Image by Vlad Vasnetsov from Pixabay

Educating Children in a Time of Masks

When it became clear that masks and online education would be a part of fall teaching this year, I know many of us in academia (and education more broadly) discussed potential challenges for accessibility when teaching with a mask. But as an academic librarian who is childless, I didn’t think about the broader potential impacts of mask wearing, or online learning, on children trying to learn early literacy skills.

A Censor Sits in a Library

By: guest contributor Emily M. Schneider, Ph.D. – I am not writing to defend Gantos and McKean’s novel. I empathize with those critics who have expressed fears that it will only stoke the fires of xenophobia and normalize suspicion of Muslims, and that children may find in the book an excuse to bully their peers who seem to conform to the exaggerated images in the book. But, like Fitzgerald, I can also hold opposing ideas, specifically, fears of censorship, and the idea that allowing a book to be published does not imply endorsement of its message.