If you are interested, here are all the activities I have undertaken to complete my blog posts!

 

 

Censorship – Find, read and analyse a peer-reviewed journal article

David Hastie – Should we ban books in schools?: Arguments from the public history of Australian school text censorship. 2018. English in Australia. Vol. 53, No. 3, 23-36.

Hastie states that there are three main social discourses surround the prevalence and occurrence of censorship in school classrooms and libraries, all concerning the agency of the child. These main reasons include purity and danger, the pedagogy of the oppressed, and liberal consensus.

Therefore, these contending and conflicting views fight for validity with each other, and whether or not they are ethical in their views and goals. 

The author, Hastie, also gives his own opinion, from a social utilitarian position that believes that in Australia, a liberal consensus model is most constructive. This means that an upholding of a tacit yet ubiquitous consensus between four key parties: students, parents, the governing institution and society at large must be achieved. He justifies his reason for this, stating that most issues of school text censorship in Australia past and present stem from public demands by a religious organisation, politician or media figure (Hastie, 2018, p. 24).

It is also important to note, that there is insufficient studies and evidence on this topic for Australian school libraries and classrooms and the topic of censorship. The author states that there has not been effective study, nor an exhaustive survey of all occurrences of censorship in Australian schools. Because of this, the reader must employ critical thinking skills, and put forward a degree of caution when evaluating this article due to the fact that it is not exhaustive and there are many undocumented occurrences. 

Hastie goes on the describe and explore different occasions of censorship within schools spanning from 1971 to 2015. The instances touch on many different kinds of censorship including the censoring of sexual orientation and sexual education, religion, gender and drug use to name a few. Interestingly, Hastie also points out that in some instances, some texts were intentional acts of disturbance, with the creators very aware of the reaction that many parents, governing authorities, teachers and librarians would have in regard to students of all ages having unsupervised access.

Hastie ends the article re-stating that ultimately, to ban or not to ban is about deciding which social discourse concerning children’s agency is most valid, and the ethical categories most defensible within that chosen discourse.

References 

Asheim, L. (n.d.). Not censorship but selection. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/NotCensorshipButSelection

Australian Library and Information Association. (2018). Free access to information statement. https://www.alia.org.au/about-alia/policies-standards-and-guidelines/statement-free-access-information

Hastie, David. (2018). Should we ban books in schools?: Arguments from the public history of Australian school text censorship. English in Australia. Vol. 53, No. 3, 23-36.

Moeller, R. A., & Becnel, K. E. (2020). “They’re so Stinkin’ popular, how could you say no?” graphic novel collection development and school librarian self-censorship. The Library Quarterly, 90(4), 515-529. https://doi.org/10.1086/710262

 

Diversity – Book Review – Anh & Suzanne Do’s ‘The Littlest Refugee’

Anh Do and his wife Suzanne’s beautiful, emotive picture book ‘The Littlest Refugee’ is an abridged re-telling of his fateful, dangerous boat trip to Australia and his early days settling in as a refugee. This picture book, modified from his autobiography ‘The Happiest Refugee’ to suit younger children, tells the tale of Anh and his families voyage of courage, bravery and hope of a new life in Australia after fleeing war-torn Vietnam. 

Rich in literary devices and featuring devastating storms and murderous pirates, ‘The Little Refugee’ is an emotional journey for the reader, and underlines Anh’s diverse experiences as a child and a refugee.  

Anh Do, who has gone on to achieve much success in Australia in his career as a comedian, actor, host, author, painter and family man, has won multiple awards for both this book, and his original autobiography. Some of the awards for the Littlest Refugee include being named as an Honour Book in the 2012 Children’s Book Council of Australia Book of the Year awards, a NSW Premier’s History Award and winner of the Australian Independent Booksellers Indie Awards: Children’s Book 2012, just to name a few. 

Anh’s humorous, ‘always see the bright side of life’ attitude shines through throughout the book, whether its poking fun at his baby brother Khoa being mistaken for a girl when they had no choice but to dress him in baby girls clothes, or the ‘smelly’ lunches he used to bring to school. Overall however, the message of hope, gratitude and love is consistently underlined all the way through by Anhs passion and enjoyment in life, which he credits to his hard-working parents who told him to always have hope and that everything would turn out okay in the end. 

Illustrator Bruce Whatleys skilful watercolour pages enrich and complement the text, communicating to the reader, whether they be young or old, the emotionally evocative journey. This is done through colour, displaying the hard and dangerous times on the boat in greys, blacks and sepia tones, which is later juxtaposed with bright, positive colours displaying Anhs life once he has settled in Australia.

Importantly, Do ensures 100% of the sales’ profits go towards the Loreto-Vietnam- Australia Program. 

Overall, ‘The Little Refugee’ is well worth a read (if not more than one read) and highlights to the reader a diverse, multicultural and at some times difficult upbringing, interspersed with humour and wit.  

References

Do, A., & Do, S. (2011). The Little Refugee. White Lion Publishing.

Scholastic. (n.d.). The Little Refugee Scholastic Teacher Notes. https://resource.scholastic.com.au/resourceFiles/8164501_66813.pdf

 

Young people’s book awards – Analyse and evaluate a program designed for children or young adults – The NSW Premiers Reading Challenge 

The NSW Premiers Reading Challenge (PRC), which began in 2005, encourages students from Kindergarten through to year nine in all government, independent, Catholic and home schools to take part in this program to challenge themselves (not compete) to read further and read widely. The Challenge aims to encourage a love of reading for leisure and pleasure in students, and to enable them to experience quality literature. 

At a time when the average Australian student has now fallen behind almost a full school year in reading, the importance of the PRC is intrinsic (Duffy & Wiley, 2019). While it is stated it is not a competition, the ‘challenge’ style of the program allows some students to make it a competition in their minds, whether it be with their peers or with themselves, which in turn may act as an incentive to start reading, read more, or think of reading as a hobby. 

At present, students are required to read ten books from their selected challenge level. The challenge level is an extremely important feature of the PRC, as it allows a large multitude of students to take part. Because of this, students are not constricted by their year group or age, but rather able to read at the level they are currently at. This would be helpful and encouraging for both students reading above their average level, or below, and is welcoming and inclusive of different skills. 

The different challenge levels contain a large magnitude of titles that is updated and evaluated yearly to ensure they provide an excellent source of recommendations for students taking part in the Challenge (NSW Premiers Reading Challenge, 2020). Each year, the PRC Booklist and Review process is extensively reviewed and renewed to ensure that new, award winning and notable books, and established and new Australian authors, are included, with updates to the list taking place at the beginning of terms 1, 2 and 3 (NSW Premiers Reading Challenge, 2018). This allows for the inclusion of new titles, as well as diversity and choice for the students undertaking the challenge.

Interestingly, students can also log and track their progress online and achieve levels and badges along the way, while browsing the available booklist.

Overall, while the PRC acknowledges participation and completion of the program with certificates, the programs biggest success is perhaps the fact that in 2019 alone, it encouraged 310,773 students to get reading. 

In conclusion, the PRC is a long-standing yet ever-changing positive advocate for children and young adult reading.

References 

NSW Premiers Reading Challenge. Booklist and Review Process Information. https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/emag6.html

NSW Premiers Reading Challenge. Booklists. https://online.det.nsw.edu.au/prc/booklist/home.html

 

Digital materials/resources and emerging technologies – Review an electronic resource for children or young adults – Minecraft: Education Edition

Most of us have heard of Minecraft and know the basics surrounding the adventure building game. However, in recent years the availability of platforms and the emergence of technology has meant that educators across the globe have begun to utilise Minecraft for teaching and learning. 

In a response to this, the company behind Minecraft, Mojang Studios, have developed ‘Minecraft: Education Edition’ (Minecraft EE) to ensure student and children users are highly engaged, while teachers, educators and information professionals are able to adjust controls and adapt it to suit almost any subject area. 

Minecraft: Education Edition is an open-world game that promotes creativity, collaboration, and problem-solving in an immersive environment where the only limit is your imagination (“What is Minecraft,” 2020). Minecraft EE features the ability to collaborate with friends and classmates remotely from your device, playing safely in a secure environment with just your classroom community (“What is Minecraft,” 2020). 

For teachers and educators, Minecraft EE has a Professional Learning Community where you can connect with other educators to share ideas and discussions, work on and submit lesson plans, save your favourite resources and earn badges. Controls also allow for effective communication of learning objectives in the game, ability to select the world and the changes to make, control where students are located within the game, and send direct messages to individuals or groups (Renda, 2020). 

Minecraft EE has been especially helpful to support remote learning, most recently in regard to the COVID-19 pandemic. Dergosits found that by implementing Minecraft EE with his students virtually from home, students could stay better connected and focused on a task, with many of the struggling or reluctant learners joining in on the engagement (2020).

In a world where technology has become unable to be ignored, Minecraft EE also provides a new, fun an exciting way for students to be engaged and enthused about learning. 98% of teachers report that problem-solving is the top skill their students have learnt from the game (Minecraft: Education Edition, 2020). The Minecraft EE website features multiple positive case studies and reports from around the world of different institutions implementing the game. There are various reports demonstrating how Minecraft facilitates and supports teamwork, coding skills, social-emotional learning and job preparedness (Minecraft: Education Edition, 2020). 

Overall, implementing Minecraft EE in the classroom or library will immediately resonate with a large number of children who have already heard of or played the original Minecraft. This initial interest enables educators to build upon this and foster empowerment, discovery, and creation. 

References

What is Minecraft. (2020, June 23). Minecraft: Education Edition. https://education.minecraft.net/how-it-works/what-is-minecraft

Impact. (2020, October 13). Minecraft: Education Edition. https://education.minecraft.net/impact

Dergosits, W. (2020, June 17). Educators across the globe are using Minecraft: Education edition for remote learning. Minecraft: Education Edition. https://education.minecraft.net/blog/educators-across-the-globe-are-using-minecraft-education-edition-for-remote-learning

Renda, A. (2020, December 28). Minecraft: Education edition. Common Sense Education. https://www.commonsense.org/education/game/minecraft-education-edition