Val Hamilton writes “While schools pour big money into computers, some educators say the educational rewards are disappointing
Vancouver Sun Thursday, March 11, 2004
http://tinyurl.com/2ebpu
http://bctf.ca/BCTLA/news.html
“Library budgets, meanwhile, have been slashed. Mary Locke, a teacher-librarian at Gordon elementary in Vancouver, says studies indicate spending on library resources is a quarter of what it was 15 years ago.
Her school library falls short in almost every area, Locke said. There are few books to help students understand changing conditions in other countries, nothing on modern space exploration, little new fiction and almost no magazines.
“We don’t have enough of what children love to read to fuel them to want to read,” she lamented.
The flood of information available on the Internet does not substitute for good, age-appropriate print materials, she said. “You can press some buttons and see something, but do you actually understand what you are looking at? It’s a struggle for students to figure it out.””
Fire
This quote was in the article:
“We don’t have enough of what children love to read to fuel them to want to read,”
It reminded of this quote:
The mind is not a vessel to be filled but a fire to be kindled. – Plutarch
Libraries should be full of items that start peoples minds on fire and librarians should work to get the right book to the mind that needs lighting.
Re:Fire
Can’t help but recommend a book:
Todd Oppenheimer’s
The Flickering Mind