Giving a Fish a Bath

“Why you telling me this?” was the first words out of my 12 year olds mouth! Just like Heather Higgins said a teenager would react-“What’s it got to do with me?” The evening after attending the "Giving a Fish a Bath" workshop, I briefly shared with my three teenage sons the topic of the teen brain. Upon hearing the overview of the adolescent brain, and without hesitation, all three boys immediately agreed that they now have an excellent excuse for their sometimes wacky behavior! Being informed with information like this helps us as individuals, as families, as volunteers in the schools, and as assistants working in public places as well as other situations. Understanding why a teen behaves as she does helps us to support her at home, at school, and at the library. My group found The Survival Game to be challenging-it was difficult to come up with good decisions and solutions as adults. How hard it must be to do so with a confused adolescent brain. I think I could use a whole morning of working through the challenging scenarios that teens may experience. Coming up with socially acceptable responses and reactions is difficult to do without losing face.

Giving a Fish a Bath

This workshop, presented 9/12/11 by Heather Higgins from the Upside Down Organization, was very engaging and informative. While I had attended a lecture on brain development several years ago, it was interesting to see how knowledge of brain developed has increased. I'm not really surprised that the length of Adolescence is increasing- starting earlier and lasting longer. Hopefully, I am better prepared to work with the teens in my community. Now, I just need to figure-out how to get them to the library!

State Teen Interest Group Meeting

On Thursday, March 12, 2009, the State Teen Interest Group Meeting was held.

One of the first topics for discussion was "Blogs and Wikis." Several were recommended for teen librarians.

The YALSA Blog: http://yalsa.ala.org/blog/
It is chock full of information about teen services, books, programs, and advocacy. If you have not checked it out, definitely do so. It is a blog must read!

Howard County does a partnership with the schools linking their blogs and wikis.
http://www.hclibrary.org/

Reading Rants is a website that does Reader's Advisory www.readingrants.org

The Ch-Ch-Changing Librarian Blog was also recommended
http://ch-ch-chchanginglibrarian.blogspot.com/

YPulse www.ypulse.com

SLJ's Joyce Valenza "NeverendingSearch" blog http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/blog/1340000334.html

Also, Liz Rafferty lead a discussion on Twitter and "tweeting." Feel free to check out her Twitter account and become a follower on the BCPL webpage http://www.bcpl.info/teens/

The group also had a lengthy discussion on what libraries are doing differently in the face of budget cuts. Is there something unique that your libraries are doing? Please share!

Lastly, we ended the meeting talking about the millenial generation and their research and research engine habits. We got talking about this after reviewing the article: "Dude-I'm Phaaaaaatttt!" Here's a link to the article http://www.searchenginepeople.com/blog/dude-im-phaaaaaat.html What do you think about this and the direction we're heading?

If anyone is able, these sessions are definitely worth checking out!