InSPIRing Conversations

I am very excited to lead a conversation at the InSPIRing Converations Conference organized by the School Librarian Connections in Prague next week.
My conversation "Don't judge a book by the cover -The  Human Library" shares our experience of hosting a Human Library at the International School of Estonia for the lower school students. I will be a book on loan titled "Human library-what, why, how: running a successful living library in lower school" telling a story about our challenges and successes hopefully inspiring others to give this exciting learning format a try.

The Human Library works exactly as a normal library – readers come and borrow a “Book” for a limited period of time. After reading it they return the Book to the library. There is one difference: the Books in the library are human beings, and the Books and readers enter into a personal dialogue. The aim of a Human Library is to start a conversation that can challenge stereotypes and prejudice through personal dialogue. The Human Library is a place where difficult questions are expected, appreciated and answered.

This sound intriguing and pretty big... for the lower school.

I was challenged to make this format work for the younger readers. I defined the Human Library for the young readers as a verbal heritage tool, a way to share our stories, culture, hobbies, interests, skills in a real face to face situation, to learn from each other and about each other.

I am glad about the opportunity to share our experiences and at the same time learning from my colleagues and fellow librarians.

The very first ISE Human Library during sport themed "Healthy Mind in Healthy Body"  Book Week, school year 2013-2014

Human Library during the Book Week "We All Speak Music" dedicated to music, school year 2014-2015

Human Library hosted during Science week, school year 2015-2016

Besides sharing our experiences I am looking forward to learning from my colleagues and fellow librarians. As a MYP Coordinator and librarian I am very excited about the opportunity of participating in the "Understanding and working with Information Literacy skills /the Approaches to Learning in a library context." workshop lead by Dianne McKenzie.
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