THE BOOK NOOK - 10 Quick Fixes for Every School - Hacking Education

Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes for Every School (2015)

HACK 8. THE BOOK NOOK

Create a Culture of Readers at Your School with Free Books for Everyone

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who’ll get me a book I ain’t read.

—ABRAHAM LINCOLN

THE PROBLEM: NONREADERS

IN 2014, THE United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) reported that 121 million youths around the world can’t read. Combining this number with the almost 800 million adults who are functionally illiterate reveals a staggering fact—nearly one-seventh of the world’s population can’t read or write. As shocking as these statistics are, most policymakers and education leaders are, indeed, aware of them; the move to improve reading achievement has grown exponentially over the past few decades.

Still, the frightening number of non-readers doesn’t appear to be shrinking, which is equally surprising, because there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of programs aimed at improving reading achievement. So why do our children continue to not read? One answer to this important question is simple: They don’t read because they don’t have access to books. In most cases, this is an issue related to poverty. Low-income families typically don’t have many books in their homes, and many live in communities without good libraries. Hacking poverty is something we won’t attempt here, but we can all hack this unacceptable reading problem: All it takes is a room and some books.

THE HACK: BUILD A BOOK NOOK

Some K-12 buildings have bookstores, much like colleges have. These are places where students can purchase basic school supplies, along with young adult book series, graphic novels, and other popular works of fiction and nonfiction. Like the bookstore, a Book Nook contains books, but they are not for sale; they are free to all students. A Book Nook is any designated space in the school where books are available for free—not to borrow, not to buy, but to take. There is no check-out or check-in system. When a student takes a book, it’s his to keep for as long as he likes.

The brilliance of the Book Nook, or any designated room created to house giveaway books for students, is that it promotes reading by simply putting books in kids’ hands. Often, these are students who might not have books of their own. As literacy expert Stephen Krashen has noted in many papers and speeches, reluctant readers become reluctant because they do not have access to books. The Book Nook is one way to solve this problem.

WHAT YOU CAN DO TOMORROW

It’s difficult to argue with the simplicity and philosophy behind the Book Nook, but there are obvious challenges to starting one. With a little ingenuity and a lot of perseverance, you can have the beginnings of a nearly self-sustaining Book Nook as early as tomorrow. Try these basic steps before diving headlong into this project:

· Bring books to school. We’re betting you thought the first step would be to locate a room for your Book Nook. Sure, this is a reasonable starting ground, but choosing a room may not, in many cases, be a step you can take tomorrow. Deciding on a room may require time and planning, but it only takes one visionary educator to collect some books, bring them to school, and give them to kids. Start by culling the shelves in your own home library. This strategy proved to be strikingly effective for the teachers at Knapp Elementary School, as we illustrate later in this chapter. Ask neighbors for some giveaways for your students; it’s such an easy request; who wouldn’t want to contribute to this amazing cause? Contact your colleagues, friends, and your students’ parents via social media or your classroom website or blog and ask them to bring any appropriate books that they’re willing to donate to school.

· Plant the first seed in a single classroom. As you plan full implementation of a Book Nook for your school, create a small-scale nook in your own classroom. Show your students the collection of books you brought from home and from friends and share the amazing idea you have for a free book room. Be sure your students understand that the Book Nook is not a library; books in the nook are theirs to keep.

· Give students books to handle. Even if you aren’t able to grab enough books at first to give one to every student, encourage them to browse your small collection. Invite them to touch the books, preview them, turn the pages, smell them, and read a few pages. Preach the value of books and of reading. “We are a culture of readers” should be your mantra.

· Make homework finding a book to donate. If ever there were a useful homework assignment, this is it. When you launch your Book Nook, throw out your standard homework assignment that day and ask students to embark on a treasure hunt for books. Challenge them to bring at least one book, which they are willing to donate, to class the next day. If you’re a math teacher, your students will love this homework assignment, because most don’t equate math to reading. And yes, math teachers can build book nooks filled with math-related and other wonderful content.

A BLUEPRINT FOR FULL IMPLEMENTATION

Step 1: Build a team.

Successful book nooks are created and loved by people who are more passionate about reading than almost anything. Find book lovers and invite them to be part of this fantastic project. Team members don’t have to be English teachers, but they must be dedicated go-getters who absolutely love books. Important players include, but are not limited to, your school librarian, an involved parent, at least one student leader, a community business owner or manager, a representative from your local library or bookstore, and anyone else you believe is skilled at organizing people and projects. If no one on your staff is willing or able to step up and be in charge, but you really want to see the Book Nook come to life, consider whether one key staff member’s responsibilities might be reduced to free up some time to manage your nook.

Places like Starbucks and Barnes & Noble draw readers in because they are cozy and hip.

Step 2: Find your nook.

Most schools don’t have spare rooms available for this kind of project, so be creative: Your nook could be a large closet, an alcove in a hallway, or even a shelf that runs the length of a classroom. When you read the “Hack in Action” section later, you’ll see it really can be done anywhere.

Step 3: Brand it.

Places like Starbucks and Barnes & Noble draw readers in because they are cozy and hip. If you set up your Book Nook with this in mind, branding it as a place built for all kids—cool, nerdy, quirky, studious, and athletic—you’ll attract more students. In a perfect world, your nook would be designed for lingering, complete with comfortable chairs, couches, bean bags, and maybe a vending machine, rather than a grab-and-go storeroom with a few shelves of books. You might even hold a contest to have students name your Book Nook, furthering its branding and getting more buy-in from the student body. With thoughtful packaging, you send the message that if you haven’t been to the nook lately you’re missing out.

Step 4: Find benefactors.

You don’t need millionaires to create a self-sustaining hub for giveaway books, but a few well-chosen benefactors are a must. These are often people who have access to books. One of your team members should visit the local library and explain how they can help. Libraries cull their collections regularly; most of the time they sell books they’re eliminating as a fundraiser. Once librarians understand what you’re doing, they’ll likely be willing to give books to a school, rather than sell them at 25 cents apiece. Make the person donating the books feel like an important part of the culture of readers you’re creating, and she’ll be more inclined to give you books throughout the year.

Your first goal is to acquire books by the hundreds. Books by the thousands.

Don’t forget other entrepreneurs in your community. Find as many small businesses as possible and ask the owners to contribute yearly to the cause. They can purchase books and bring them periodically, or they can simply write you a check.

Step 5: Manage the Nook.

Without a proper management system, your Book Nook is doomed to fail, even if you have a glorious room with more books than the Library of Congress. Set some guidelines (neatness, behavior, max number of students browsing at one time or number of books that can be taken in a day) and post them prominently. While this is not a swap meet, students should always feel encouraged to give back to the room.

You don’t need a Dewey Decimal System, but there should be some semblance of organization. Create clearly labeled sections by genre. You can decide if you want to organize by author name, title, or subject. You may feel it’s not necessary to maintain any alphabetical or numerical system, which is fine. Regardless of the method you adopt, be sure it is maintained. Use everyone on the team to manage the nook. If it becomes an overwhelming chore, it won’t last.

Step 6: Invite students and teachers to the nook.

This isn’t Field of Dreams; just because you build it doesn’t mean they’ll come. We’re talking about books, not baseball, and the sad truth is that many kids hate reading, primarily because they’ve never owned books. The nook can change this attitude, but it will only happen if all shareholders believe in it. Your team should create a system that encourages teachers to organize “field trips” to the nook.

Step 7: Promote, promote, promote.

Snap pictures of students giving and taking books from the nook. Shoot video of students reading; share these assets on your school website, on Facebook, on Instagram, and any other website or social network that contains school information. With every picture, video, or blurb about the nook, ask for more books. Finding and donating books will become contagious, and soon you’ll have dozens of people constantly contributing to your cause.

Step 8: Always Be Collecting.

People in sales live by the rule of ABC (Always Be Closing). Use your own ABC rule to stock your shelves. You and all stakeholders at your school are now collectors. Books are your lifeblood, so be pushy about collecting them.

Teach students to scavenge, providing a list of great places to find used books: Friends, relatives, yard sales, used bookstores, and the local library are excellent places to find free books. All staff members should constantly be on the lookout for books. Remind your friends and family members that you always need fiction and nonfiction books. Take everything; never turn down a book thinking it’s not right for the Nook or is not age appropriate. The management team can cull the collection. Your first goal is to acquire books by the hundreds. Books by the thousands.

Step 9: Give it to students.

When your team has the Book Nook running on autopilot (this might take a year or two), turn the operation over to students. This might be tough in elementary school, but teens should be able to handle it if properly coached. Explain to students that the Book Nook is theirs, and they need to make it a success.

OVERCOMING PUSHBACK

It’s too late for our non-reading teens. It’s never too late. Sure, teaching a high school student who reads on a third-grade level requires more than simply handing him a book, but that book is the most critical first step to becoming a lifelong reader. Bring nonreaders to the nook and help them browse. Talk about what excites them, and find it. When you hand them books and say, “It’s yours to keep,” they’ll want to read. Be sure to follow up with other necessary interventions, because if they struggle, they may not come back.

Isn’t this just a second library? The best Book Nooks resemble libraries, because they’re filled with hundreds, hopefully thousands, of books in all genres. Remember, the magic of the Book Nook, what distinguishes it from the library, is that the books are not loaned. They are gifts.

You make it sound easy, but isn’t this really a major undertaking? Yes, it’s a major undertaking, for sure. The hacks in this book solve problems with simple ideas, and giving away books is definitely this. Most simple, life-changing programs, though, take dedication and hard work. However, with the right team and support from a few key players, this might be the most rewarding hard work you ever do. In many schools, teachers organize the prom, coach the robotics team, and run the yearbook for no additional pay. These co-curricular activities often become the best part of their daily work lives. People who coordinate Book Nooks aren’t just collectors; they encourage kids to be lifelong readers, and this undertaking becomes a crucial part of their lives.

THE HACK IN ACTION

Before he began working full time in education at the University of Pennsylvania, Joe Mazza was a principal at Knapp Elementary School in Philadelphia. Mazza and a few teachers at Knapp believed that many students do not read because they don’t have access to books. “We all know that the amount of books in a child’s home has a direct correlation to their reading level and how jacked up they are about reading,” Mazza says. “So we really wanted to help kids have books in their homes.”

Mazza assisted a small team of stakeholders that included teachers, parents and staff members on the School Climate Committee. They met, discussed the problem, and brainstormed ways to bring books to Knapp’s students. “A lot of us had books at our houses that were just going to waste. We wondered how many others had the same experience, and we put out a challenge to send in books.” The community answered the team’s challenge in a big way, as Knapp amassed over 4,000 books in just a few months. When that giant collection dwindled, the team reached out to Scholastic, and the publishing giant provided roughly 2,000 more books that the school could add to its shelves and pass on to hungry readers.

There were so many books, in fact, that Mazza and his team had to choose some unorthodox places to put them. They placed bookshelves in the main lobby (this made it easy for parents to drop off books they wanted to donate), around the gymnasium where evening events took place, and in another high-traffic hallway. “We didn’t care if the books came back,” Mazza explains. “We just wanted to get books in the hands of kids.” At the end of the school year, the team divided books into various reading levels and sent students home with backpacks full of them, so they could continue reading during summer break.

Knapp’s Book Nooks not only created a culture of readers, they helped bring the school community together. “They became a hangout,” according to Mazza. “They opened up a lot of doors for a lot of different people. Between the constant give-take and equipping kids with summer books, it was something that really gave the community an opportunity to contribute. It was a really powerful experience.”

Are you frustrated by a culture of nonreaders at your school? Perhaps you’ve tried virtually every reading intervention and tutorial program available. Still, many kids don’t read, and there’s nothing more frustrating. Before you pull out one more hair or furrow another eyebrow in frustration, ask yourself this one simple question: What do our nonreaders need that we’re not providing? Consider this simple hack; then, go get them some books, and build a culture of readers at your school. Oh, and don’t forget to smile, knowing that you are changing the world.