Blog 1: Ljubica Arceneaux, Rosewood Elementary School

Top image: Ljubica Arceneaux presenting to students. Bottom image: Jennifer Boykin, Ljubica Arceneaux, author David Bierdrzycki, and librarian assistant Andrea Walters

Introduction

Ljubica Arceneaux is the librarian at Rosewood Elementary School in Columbia, South Carolina. She was my supervising librarian for my internship. I spent five days with her over the course of the Spring 2024 semester. During my time with her, I was able to observe different aspects of school library operations such as collection development, programming, administrative work, teaching, and organizing the library environment. For this interview, we focused on the AASL Standard of "Explore.B.2.-- Create--Providing opportunities for tinkering and making." I decided to focus on this standard with her because there is no makerspace area in her library and I was curious as to how she uses this standard. The first day of my internship she did a makerspace activity with students where students worked in groups with uncooked spaghetti, tape, yarn, and a marshmallow to build a tower. During our interview, we discussed other ways she provided students with opportunities tinker and make.

Reflections & Takeaways

The building a tower with yarn, spaghetti, tape, and a marshmallow required students to work together and collaborate. Some of the students were able to work well together while others were either silent or disengaged. The tinkering and making then becomes a pathway to collaboration since resources are limited and must be shared and because students need practice with working cooperatively with their peers. Each month she comes up with at least one makerspace activity for the students to participate in. Some of the inexpensive options she gave were Popsicle stick activities, breakout activity, and origami. She emphasized the need to do more STEM like activities and not just arts and crafts.

Our conversation reminded me of how flexible librarians must be to provide opportunities for their students. So although Arceneaux does not have a dedicated space in her library, she makes sure students have at least one activity a month that allows them to explore and create. She said that the boys in her school seem to do better with the STEM activities. Other possibilities for STEM we discussed include the Hour of Code and resources found on ITology.This conversation also reminded me of the possibility of using robotics and purchasing a 3-D printer for students to engage in STEM. STEAM activities that incorporate the arts with STEM could also be a potential area of expansion.

My main takeaway was to be flexible and to not be afraid to try new things. Whatever challenges my future library will bring, I must find a way to provide the space, time, and materials for students to create, tinker, and make. This could mean that I am fortunate enough to have a makerspace in my library, or this could mean that I will need to be like Arceneaux and improvise and create the space for students to create and explore.

Additional Resources: 

AASL Makerspace Blog


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