The Library Stage

Episode 31: Disagreeing is a Skill with Elizabeth DickersonElizabeth Dickerson’s students couldn’t collaborate, whether she picked the groups or they did. The fix wasn’t a better rubric. It was teaching them that disagreeing is allowed.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Elizabeth Dickerson, a school library paraprofessional in New Hampshire working toward her library certification, and mom to two neurodivergent boys.She walks through the projects she builds collaboration into: cardboard gingerbread houses her fourth graders research, cut, paint, and decorate over three weeks before the whole school votes. A published ABC book of the library through Student Treasures. Lego parade floats mounted on Sphero Indi robots. And a book-themed mini golf course: one hole per class, then a full week of the library as a course, with the gym teacher teaching golf skills in year two.The grouping method is the part to steal. Students write down three people they’d like to work with. She picks one of those names to pair them with, then pairs that duo with a completely unrelated duo. Nobody gets a table of four friends, and everyone gets at least one person they chose.And her best observation: the materials do a lot of the teaching. A chimney cut at a weird angle won’t stick, so the argument resolves itself. Her job is mostly to stand nearby with the hot glue gun asking did you hear what that person said?Pillar: 🩵 Discovery💡 Steal-this-idea: Give them permission to disagree, out loud, before the project starts. Elizabeth sets the expectation that everyone participates and everyone participates with kindness, and that if you don’t like how something’s going and you’ve said so, you can come talk it through with her. In four years she’s had to actually intervene in a group twice.🛠️ Resources:Student Treasures — free class-published books; parents can order copies, and Elizabeth only sends that info home if a student asks, so no pressure on familiesMakerWorld — where she found the free 3D-printable Lego adapter for Sphero Indi robotsCardboard tools: MakeDo and the ChompSaw (two bought by her PTA with end-of-year funds), plus paint sticks instead of liquid paint — they stick to cardboard, dry fast, and spare a carpeted library📌 The Sphero Indi Lego adapter came from a post by Melanie Wood — our Episode 15 guest. Good ideas travel.Follow Elizabeth: 📱 Instagram: @pagesofplay | 🎵 TikTok: [@elizabeththelibrarian]Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #ElementaryLibrary #Collaboration #MakerSpace #ProjectBasedLearning #Cardboard #SEL #LibraryProgramming #SchoolLibrary #LibraryPara The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Episode 30: Storytelling Is Belonging with Dr. Hatice KaraaslanPost one image to a shared board. Then take the stage and tell the true story behind it. Two minutes, maximum.In this episode of The Library Stage (our first international guest!) Amanda Hunt welcomes Dr. Hatice Karaaslan, a cognitive scientist and instructor in Turkey who coordinates the student mentorship program at her university's Learning and Teaching Center and is a Google Certified Innovator.The activity is called the One Slide Show, created with her colleague Dr. Ahmet Çolak. Participants get five minutes to pick one thing: an image, a video, a quote, a poem then post it to a Padlet wall, then tell the personal story behind it in two minutes or less.The constraint is the design. One slide keeps the scope small enough that anyone can enter, and the clock forces people to find what's actually real in their story. The brain is wired for narrative: a number presented as data gets forgotten, and the same number inside a story sticks.Pillar: 🧡 EdTech💡 Steal-this-idea: The One Slide Show. One image, one video, one quote, one thing. Five minutes to find it, two minutes to tell the story behind it, volunteers first. The small scope is what makes people willing to start, and the clock is what makes what they say land.📌 Let people watch before they participate. The students who became the most expressive storytellers almost all started as bystanders who stopped to see what was happening.🛠️ Resources:Padlet — her tool of choice for this and her courses. Participants can post anonymously or by name, and read and respond to each other's entries.Her Padlet example — the actual board from the activityPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring:📖 The Storytelling Animal by Jonathan Gottschall — the cognitive science of why our brains are built for narrative, and why a story outlasts a statistic.Follow Dr. Karaaslan: 💼 LinkedIn: Hatice Karaaslan | 📸  Learning and Teaching Center’s Instagram (@aybuogmer)Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #Storytelling #LearnerAutonomy #Padlet #EdTech #StudentVoice #Belonging #SelfAccessLearning #InternationalEducation The Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Episode 29: Civics in Action with Rain SmithStudents registered to vote, showed up at the polls, and felt lost. So Rain Smith called her county voting office and asked them to bring a machine to school.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Rain Smith, a high school librarian in Indiana beginning her twenty-seventh year in education and tenth in the library, and chair of the Association of Indiana School Library Educators.Government classes cover voting in the abstract. Nothing in her building did anything bold and forward-facing about it. So she registered the library as a National Voter Registration Day site. A government teacher walked in, saw it, and said we should do this together next year.Four years on it's a three-day event: a superintendent on the school referendum, a judge on why judicial races matter, stations on local races and disability rights in the booth, pledge cards, a signed poster in the hallway, and the League of Women Voters manning tables. Last year they registered 200+ students, plus staff: cafeteria workers, custodians, subs, anyone not registered locally.Her framing: K–12 isn't about teaching kids to get a job. It's about preparing people who can care for themselves and their communities.Pillar: 🩵 Discovery💡 Steal-this-idea: Call your county voting office and ask for a sample voting machine. Nearly every locality has one or can get one, and those staff are often glad for the outreach, especially outside peak season. Students who've pushed the buttons once aren't afraid of the booth. It works at any level: hold a vote on the best classroom stuffie and bring the machine in for that.🛠️ Resources:National Voter Registration Day — register as a site and they send posters, stickers, digital downloads, and speaker videosLeague of Women Voters — they want to help, and they'll move fastCheck out Rain's Canva templates in the resources spreadsheet📌 Keep current books on voting, voting rights, and representation in your collection year-round, not just on a November display. Rain made a visual book list that lives in the government teacher's classroom so students know what's available when they need it.Follow Rain: 🦋 Personal: Bluesky: @simplyrain.bsky.social LinkedIn School: 📱Instagram: @wchs_medctrThink your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #HighSchoolLibrary #VoterRegistration #CivicEngagement #LibraryProgramming #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #CivicsInAction #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Episode 28: Advocacy Is Problem Solving with Cherity PenningtonNobody else wakes up in the morning thinking about the school library. Cherity Pennington built her whole advocacy practice around that fact.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Cherity Pennington, an Oklahoma educator for twenty-seven years and a teacher librarian for fifteen, now at Norman High School. She's past president of the Oklahoma Library Association, co-editor of the second edition of AASL's National School Library Standards, and a 2026 School Library Journal Librarian of the Year finalist.Early on she thought advocacy meant making pretty charts for her principal. Then she realized teachers are thinking about classroom management, principals about achievement, superintendents about strategic goals, parents about their own kid, and every one of those is a problem the library can solve. Advocacy is making yourself the obvious answer to the problem someone already has.Her three rules: build relationships long before you need anything, adopt other people's goals as your own, and tell the story behind the number.Pillar: 🩵 Discovery💡 Steal-this-idea: Ask every teacher one question: what's the one standard or learning activity you need the most support with? Then go solve it. It's a relationship, a lesson, and an advocacy win in a single conversation.🛠️ Resources:AASL Standards ResourcesPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring three professional reads:📖 Strengthening Library Ecosystems by Dorcas Hand, Sarah Kelly Johns, Michelle Robertson, and Aaron Duffy: how librarians across all library types can advocate for each other📖 National School Library Standards, second edition including a full advocacy section built for reflection and planning real conversations📖 Assessing Learners by Elizabeth Burns — short, practical, and the reference for proving your students are learningFollow Cherity: 💼 LinkedIn: Cherity Pennington Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #LibraryAdvocacy #HighSchoolLibrary #AASL #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #LibraryLeadership #AdvocacyMatters #TLA #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.

Episode 27: Twelve Days of Giveaway with Jennifer BrusenhanFor the last twelve days before winter break, Jennifer Brusenhan sends kids home with a book that's theirs to keep and the staff decides who gets one.In this episode of The Library Stage, Amanda Hunt welcomes Jennifer Brusenhan, an elementary librarian in New Braunfels, Texas, building a library program from the ground up at a campus that opened last year.A spreadsheet goes out to staff in November, and any adult on campus can nominate. The priority is kids who don't have much access to books at home, but nominations also go to kids who showed growth: a behavior turnaround, a jump in reading level, a good run on tests. Each certificate names the student, the reason, and who nominated them, so a kid learns the PE coach noticed them helping clean up.Four or five names go out on morning announcements each day across mixed grade levels. Kids come pick any book from the stack and leave with the book, the certificate, and a goodie bag. Kindergartners ask if they really get to keep it.Her advice for anyone building a program from scratch: don't roll it all out at once. Small things, one at a time.Pillar: 🩷 Literacy💡 Steal-this-idea: Who Am I cards. Clues about a historical figure i.e. birth year, accomplishments, details that don't give it away, posted on a hallway bulletin board with a guess box, or read over morning announcements. 🛠️ Resources:Who Am I cards and Guessing template — Jennifer's sets, ready to printPebble Go — her pick for elementary research, and what students use to crack the Who Am I cluesPlus, stick around for her Curtain Call featuring:📖 Dancing Hands: How Teresa Carreño Played the Piano for President Lincoln by Margarita Engle — a true story kids don't believe is true until you pull up the research with them. Great for Hispanic Heritage Month, Women's History Month, or any time of year.📌 Jennifer shares free resources constantly, including Beanstack templates — worth a follow for that alone.Follow Jennifer: 📱 @TexasAggieLibrarian on Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook | 🦋 Bluesky: @TXAggieLibrarian | ✖️ X: @AggieLibrarian1Think your library story belongs on the stage? Pitch your talk: [email protected] by Amanda Hunt, MLS (@TheNextGenLibrarian) 🌐 thenextgenlibrarian.com#TheLibraryStage #TakeTheStage #SchoolLibrarians #ElementaryLibrary #BookGiveaway #LibraryProgramming #ReadingCulture #SchoolCulture #NewLibrarian #SchoolLibrary #TeacherLibrarian #TLA #TxASLThe Library Stage is an independent podcast, not affiliated with TED Conferences LLC.