Double Standards

It was great to have Barry Lyga discuss his book and the impact that a book that makes people so uncomfortable has. It seems to be a theme that many of the books we have read in class seem to bring us back to. One aspect that Mr. Lyga mentioned was the fact that a boy being molested by a female teacher was something that wasn’t viewed as serious but would be if the genders were reversed. While reading the book it reminded me of Living Dead Girl and even though the circumstances were much different the way the reader felt about what was taking place in Boy Toy was drastically different compared to Living Dead Girl. While reading the story one thing that I had in mind was an episode of South Park which examined just this situation of how boys that were abused were viewed as lucky instead of victims. When the police were told that a teacher was having a relationship with a student, the police were outraged screaming “what’s his name?” when they were told it was a female teacher all they said was “…nice.” (http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/155304) Boy Toy does a great job of really making the reader address their own personal views on the matter and think about why male victims tend to viewed in such a different way especially when the molester is a young and attractive woman.

Talking to Teens

I was surprised how easy it is for teens to really open up and talk about the books they love and hate. I was a bit nervous that they would have absolutely no interest in talking about books and think that it was the lamest topic possible. But much to my surprise and relief they loved voicing their opinions about books and reading. In fact it was actually kind of hard to get some of them to stop talking about the topic. One girl was even kind enough to give me a 20 minute summary of the entire plot of The Host by Stephanie Meyer, trying to leave out no detail, after I told her that I had not heard of it. What was more surprising was learning that some students who I never would have thought were fans of certain books told me about how much they loved them, including one boy who said the Twilight series were some of the his favorite books. Overall the whole experience has been very positive and I found out that even teenage boys like talking about books almost as much as they do about sports or girls. I also got to see just how passionate many teens can be about their reading choices and how happy they are to argue with one another about what’s good and what’s not. The assignment also helped me see just how much I like working with teens as their insights into certain things can be truly unique and extremely humorous.

Managing Teens

The discussion about how to set boundaries in a library and deal with those who continuously act out was extremely informative. Hearing everyone’s input and comparing it with the strategies that I rely on helped me to examine what I do and what about it is effective and what can be improved. Working at a summer program with a group of 9th to 12th graders who I must escort around the campus of Brooklyn College managing their behavior is on my mind often. Having done this for a few years I’ve gotten to experience managing vastly different groups of teens and seen just how challenging some can be and how easy it can be for others. I’ve learned you really never can tell what a group on a given day might be like and have to constantly change your approach accordingly from friend to drill instructor to everything in between.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Tyrell. Going into it I wasn’t really sure what to expect but as I got into the story I realized how much I connected to the character Tyrell. He seemed so real and relatable in his quest to fix the situation that he has found himself in and begins to succeed while making a number of mistakes along the way. The manner in which he was presented was extremely believable and seemed to capture the attitude of a teenage boy very well which seems to be lacking in a lot of the young adult novels I have read.

The Benefits of Programming

This week’s class discussion on programming was definitely interesting as I think a large portion of what libraries have the potential to offer and many times fail to do is go beyond being a room of books and become a more inviting place to be. I think this is especially true of school libraries which have a greater opportunity to interact with their patrons because they are easier to access than in a public library. From observing at different high schools around the city I have seen a wide range of librarian involvement from those who sit in their office all day rarely interacting with a student to ones who spend the entire day running around helping and being involved. When I was in high school, the library was a place where no one would go if they had a free period because making any noise would result in you being thrown out. As far as interaction between library staff and students besides the frequent “please quiet down or you will have to leave” there was very little, no collaborative projects or any after school activities. After observing different types of school libraries the ones I was most impressed with and had the most fun being in where the ones with heavy librarian involvement and allowed teenagers to act like teenagers while in the library. Seeing all the creative ideas that fellow classmates came up with was a wonderful experience to see especially for the more challenging books which still generated interesting activities. Going beyond checking out books and actually creating programs is a great way to create positive interaction with patrons while also providing teens with activities that will allow them to learn something new, create something or just have a good time with their friends.

The Lack of Teen Resources

When I first began working on the community resource list, I had no idea that finding helpful and interesting resources were so hard to come by in a city like New York. Having narrowed my choice down to neighborhoods I was somewhat familiar with I ended up choosing Park Slope because I thought it would contain a fair mix of activities and locations that would be appealing to teens and openly embrace their involvement. It soon became apparent that advertised resources were extremely hard to locate and it seemed most things were aimed at younger children under the age of thirteen. Locating these services that were aimed at teens took a great deal of patience and luck which is unfortunate as teens who may be interested in these services might have no idea they exist if they don’t already have prior knowledge of certain community organizations. After thinking about this I realized that when I was a teen most of the activities and organizations that I took part in were directly related to my school. I was lucky that my school provided me with such a wide array of resources that other less involved schools might not be able to provide for their students leaving them left out of a number of opportunities which could help encourage personal growth or just provide safe entertainment. Being so involved with these activities can be beneficial for a number of different reasons and it is a shame that programs that offer support for the youth in a community are so difficult to find when they could give so much to those who need it.

Messages with a pinch of plot

After reading 50 or so pages of Little Brother, it became painfully obvious that the plot was not nearly as important as the message that was trying to be drilled into the reader. Throughout the novel I felt annoyed and alienated when it came to the preachiness of its politics even when I agreed with what it was saying. I really don’t see why any young adults would like this novel as I know when I was a young adult I hated things that tried to preach to me and treated me like I was too stupid to figure something out if I wasn’t beaten over the head with it. The desire to force feed this message I feel ruined the plot which could have been much better if it was hidden in a creative story instead of written out and connected with a somewhat interesting plot. While reading it, I kept thinking about the movie “Brazil” which basically tries to convey the same message as Little Brother but succeeds while being entertaining and not overly obvious. I would really worry about young adults being forced to read something like this in school because someone thinks they could gain an understanding of current events through it and they feel it is so relatable to young people because it has technology in it. Instead young adults might just be put off by its preachiness and drawn out plot. Teenagers are much more socially aware than this book thinks they are.

Teen Social Life 2.0

After the class discussion about everyone’s experiences and feeling about the vast number of social networking sites I was interested to know how actual real life teenagers viewed them. Having spoken to them I found that the most popular was Facebook which the students check constantly throughout the day. Most of the students had a MySpace page but tended to view theirs or others rarely. Twitter was something that they had absolutely no desire to use since most felt that it was basically a whole website that lets you do what Facebook’s status updates do. They seem to be very aware of the kinds of information and photos they post saying in many cases that close family members also had accounts and could see what they posted which made them think about what they chose to post. It was interesting to see how frequently they communicated with each other and how important their interactions on Facebook were to them on many occasions being the hot topic of conversation for the day.
One book that I could have seen myself really liking when I was a teenager would be Living Dead Girl. It has a plot that really makes you think about a number of things and that can be appealing to a lot of teens who want to challenge themselves and explore things that may be interesting to them while still making them uncomfortable. It can serve as an alternative for teens who don’t want a sappy feel good story but instead a more mature read that treats them like they are actually capable of thinking instead of empty vessels that can’t do their own thinking. There is also a large group of teens who would be put off by this story especially if they have any type of experience remotely similar to Alice’s. This is a great book to look at because it is really difficult to pinpoint a specific group that would like it and could potentially be extremely alienating to some, while being a strong emotional experience for others.

Virtual Worlds and Their Inhabitants

I found Robbie Cooper’s Alter Ego interesting having just recently become aware of how the amount of time that people devote to these online virtual “games.” Prior to starting Pratt these game had been pretty much entirely off the radar for me with the exception World of Warcraft which seemed to be lampooned occasionally on television shows such as the Simpsons and South Park. When I started at Pratt many professors seemed to firmly believe that Second Life was the next big thing and used regularly by young people. I never really paid much attention to it until I had to do a presentation and tried it out for myself. I found myself wandering around unpopulated areas failing to find the reason that so many such as the media were hyping it up as the next big thing. I soon realized that this was not as popular as it seemed and failed to really attract the everyday average person.
A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to watch two brothers one 9 and the other 12. I found out that they spent a large portion of their day playing World of Warcraft. It was interesting to see how involved they were in it and how passionate they became if anything happened. They would even call up on the phone friends from school who were playing with them to talk or yell depending on what they were doing. I was intrigued that they spent so much time playing and how popular it was among there friends. I realized that it was extremely similar to going over to people’s houses to play videogames when I was younger except it could be done on a much larger scale. Alter Ego was great for showing not only the different types of games that people played but also the wide array of people that enjoy them. Reading about the Korean “PC Bangs” made me think about how library computers would be a perfect for this type of group gaming with the exception of the noise that would be produced by yelling teenage boys. Though I have found this type of gaming is not nearly as common as those who play Wii or XBOX 360 the people who are into them are extremely into this type of gaming. There are even tons of fiction books and graphic novels produced about World of Warcraft.

Teens and Pop Culture

Taking the teen pop culture quiz was an eye opener for me, even though my score wasn’t spectacular (12/26) I found out that I knew more about teen pop culture than I had initially believed. Having just started working with a group of high school students earlier that day I had been actively thinking about how to forge relationships with them and encourage them to interact with each other on their nerve filled first day of a summer program. In the past I have found that pop culture is the easiest way to form such relationships as it can stir up instant conversation and debate. The degree to which a librarian or educator is aware of what the children they serve and interact with is a vital part of creating positive relationships with them. Working with young adults definitely requires you to have a basic grasp of popular culture such as music and movies even though you don’t have to experience them all first hand. Having the basic foundation allows one to connect with the teens and create an easy dialogue. This helps to make young patrons much more comfortable with librarians and more willing to ask for help than they would be from a more serious “scary looking” librarian. I find that having these two way discussions with kids allows them to relate to you on a much more personal level and can make you look much “cooler” than trying to prove you know a lot about teen pop culture.