AFTER WORKING THROUGH THIS MODULE, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO:

• Explain why taking time to develop and nurture relationships with BIYOC is important to developing equitable and inclusive library programs and services.
• Implement strategies for building positive relationships with BIYOC.

INTRODUCTION

At one time, librarians and educators lived in the communities in which they worked. They shopped there, attended community events, ate at local restaurants, and so forth. They knew the community because they were part of the community. They also knew the young people they worked with because they interacted with them frequently – at their place of worship, at the recreation center, or at local community events. Today, this is often not the case. Many librarians no longer live in the communities where they work. As a result, their interactions with youth are limited to when the young people are visiting the library. And they seldom interact informally with members of the community.

In this module and the next module, we will develop a shared understanding of why getting to know the BIPOC community and BIYOC you serve is important to developing inclusive and equitable library services.  We will also explore some concrete strategies you can use to engage with BIYOC and their families. Please note that while much of the information in these modules is drawn from and pertains to school settings, the findings can be easily applied to work in public libraries.

BUILDING RELATIONSHIPS WITH INDIVIDUALS

In this era of accountability, many educators, including librarians, don’t think they have time to spend building relationships with youth. Teacher Stacey Goodman explains it this way, “If I wasn’t directly addressing the lesson at hand, but instead talking about Hakim’s interest in the ukulele, then I was wasting time.” While public librarians may not have a scheduled curriculum to get through, they do experience a similar struggle. It is common for librarians to juggle multiple duties, commitments, and deadlines at once, and they may find it difficult to justify using their limited time to build connections with youth in the library.

However, by not taking time to build relationships with youth, we are overlooking the proven connection between positive relationships and increased youth engagement, increased youth motivation, and increased youth achievement (Baker, Grant, & Morlock, 2008; Hughes, Cavell, & Jackson, 1999). By not taking time to learn about the experiences and backgrounds of the youth they work with, librarians are missing opportunities to create services and programs that are relevant to those in their communities. (Steinberg, Allensworth, & Johnson, 2011). 

The following section highlights the importance of strong student-teacher relationships for BIYOC in schools. As you read, consider how strong librarian-youth relationships might have similar benefits.

When asked, “What is the most important thing white teachers need to understand about Black students?”, Asa Hilliard III, an influential African American psychologist and scholar, responded: “You have to start with ‘the who.’ Of course, it is important to know your content and your curriculum, but you can’t truly reach the children if you don’t first start by getting to know who they are as people” (cited in Rome and Douglas, 2018, p. 261). Principal Baruti Kafele argues that teachers must commit to learning about their students of color and their cultural history so they can build relationships that are truly meaningful. “Relationships coupled with compassion are so crucial. I have so many teachers who were superstars because they were so committed to those kids by forming solid bonds and getting to know them beyond their names, getting to know their history and their culture, and putting themselves in position to even teach them those things.” Gloria Ladson Billings  adds, “We need teachers who view their students of color as whole people.”

A 2017 study¹ found that “when students had teachers of the same race as them, they reported feeling more cared for, more interested in their schoolwork and more confident in their teachers’ abilities to communicate with them. These students also reported putting forth more effort in school and having higher college aspirations… One problem: a growing number of students don’t have teachers who look like them. The majority of students in public school are students of color, while most teachers identify as white. And this so-called teacher-diversity gap likely contributes to racial disparities in academic performance.” This lack of racial diversity is also a well-known issue in libraries, with over 81% of librarians identifying as white in 2023.²

REFLECT

Before you get started, reflect on your own experiences. Which teachers or librarians do you remember fondly?  Why do you remember them? What did those teachers or librarians have in common? What made them different from other teachers or librarians you interacted with? As you do this, also consider your own identities and experiences. To what extent did the teachers and librarians you identified above share your identities and experiences?

WATCH

The following video addresses the importance of building relationships with BIYOC. As you watch, consider the following questions:

• Why is it important to build relationships rather than focusing only on academic or literary activities?
• What are some of the techniques we have available to help us build relationships?
• What are the outcomes of building relationships with BIYOC?

Keynote speaker – Brittany Packnett

READ

Read selected sections of Relationships & Learning: Keys to Academic Success, a working paper by Tyrone Howard. Start with the abstract on page 4 and read through the section THE IMPORTANCE OF TEACHER–STUDENT RELATIONSHIPS TO LEARNING, ending on page 8.

REFLECT

Does your library prioritize forming positive relationships with youth? How does your library support staff in developing these relationships? Has your library ever provided professional development focused on building relationships specifically with BIYOC?

CONNECT

For one week, be an observer in your library. Notice how and when library staff and other adults interact with youth of color. What is the context of these interactions? What is the tone of the interactions? What kind of information is communicated (information-seeking, personal, etc.)? Once you have a list of these interactions, put a plus by the ones that are positive and a minus by the ones that are negative. Reflect on this experience in light of the previous two modules. Be prepared to discuss your observations at your next cohort meeting, if applicable.

IMAGES OF PRACTICE

How can we get to know the youth in our libraries on more than a superficial level? In the video below, veteran educator and Director of Student Services for Wake County’s (NC) Office of Equity Affairs Teresa Bunner discusses some of the strategies that have worked for her.

EXPLORE

Need tips for how to build relationships with BIYOC? Take a look at these resources. While they may not address your specific setting or the age level you work with most often, many of the ideas are adaptable to school libraries and public libraries and all age levels.

• Teen Services: A Fresh Perspective by Jordan Neal
• Five Practices for Building Positive Relationships with Students by Kelley Clark

As part of YALSA’s Teen Services Competencies for Library Staff webinar series, librarians Megan Burton and Valerie Tagoe discuss how they effectively build relationships with teens. Their approaches are highly applicable to building positive relationships with younger children as well. Below we’ve highlighted a few of their recommendations. To learn more, watch the full webinar linked in Additional Resources³. 

• Be yourself.
• Listen.
• Show respect “right off the bat.” It’s not about respect being earned over time.
• Be transparent: communicate the what and why.
• Acknowledge your bias. Know you are going to be coming into any interaction with youth with your own baggage.
• Practice and model high trust with boundaries.
• Take advantage of informal one-on-one conversations to talk with youth about what is important to them, what they care about, and what interests them.
• Facilitate group conversations that provide opportunities for youth to interact not only with you, but also with each other so that they can build peer-to-peer relationships.
• Begin each program with a welcome circle: form a circle and have each person introduce themselves, their pronouns, and answer a question prompt developed by the youth.
• See youth as persons, not problems.

ACT

Now that you’ve completed this module, set one short-term, one medium-term, and one long-term goal for getting to know the BIYOC you work with. Be prepared to share and brainstorm with your group at your next cohort meeting, if applicable.

BUT WAIT!

In this section, we address common questions and concerns related to the material presented in each module. You may have these questions yourself, or someone you’re sharing this information with might raise them. We recommend that for each question below, you spend a few minutes thinking about your own response before clicking “Show more” to see our response.