Literacy Supports Critical Thinking Free Library Projects

Amie Comeau, Yahoo Contributor Network Feb 15, 2014
Why create your own corner library, or Little Free Library? Engaging youth in reading prepares them as critical thinkers. Books harness our capacity to question the world around us. Readers are problem solvers. Secondly, everyone loves a surprise. When you find an unread book, by your favorite author, in your little free library expect reciprocity. Sharing knowledge, opening the door to new relationships is the best result of any community effort.

Any registered little free library complies with the motto Take a Book, Leave a Book. Why are these guerrilla literacy tactics more important in the digital age? Video games, cell phones, and web development are changing the landscape of language. Text messages often truncate the words into an acronym to comply with character limits. Language usually requires a universal understanding of acronyms; where the context of your message is syntax over symbol. In other words, the characters of your message are not as important as the meaning of those characters. Re-discovering language through books emphasizes the necessity of critical thinking to make sense of our current visual world languages.

Critical thinking is necessary to solve complicated social problems. Engagement of the learner in recognizing their own perspective provides a tool for discovering new solutions to problems like access to health care, poverty, and criminal behavior. This ability to critique your own thinking is part of literacy process improvement. Simple questions about personal motivation, connection to the main idea, and the inability to hear another perspective reveal dysfunctional thinking. Critical thinking tools work when community members have access to information.

Literacy elevates neighborhood and community relationships. Little Free Libraries bring neighbors together through a united interest in learning. Health centers, financial institutions, and civic organizations that sponsor art design competitions in building a Little Free Library improve their access audiences. Craftsman, architects, and artists construct these open resource ‘birdhouse’ repositories. More public libraries promote this public engagement as an effective outreach strategy. Art design competitions to build little free libraries is an easy public relations campaign.

Everyone gathers around media. A significant result of improved literacy is improved social capital. Learn to expand your thinking. Recognize associations between activities like reading, and membership in community organizations. Put books in the hands of people who then make informed decisions. Here is the ladder out of oppression.

Published by Amie Comeau Amie Comeau teaches Stress Reduction for adults. Her background includes portrait photographer, database administrator, research specialist, and garden scientist. Currently, she supports K-12 educators focus… View profile