Author Luis Herrera, San Francisco City Librarian

The San Francisco Public Library believes strongly in the power of partnerships and our collaboration with SFUSD is one of the more important priorities we nurture and support. We believe that the public library is an extension of our city’s commitment to invest in public education and a strong working relationship facilitates ways to promote and develop library services that support and enhance the students’ learning experience. As part of this commitment, we have established an informal team of library and school district staff that meets on a regular basis to share ideas and develop projects to support SFUSD’s educational mission. Here are some examples of how the Library is working to support our public schools.

Early Literacy: Preparing our children with the skills necessary to learn to read even before they enter school is part of the public library’s mission and this strategy begins with our emphasis on early literacy. Early literacy is everything children know about reading and writing before they can actually read and write. Every Child Ready to Read is the Library’s early literacy initiative to bring books, music, resources, and programs to support parents and caregivers in their role as the child’s first teacher. Our librarians conduct workshops for parents, caregivers and other early literacy partners such as head start to teach essential pre- reading skills that will prepare children for reading readiness as they enter pre-school.

Information Competencies: Critical thinking skills and understanding how to access, evaluate and apply information is an essential 21^st Century skill that will prepare our youth for future success.  The staff at the San Francisco Public Library is engaged in teaching information competencies through one-on-one reference instruction, class visits and library outreach in schools. Last school year, over 81,000 children and teens received instruction on library resources and how to use them. This includes learning how to use the electronic catalog and databases, understanding how the Internet works and instilling the love of books and reading. These are important skills that will serve our youth well throughout their lives.

Classroom Support: The San Francisco Public Library invests significant resources that complement SFUSD’s learning curriculum. The San Francisco Public Library offers a rich array of resources that are free and accessible from the home, classroom or the library. These resources include online encyclopedias, age appropriate research databases and “Live Homework Help” available through a free online tutorial service.  A library website with a wealth of school and homework resources for kids and teens is also available at www.sfpl.org.  In service workshops for teachers and principals are also conducted by library staff.  For example, in the last two years, school principals have spent a better part of their day at the beginning of the school year at the Main Library attending a workshop on the resources available through the San Francisco Public Library.

Our vision is to have every child in our city possess a public library card and to use the library’s resources to enrich their education. Let’s continue the open dialogue and keep the lines of communication open to enhance our partnership to benefit our students' educational achievement!

Parents and teachers: tell us how the public library is helping you support your students!

Can you think of other creative ways for students to use library resources? Share your ideas with us!

by Tristan Leder, SFUSD Student Leader

We live in an age of technological innovation. We’ve grown up with computers, video games, and the internet. Many of the people we interact with at schools, be it administrators or teachers, did not have this luxury during their youth. Being teens, we keep up to date with the newest internet trend or the hippest gadgets. Our teachers most of the time don’t. If we really want to forward ourselves an age of “21^st Century Learning,” we must embrace the technology that defines this generation.

At the forefront of the 21^st century push is the internet. The internet is not some big, ominous beast that people make it out to be. Rather, it’s a tool to be wielded as we choose. If you don’t know what you’re doing, sure, you may cause some harm, but with proper training and usage, the internet can perform a plethora feats that may be extremely useful. The most important tool the internet offers is “communication.”

With the rise of the internet, it’s ridiculously easy to get in contact with just about anybody. We’ve seen the district take a huge step forward with the installation of School Loop, but I want to see this go farther. I believe School Loop to be a good next step, but not an end product. We need to be reaching out to students where they already have a presence. For example, my English teacher has created a Facebook group for our class. Now, it may not tell me what the homework is everyday or what grade I’m receiving in the class, but I find it a lot more useful. Sure, he has all the big assignments, such as large essays and the like, posted on the page, but it’s the conversations that take place there that are the most meaningful. The page offers a space for students to post comments and have a discussion on whatever they choose. You can find anything from a continuation of an in-class discussion, to conversation clarifying an assignment or even students complaining about due dates, all posted in this one area. While School Loop has been awesome step forward, it lacks this sort of direct connection and communication tool that is so important to furthering our goal of 21^st Century learning.

We live in the city of San Francisco, one of the great hubs of the Web industry. There are companies all around that create and run a variety of websites. I don’t imagine being it that hard to have people from these companies, be it web designers, graphic artists, coders, and business people to come give seminars or run workshops with students. Not only would this be a fun enjoyable experience, but students get a glimpse at a variety of careers that all take place in this one industry. We would be increasing interest and hopefully encouraging San Franciscans to pursue careers in San Francisco.

21^st Century Learning can be interpreted a number of different ways. To me, it’s taking the internet and using it to its full potential to best serve students. This means having easy to access, open conversations via the internet and showing students the various careers available in the tech industry, and in some cases, right in our own backyard.

What does 21^st Century Learning mean to you? How else can we take the internet and use it to its full potential to best serve students?