Exhilaration and frustration in one fell swoop (libraries, education)

Samantha Cernach (2) makes sure she is up close to listen to Tony Hurst read a story. He is one of the most popular storytellers for Tots in D.C. (At the Northeast Branch of the DC Public Library.) Washington Post photo by Lucian Perkins. (To see this and a similar photo in a larger size, you will have to do a search for "Lucian Perkins," as the photos aren't attached to the online story.)

Today's Post has an excellent story about Tony Hurst, one of the most popular children's storytellers in the DC Library System. The story, "A Chapter Closes," subtitled "He's a Rock Star for the Diaper Set. Toddlers Have Flocked to Hear Him Read at a D.C. Library, but Mr. Tony's Story Time Is Ending," mentions that he increased attendance at his events by 600% over the previous year...

It's a great story.

But he's leaving. To become the librarian at Brent Elementary School. On the south end of Capitol Hill. And his story times will end.

The question is why?

It's a perfect example of the over-constrained thinking that occurs in various DC government agencies.

NOTHING PREVENTS Mr. Tony from still doing story-times for DC residents-schoolchildren, during the week, open to the public, from Brent School.

What better way is there to get new parents engaged in the public schools?

This relates to the kind of "complaints" I've made about DC planning processes and the way that agencies conceptualize their various missions, which all too frequently are defined and constrained strictly within the boundaries and confines of the agency, without looking beyond at how to connect to other efforts, other agencies in the verysame government.

For example, the DC Library system planning initiative shouldn't be disconnected from the DC Public Schools planning initiative. It is. You can't build a "community of learning" -- the phrase used by Mayor Williams when discussing the library planning effort -- without including K-12 schools, pre-K, college, and lifelong learning...

We aren't discussing how to build a true community of learning.

Here is an example of how it would be possible to begin to connect school library programming with public library programming in the Capitol Hill area in ways that would strengthen both the local schools and the local library branches.

Index Keywords: education; libraries