Library Helps Teachers Blend Cultures Into Classes

Education

When a student who spoke little English was placed in Linda Takami’s Lewis and Clark High School classroom, Takami wasn’t sure what to do.

How was the girl going to grasp “The Diary of Anne Frank” - which the rest of the class was studying - when she could only read in Spanish?

After much research and several phone calls to the University of Washington, Takami tracked down a Spanish copy of the book in Tacoma.

“I was at a loss,” she said. “Nowhere in Spokane could I find that book.”

That experience was several years ago, before the Spokane School District set up a special library so staffers wouldn’t have to scramble to find cultural materials for their classrooms.

The district’s equity office has spent the summer beefing up the library, located on the first floor of the Libby Center.

Among the library’s 2,500 items are multicultural books, games, posters and videos. The library carries titles like “Feisty Females: Inspiring Girls to Think Mathematically” and includes subjects from Maya Angelou to Belarussian culture.

Takami, now a district equity coordinator, said the library inventory has more than doubled since it moved to Libby three years ago. Its worth increases every year as Spokane’s schools become more ethnically diverse.

“It’s really important, with our growing number of English-as-a-second-language kids,” said Merrilou Harrison, who oversees the district’s libraries. “They really do need to find something where they can identify.”

Takami works with teachers to help them understand how the materials fit in with day-to-day lesson plans.

If a teacher wants to do a lesson on shapes, no longer do they have to rely on the basic worksheets of yore. One equity book demonstrates a lesson on spheres based on the pysanky, a decorated Ukranian egg.

Another teacher wanted to do a lesson on bees and hoped somehow to infuse equity into the study. No problem, said Takami, who worked with Libby Center librarian Marilyn Smith to find an appropriate book.

“We can put equity into everything,” Takami said cheerfully.

The secret, she said, is to slip the cultural lesson in with the regular curriculum. Students may not realize they’re learning about culture or ethnicity, but they are.

“We try to blend them,” she said. “We don’t want equity to be the add-on.”

Materials selected for the equity library are chosen for their compatibility with the district’s “learning targets” - lists of what’s expected of students at each grade level.

But for the growing number of kids who bring Hmong, Vietnamese or Russian traditions to Spokane’s schools, materials acknowledging their heritage are more than study tools.

“We’re trying to find for them things they’ve actually seen and touched, that make sense to them,” said Harrison. “It’s so people can see themselves in the curriculum.”