11/19/14 Casa Latina Workshop Xochitl

Jen, Tess, and I provided childcare and led the early literacy aspect of the workshop on 11/19/14. Most of the kids that came were very little. One child was 6 months, one 9 months, and one about 18 or so months. The 6 month old came with her mom who also stayed with us and the 9 month old was there with her older sister who is around 9 years old. When Jen and I had planned our story time and craft time we planned for an audience of pre-school age and up, and going in we knew that we were going to be flexible since we had no idea of what age range to expect. It was fun and really great experience planning it since I want to be a children's librarian. 

The evening of the storytime we adapted our plan, since we knew what age the children were. We started out with singing "If You're Happy and You Know It" as our new hello song because it was more familiar to the participants. Jen then read the first book we had planned and sang the "I Am Hungry" song. The 18 month old came in around that time and started crying since his mom had just left. Jen put him on her lap and I started singing some baby bounce songs that I knew from my directed fieldwork at SPL. I'm so glad I was able to pull those out because the babies loved them! The mom had her baby on her lap, and the 9-year-old had her younger sister on her lap and Jen with the little boy. Tess and I used stuffed animals as our "babies." I then read the other book we had on our plan and we had brought other books that we pulled out too. We started snack time around 5:30 and then started crafts and free play. We gave the little boy a turkey coloring sheet and the 9-year-old started painting a puppet from the craft box that Ivette had brought. We had planned for origami balloons or hand turkeys but since it was only one child who could really benefit from the crafts we let her pick what she wanted to do and she chose to paint and make a paper bag puppet. 

The little boy had a lot of energy and we were running around with him as well as entertaining the babies and carrying them. It was actually relaxing to babysit and so different from what I normally do and I really enjoyed being able to watch the kids and do a storytime with them. We definitely just went with the flow and everyone seemed to have a fun time.

For the December 10 workshop we will plan for a much younger age storytime. We also will of course be ready to adapt the plan.

11/19/14 Casa Latina Workshop Jen

Last week I lead an infant storytime with Xochitl and Tess. Going into this event, we anticipated there would be mostly toddlers or preschoolers in attendance, and the materials we chose were based on this assumption. However, we ended up having an audience of 3 babies under 2 years old, one adult, and one elementary schooler. We managed to read 2 of the 3 books we brought, but we mainly sang songs to engage the babies. Thankfully Xochitl knew quite a few songs from her DFW at the Seattle Public Library, and I managed to follow along with most as she sang. We had planned a few activities for the kids, but because the babies were so young, we improvised and used what Casa Latina and Ivette provided us with to entertain our audience. The little ones mostly colored and played with toys while the elementary school student painted her own puppet. This was a great experience overall, and taught me the importance of being able to improvise in a moment's notice. We will prepare for the next storytime by keeping this event in mind and remembering the lessons Sunny Strong shared with us.

11/19/14 Casa Latina Workshop Tess Xochitl

I went to the workshop last week with Xochitl and Jen. I feel that Xochitl and Jen had a great plan for the event: plan for a larger number of attendees but be able to adapt to a smaller turnout. They had expected about 8-9 kids to come and we ended up having 4 kids and one parent in attendance. The age group, for the most part, was very young: one 8-year-old, one 18-month-old, one 9-month-old, and one 6-month-old. The workshop started out with a storytime and songs as Xochitl and Jen had planned. Also according to plan, we moved on to snacks and then craft time. However, since the age-group was so young and it was a very small group, craft time was altered.


The word "failure" was used in the list of possible reflection questions, but I wouldn't describe anything that happened at the workshop unaccording to plan as a failure. The things that became somewhat of an improv were just different and unplanned. The 8-year-old took part in the lovely crafts, while the three of us watched and entertained the babies. In my opinion, the whole thing was a success. Although it turned into somewhat of a babysitting session, it was still fun and worthwhile because the kids were still exposed to the stories and songs that Xochitl and Jen had selected despite there being some alterations of the plan. I guess the lesson learned from this workshop was that when we're practicing librarians holding programming sessions and storytime and such, we should be prepared for anything. We should either have a backup plan or be able to quickly adapt or change the existing plan.





Xochitl Rocha


Tess, you said: "The lesson learned from this workshop was that when we're practicing librarians holding programming sessions and storytime and such, we should be prepared for anything. We should either have a backup plan or be able to quickly adapt or change the existing plan" this is so true! I am learning this in my DFW as well. When working with children you really have to be willing to adapt and veto and alter your plan, flexibility is a key trait as a youth services librarian!

11/19/14 Reflection Ivette

The past couple of weeks have been invigorating, personally, emotionally and intellectually.  Attending the ASIST conference, returning to the home of my childhood and revisiting so many places that shaped my formation and then wisking off to the island of Puerto Rico to attend the National Women Studies conference.  Ideas of community, collaboration and connection take very different forms in each of those spaces, but I am at ease knowing that at the center of the work we do is love.

As I was preparing for our roundtable, on Hormigas y Hormigueros: Resisting assimilation, silencing and erasure the questions that we were posed with reflecting on were the following:  How do we envision nation state? What are our processes of dialogue, collective?  How do we weave in new ways of imaging the nation?

With this my colleague, Miriam Valdovinos set the stage for the conversation, one in community, in circle, with ancestral knowledges of healing at the center.

When it came my time, I was at first speaking Freire and the 6 elements he refers to as essential to dialogue across differences: love, humility, hope, faith in human kind, and critical thinking.  The same ones that are at the center of the framework we are using with our work in the Empezando Donde Estamos/ Starting Where We are project.

Sharing stories, creating spaces for our counter stories, on the individual, family, institutional and academic identities is the way we can embody envisioning a different nation-state.  Hooks reminds us that "love is a combination of care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust." 

In this work, as we prepare for our first workshop today, we bring with us this kind of love that creates a space for dialogue.  One that, as Tiffany reminds us in her reflections, and in the readings include and embody a constructivist learning/assessment atmosphere and one that is rooted in the lived experiences and shared community already established and the new one we are creating. 

In the foreword to the 1990 edition of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Richard Shaull writes "our advanced technological society is rapidly making objects of most of us and subtly programming us into conformity to the logic of its system.  To the degree which this happens we are also becoming submerges in a 'new culture of silence'."

His words resonate because as scholars, educators and information professionals, we need to be aware of socio-technical systems and how our work is in dialogue with these systems which can and often are oppressive and exploitative. 

"Being oppressed is the absence of choices" hooks says, so as we move forward with the women's workshops, let's keep that notion, front and center.  Our goals are multiple but all rooted in the idea that we are creating spaces for choices, opportunities, expanding of information networks and people as resources. 

I am working on today's lesson plans for the women, and given Emily's email regarding the technology, the last few weeks, each of your reflections and my own, I am leaning towards a lesson plan that allows us to enter in dialogue with the women, engage in storytelling, lay the foundation for how and whats we are trying to do, share resources about FemTechNet as a way of thinking about technology, and create a space for allies and partners in this journey that we know so well, we cannot do alone.  We will let them know that for each of our lessons, we need a volunteer leader, to sign up and partner with us on the topic.  I believe if we want this to be a space for dialogue, it is essential that we start by making that space, by demonstrating the importance of that dialogue and being willing to share our stories and be vulnerable in the process.  

With love,

~Ivette

11/19/14 Reflection Jen

Xochitl and I finalized our plans for the storytime next week, and I feel really good about the materials we've chosen. We are doing a Thanksgiving theme, and I am personally feeling extra thankful to be part of this group and to have the opportunity to work with Casa Latina. I can't wait to co-lead storytime next week and again on December 10th!