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Normalizing Discussions of Race with Children
An Infopeople Online Learning Course
Fee per learner | $175.00 |
Course Instructor: Becki Loughlin, MLIS
Discussing race can be an emotionally-charged topic due to personal background and experiences. By looking at current professional guidelines, child development, and updated ideas for storytime, programming and collection development, we will become more confident discussing racial identity and racial injustices with children and caregivers in the library and incorporating anti-racist practices in our library services.
By the end of the course learners will:
- Understand the relevance and professional necessity of discussing race with children and caregivers.
- Demonstrate knowledge of cultural development stages.
- Improve communication in storytime and in library worker-child-caregiver conversations.
- Apply new knowledge to other services for children and caregivers in the library.
Course Description: This 3-week course will include two 60-minute interactive online sessions:
- Thursday, October 6, 11am-12pm (pacific time)
- Thursday, October 20, 11am-12pm (pacific time)
Please make every effort to ensure that you are able to attend these two meetings before enrolling in the course. If this is not possible, archived recordings will be made available for later viewing.
Course Outline: When you log in to the Infopeople online learning site, you will see weekly modules with these topics:
- Week 1: Laying the Groundwork
- Setting Group Agreements
- Reviewing Professional Guidelines for DEI in Librarianship
- Understanding Cultural Development in Children
- Week 2: Moving from Theory to Practice
- Talking to Young Children About Race
- Choosing and Reading Books
- Additional Early Literacy Practices
- Working with Caregivers and Colleagues
- Week 3: How to Continue the Conversation
- Applying Collection Development and Programming
- Advocacy
- Next Steps
Time Required: To complete this course, you can expect to spend 2 to 2½ hours per week, for a total of 7.5 course hours. Each week's module contains various options for assignments, discussions, or online meetings. You can choose the options most relevant to your work and interests. Although you can work on each module at your own pace, at any hour of the day or night, it is recommended that you complete each week's work within that week to stay in sync with other learners.
Who should take this course: Children's librarians, Children's services front-line staff, storytime providers, supervisors and managers.
Are you a member of ARSL or do you work in a tribal library? If so, you may be able to sign up for a free seat in this course. Limit is five free seats per course. Make your request here and if a free seat is available you will be notified.
Tags: Children's services, Communication, Early Literacy, Interpersonal skills, K-12 services