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[This year's December Days are categorized! Specifically: "Things I should have learned in library school, had (I/they) been paying attention. But I can make that out of just about anything you'd like to know about library school or the library profession, so if you have suggestions, I'll happily take them.]
Story Time is the program that most youth services or early learning librarians are best known for. They tend to be arranged into general age categories, if they're not intended to be for families or are going to be multilingual, and usually that particular Story Time is held once a week while Story Time is in session. Some places have such demand that their Story Time is year-round, but they will likely pass it between various staffers so as to make sure there's opportunities to go out and do community work, or go on vacation. (Yes, librarians, like teachers, do exist outside their workplace, no matter how odd it is for the small children to see them outside that space.) The fond memories that many people create of the library start in Story Time, and new parents that remember the library has all sorts of childrens' books available for checkout will often come to Story Time and forge bonds of friendship, communal experiences, and wisdom. So the kids are here to hear stories and do things, the parents are here to get reassurances and resources about their parenting, and the librarians are here to use the best research-based practices at our disposal to get the kids ready for reading and schoolwork without them noticing, and to impart to parent useful information about the same, hoping they will notice.
There are a couple schools of thinking about what Story Time is supposed to be. For some parents, the librarian is "Teacher," much like the facilitators and teachers of their preschools, and the program should proceed in a fairly orderly, classroom-like manner, cramming as much learning into the program as it can handle, making Story Time a sort of tax-supported preschool with people who aren't always early-education certified for the preschool audience. (Research-based best practices are generated by the people with those kinds of degrees, but most librarians that I know of don't also have a degree in early childhood education to go along with that.) Stepping past the helicopter parenting vibe and the worry that the child being brought to this story time have had their life planned out for them by their caregivers, this particular style of story doesn't resonate with me. It works really well for some of my colleagues, some of whom have come over from the education world and are bringing their formidable experience with the classroom to story time. I'm given to understand, though, that I wasn't all that great at sitting still in story time as a child, and much of these lecture-style story times expect their charges to be able to sit still for significant amounts of time. I don't think I would have been able to make it. At least, not until a significant amount of development had taken place.
I personally like to structure my story times around the idea of having fun and doing a lot of movement to run out the energy of the young ones. There's still all of that research-based practice, there are the tips for the parents about great things to do with your children, and all of those things that make the story time educational and nostalgic for the people that remember story time in such a way. So, some time ago, I started wearing flannel pajama pants to my story times, in addition to providing a soundtrack of interesting music, making sure there was a dance break in the story time, encouraging my attendees to take their shoes off, and blowing bubbles for the younger audiences to get them engaged in all the ways that you can. (The children love the bubbles. I think, perhaps, it's the highlight of their story time experience.) I think these are the things that get my story time classified more as a "dad" storytime than anything else. The pajamas, like the shoelessness and all the other parts of my story time, are made better if I can get more participants joining in.
Children are more than happy to get into this idea - no shoes, plenty of bubbles and the ability to wear pajamas to story time? Sold. Grownups, on the other hand, are significantly more reluctant to get involved in this freedom. Some of them can be convinced that they can take their shoes off. Some of them, when prodded gently (or more firmly), will get involved in the story time and model for their child the kind of behavior that we're looking for in them and in grownups that are involved in the care and feeding of their charges. But pajamas? That's a freaking tough nut to crack on the grownups. I remind them and encourage them that the bits about no shoes and pajamas being okay go for both kids and grownups, but I rarely get anyone wearing anything that could pass for a pajama thing in the grownups.
I sometimes think they would feel too embarrassed to be seen anywhere in their own flannel pajamas. I'm trying to demonstrate that it's okay by being a person who wears flannel pajamas to work, but that's not enough. Perhaps they fear some form of being made fun of by their parental peers for taking advantage of the extra comfort offered. Other times, I wonder if the grownups are considering what they wear as pajamas to bed and decide that it would be far too revealing for the story time. Which makes sense. But I never know what it actually is.
Participation is a bigger challenge in a lot of library programs than someone might think, whether the monthly book discussion group, the arts and crafts program, or even story time, where we do our very best to get everyone involved. Attendance looks good for the numbers, but if we can't get everybody engaged, then the attendance is going to go down over time. The kind of participation that we often want from the grownups is not just participating along in the rhymes, fingerplays, and paying attention to the story, but in being able to redirect their children, should they get antsy. Some of our kids are runners, and one runner can sometimes encourage others to get involved in it, as well. Some of our kids are the kind that want to get right up to the page of the story and point at everything, making it impossible for everyone to see what's on the page. And some of our children are the kind that want to say things at all times, instead of at the time that the narrative suggests for the story. This is not a thing that should bar a child from story time, but it does mean that the child needs to have a caregiver actively involved in their program experience to make it more useful to them. Many of our caregivers are a lot more hands-off with their children, so long as nobody is throwing, hitting, or taking things from someone else. I probably encourage this a little bit by trying not to let those sorts of things disrupt me too much and making adjustments as needed to keep things going.
It also shows up with those adults that drop off a child at a program without having checked the age suggestions, or that believe it's entirely okay for their much younger child to participate in a program intended for a grouping older than they are, and then wonder why their kid gets bored or isn't able to participate as much as possible. They're certain that their child is smart enough and advanced enough to participate, but it's not necessarily going to go well if they don't have close caregiver supervision.
As with many things, library school didn't prepare us for the reality that reality is much less neat and effective than our coursework examples. This can be great, when it turns out that you learn something useful about your community and can make it happen. This can also require some adjustment, as someone's meticulous amount of planning for a program or a story time can go to complete waste because there isn't enough audience, the audience is the wrong age and skill, or because nobody shows up until halfway through the allotted time for the program. Flexibility is a thing that is important for your sanity in library world. As is finding out however many ways you can to encourage grownups to wear pajamas in story time.
Story Time is the program that most youth services or early learning librarians are best known for. They tend to be arranged into general age categories, if they're not intended to be for families or are going to be multilingual, and usually that particular Story Time is held once a week while Story Time is in session. Some places have such demand that their Story Time is year-round, but they will likely pass it between various staffers so as to make sure there's opportunities to go out and do community work, or go on vacation. (Yes, librarians, like teachers, do exist outside their workplace, no matter how odd it is for the small children to see them outside that space.) The fond memories that many people create of the library start in Story Time, and new parents that remember the library has all sorts of childrens' books available for checkout will often come to Story Time and forge bonds of friendship, communal experiences, and wisdom. So the kids are here to hear stories and do things, the parents are here to get reassurances and resources about their parenting, and the librarians are here to use the best research-based practices at our disposal to get the kids ready for reading and schoolwork without them noticing, and to impart to parent useful information about the same, hoping they will notice.
There are a couple schools of thinking about what Story Time is supposed to be. For some parents, the librarian is "Teacher," much like the facilitators and teachers of their preschools, and the program should proceed in a fairly orderly, classroom-like manner, cramming as much learning into the program as it can handle, making Story Time a sort of tax-supported preschool with people who aren't always early-education certified for the preschool audience. (Research-based best practices are generated by the people with those kinds of degrees, but most librarians that I know of don't also have a degree in early childhood education to go along with that.) Stepping past the helicopter parenting vibe and the worry that the child being brought to this story time have had their life planned out for them by their caregivers, this particular style of story doesn't resonate with me. It works really well for some of my colleagues, some of whom have come over from the education world and are bringing their formidable experience with the classroom to story time. I'm given to understand, though, that I wasn't all that great at sitting still in story time as a child, and much of these lecture-style story times expect their charges to be able to sit still for significant amounts of time. I don't think I would have been able to make it. At least, not until a significant amount of development had taken place.
I personally like to structure my story times around the idea of having fun and doing a lot of movement to run out the energy of the young ones. There's still all of that research-based practice, there are the tips for the parents about great things to do with your children, and all of those things that make the story time educational and nostalgic for the people that remember story time in such a way. So, some time ago, I started wearing flannel pajama pants to my story times, in addition to providing a soundtrack of interesting music, making sure there was a dance break in the story time, encouraging my attendees to take their shoes off, and blowing bubbles for the younger audiences to get them engaged in all the ways that you can. (The children love the bubbles. I think, perhaps, it's the highlight of their story time experience.) I think these are the things that get my story time classified more as a "dad" storytime than anything else. The pajamas, like the shoelessness and all the other parts of my story time, are made better if I can get more participants joining in.
Children are more than happy to get into this idea - no shoes, plenty of bubbles and the ability to wear pajamas to story time? Sold. Grownups, on the other hand, are significantly more reluctant to get involved in this freedom. Some of them can be convinced that they can take their shoes off. Some of them, when prodded gently (or more firmly), will get involved in the story time and model for their child the kind of behavior that we're looking for in them and in grownups that are involved in the care and feeding of their charges. But pajamas? That's a freaking tough nut to crack on the grownups. I remind them and encourage them that the bits about no shoes and pajamas being okay go for both kids and grownups, but I rarely get anyone wearing anything that could pass for a pajama thing in the grownups.
I sometimes think they would feel too embarrassed to be seen anywhere in their own flannel pajamas. I'm trying to demonstrate that it's okay by being a person who wears flannel pajamas to work, but that's not enough. Perhaps they fear some form of being made fun of by their parental peers for taking advantage of the extra comfort offered. Other times, I wonder if the grownups are considering what they wear as pajamas to bed and decide that it would be far too revealing for the story time. Which makes sense. But I never know what it actually is.
Participation is a bigger challenge in a lot of library programs than someone might think, whether the monthly book discussion group, the arts and crafts program, or even story time, where we do our very best to get everyone involved. Attendance looks good for the numbers, but if we can't get everybody engaged, then the attendance is going to go down over time. The kind of participation that we often want from the grownups is not just participating along in the rhymes, fingerplays, and paying attention to the story, but in being able to redirect their children, should they get antsy. Some of our kids are runners, and one runner can sometimes encourage others to get involved in it, as well. Some of our kids are the kind that want to get right up to the page of the story and point at everything, making it impossible for everyone to see what's on the page. And some of our children are the kind that want to say things at all times, instead of at the time that the narrative suggests for the story. This is not a thing that should bar a child from story time, but it does mean that the child needs to have a caregiver actively involved in their program experience to make it more useful to them. Many of our caregivers are a lot more hands-off with their children, so long as nobody is throwing, hitting, or taking things from someone else. I probably encourage this a little bit by trying not to let those sorts of things disrupt me too much and making adjustments as needed to keep things going.
It also shows up with those adults that drop off a child at a program without having checked the age suggestions, or that believe it's entirely okay for their much younger child to participate in a program intended for a grouping older than they are, and then wonder why their kid gets bored or isn't able to participate as much as possible. They're certain that their child is smart enough and advanced enough to participate, but it's not necessarily going to go well if they don't have close caregiver supervision.
As with many things, library school didn't prepare us for the reality that reality is much less neat and effective than our coursework examples. This can be great, when it turns out that you learn something useful about your community and can make it happen. This can also require some adjustment, as someone's meticulous amount of planning for a program or a story time can go to complete waste because there isn't enough audience, the audience is the wrong age and skill, or because nobody shows up until halfway through the allotted time for the program. Flexibility is a thing that is important for your sanity in library world. As is finding out however many ways you can to encourage grownups to wear pajamas in story time.
