The Library's Educational Outreach Team is making learning more meaningful and engaging by taking the Library's vast digital collections to K-12 communities across the nation. On June 5, the team visited Tenderloin Community Elementary School in San Francisco. Students and staff got the opportunity to learn hands-on about the limitless resources available to them online from the largest library in the world.
Children in Tenderloin Community Elementary School in San Francisco connect with content in the Library's digitized collections of primary sources. - Gail Petri
"They were so excited to be learning about the primary sources we were showing them," said team member Anne Savage. "In a way it was as if we were bringing them treasures, and they loved it!"
Savage, along with Elizabeth Ridgway, the Library's director of Educational Outreach, and educational resource specialist Gail Petri met with a class of 25 fifth graders in the school's library, along with their teacher, librarian, principal and other members of the Tenderloin community. The Educational Outreach team was already scheduled to be in the Bay area as part of the Library's "Song of America" tour, a national program featuring baritone Thomas Hampson performing various songs from the Library's collections. The final stop on the tour was San José, where Hampson performed at the California Theatre. The Educational Outreach Team traveled to several of the concert sites to meet with teachers and students in order to present music and poetry programs using the Library's online materials.
"We wanted to work with a school while we were in the area, so we contacted Rep. Nancy Pelosi's office, and they put us in contact with the Tenderloin school," said Ridgway.
The Tenderloin Community School, which has been open for eight years, has students from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. More than half the student population speaks English as a second language and many come from economically disadvantaged families. Tenderloin boasts an unusually high attendance rate, and the students are very engaged and eager to learn.
"Each student at the school has a vested interest. The kids have a voice as well as the teachers. The entire school is focused on mutual respect. It works both ways," said Ridgway.
Savage added, "Just walking into the school, you could tell it was different. The entire school featured artwork done by the children—from the decorated tiles outside to the painted chairs in the library."
After a lively discussion about the Library of Congress and its resources, the visit continued with the students participating in a "mind walk" activity to illustrate the concept of primary sources. Students were asked to think back to what they had done during the last 24 hours and what types of evidence they had left behind. Some examples students thought of were handwritten homework assignments they had completed, entries in diaries and juice boxes from their lunches. "We discussed how these primary sources they leave behind tell a story about them and create a historical record of their lives," said Savage.
Next the team showed the students items from the Library's collections. Among these items were an 1846 bird's-eye view photograph of San Francisco and an early map of the city.
"By looking at the picture and the map, they were able to actually see how their city has grown and developed over time," Savage explained.
The students also examined three Thomas Jefferson documents available on the Library's Web site. Among these documents was Jefferson's rough draft of the Declaration of Independence with the edits and notations that were made by the Founding Fathers. "By viewing this document, the students saw that all writers, even Thomas Jefferson, have to go through the editing process and make changes to their writing," said Ridgway.
To learn more about the items they had viewed, the Educational Outreach Team introduced the students to the America's Library Web site (www.americaslibrary.gov) for children and families. Students learned how to zoom in on maps and search for information on the Web site.
"The students were able to easily navigate America's Library and were quite eager to find more stories about Jefferson and about the history of their hometown," said Savage.
Although the team conducts numerous workshops with educators at conferences and seminars, this visit was a special one for the team members, who are all former teachers. Said Savage, "Our primary job is to reach out to teachers, who then integrate what they have learned into their classrooms. It was a real treat for us to get to actually work with the kids and see firsthand how much they learn from the Library's digital collections."
