The School Library Association of NSW (SLANSW) held the first of its biannual summits for 2022 which was provided online on Saturday.
The focus was on embracing diversity and inclusion and attending on Saturday was a must given that in a secondary setting, students are indicating a preference for literature that reflects the world around them.
Two items stood out on Saturday
Firstly, I enjoyed listing to keynote speaker - Will Kostakis (Author), who provided a wonderful overview of his writing career, and the challenges that he has faced in writing literature as his novels such as The First Third and Sidekicks have been inspired by his experience growing up as gay. He had been told that he had to "de gay" the storyline for The First Third. I have read both of those titles and are very well written.
Secondly, Pooja Mathur (Teacher Librarian, The Kings School & ) presented a workshop that helped us to identify suitable literature that can be representative of all students within your school including authors. In our resource acquistion, we had to consider the impact the story may have on the reader and if it improves our understanding of an issue. Also how can we classify it. "Relationships" was recommended. Promotion of literature that is from the "Relationships" genre is straightforward and can be easily applied in my practice.
One matter raised during the day was the amount of censorship or concerns that have been raised about books and how they may "misrepresent" certain groups or issues in society. Even great and bestseller books have been listed as doing so, even though the intention is to provide an insight into their world but also help society understand their needs and issues in a positive way. I would not be surprised if these concerns are being raised more by the "politically correct" or "woke" groups in our society in terms of outing the faults in books, and not realising the debate and discussion and positive change that has stemmed from the publication of the book.
I am currently a Metropolitan Representative on the School Library Association of NSW Management Committee.
