library are at least equal. School libraries, as with education, can be a great building block and equalizer of the community and the current racial, economic, social, and other divides in our communities by bringing people together and expanding their horizons.
The city of Chicago has a lot of diversity with a portion of it having to do with it’s large immigrant communities. Separate from their history, the people of Chicago and from around the world come to see the renowned museums mixed with avid sports fans, corporations and religious organizations. But for a community with so much action and so many people working hard and creating, there are apparently few school libraries. While people can pretend the age of smartphones, video games, and ereaders are partially to blame and make this change okay, from 2013 to 2017 the school libraries decreased by 65% (from 454 to 157)(1). This drop has been noted by students, some who didn’t even know school libraries were a thing and it’s a bigger deal than even they may understand. Similar to local libraries that can be centers of community, education, exploration, personal and community growth while promoting opportunities; school libraries do all that earlier on while also introducing children to reading. By introducing students to libraries earlier in their school years and as a part of education where they can choose their path, learning about different people’s stories and encouraging them to see reading as an expansion of their lives and can be a guide to their futures. Even something as simple as a library cart can make a world of difference, but I hope Chicago continues to work to bring back their school libraries for now and for all of our futures.
(1) https://www.saveschoollibrarians.org/chicagoschoollibrarians