The Human Library!!!!

We recently held a Human Library event here at R.H. Lagerquist. Inspiration for the event was taken from Human Library.org.

The Human Library is an innovative method designed to promote dialogue, reduce prejudices and encourage understanding.The main characteristics of the project are to be found in its simplicity and positive approach.

In its initial form the Human Library is a mobile library set up as a space for dialogue and interaction. Visitors to a Human Library are given the opportunity to speak informally with “people on loan”; this latter group being extremely varied in age, sex and cultural background.

The Human Library enables groups to break stereotypes by challenging the most common prejudices in a positive and humorous manner. It is a concrete, easily transferable and affordable way of promoting tolerance and understanding.

It is a “keep it simple”, “no-nonsense” contribution to social cohesion in multicultural societies. Read more about the history .

The aim of the day was to expose students to the varied and vast experiences of their teachers. We wanted to show the human side of people working in the building. The goal was to open students eyes to the fact that as teachers we do more than mark tests. The event stayed small with only 12 books and we had students loan out these books in groups of about 20. We had a whole variety of different books available. Some teachers discussed their travels to other countries, or childhood experiences, others discussed trying out for Canadian Idol. We had a very good mix of books available to students.
Ideally I would have liked to search for community members that could also participate in the Human Library but for our first attempt I kept the library small. It was successful students said they really enjoyed the event. I will definitely plan another library for next year. I had included some small sound clips in this entry to give you an idea of what the Human Library was like for the kids.