A Matter of Faith
By Lillian N. Gerhardt, Editor-in-Chief -- School Library Journal, 5/1/1998
Pikulski was reflecting, in the April/May issue of Reading Today, p. 30, on the endless debate in IRA about the role of phonics in reading instruction. He calls for research proof to support or modify teacher-held beliefs on the subject. Wish him good luck. Then, contemplate the awful problem of beliefs about reading dear to specialists in library services for children and adolescents. There are at least tests and measures for the results of teaching reading skills. But, there are none at all for librarians' belief that reading the content of a quality book can make a significant, positive impact on the personal growth of young readers. It remains a bread-on-the-waters, impelling belief among our tribe.
The belief appears to be heading to Council's agenda for debate at the American Library Association's Annual Conference in Washington, DC (June 26-30). A resolution has been prepared asking Council to direct the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) to cease providing lists of recommended books to the Boy Scouts of America (BSA) to support its merit badge activities for reading and library use. (See News, p. 18.)
ALSC's advisory service to the BSA began and continues on the premise that good books, read early in life, can make a difference beyond the enhancement of reading skills that can be tested or the encouragement of the habit of reading. ALSC sees the potential for reaching the 5.5 million boys in BSA at just the point that reading starts to drop off among boys approaching adolescence.
The resolution to Council, on the other hand, centers on BSA's regulation requiring an oath of belief in God and its strictures against homosexual scout masters or scouts. ALA has policies that support freedom of choice in religion and lifestyles that are said to be violated by ALSC's provision of the reading lists. The belief in reaching young people with good books can be suffocated on the floor of Council amid denunciations of BSA's membership rules.
ALSC does very well with book selection. It administers the only internationally acclaimed literary awards ALA's got. At their announcement each year, ALA's top officers barge in to get the only national press coverage they can count on -- not because this makes any award publicity sense, but because ALSC believes it's the right thing to do to help get the parent organization before the general public. So, why not support ALSC's even more strongly held conviction that good books make a lasting difference?
Councilors will have to choose between the punishing, quick-fix slap at the BSA and the belief that reading well-chosen books can broaden young minds, seed compassion, and raise doubts about herding out the noncomformist at just the stage when herding and ganging up is an observable tendency among young males.
ALSC members are too experienced and commonsensical to suggest that their advisory service to the BSA results in any clamor at Boy Scout Jamborees. No bunches of Boy Scouts line up to testify at campfires that their minds were broadened by a book or that any title enhanced their cultural awareness. None will proclaim a dawning commitment to multicultural diversity or that a good novel helped them to put themselves in another's shoes. So ALSC has no proof to offer ALA's governing body beyond a stubborn belief that its fine selections help develop the critical thinking skills that could result in the revision of BSA's rules when its young members take charge..
Come to think of it, Council will have to choose between two Boy Scout tenets: ALSC is acting on "Be Prepared," while Council is being asked to make ALA "Clean in Thought, Word, and Deed," by knocking off lists of good books that can reach over five million young readers.
It's a test ALA can't afford to fail.
Renée Olson
Editor-in-Chief
rolson@slj.cahners.com
