January Newsletter: Education Program

The Gottesman Libraries Education Program informs students, faculty and staff about the latest thinking in education, in ways that engage members of the community with one another and with a broad range of educational experts. The program also provides understanding of work being done throughout the College.

Read more below about offerings in January.

Meet and Greet

Welcome new students! Be sure to stop by the Student Services Fair for a meet-and-greet with your friendly staff of the Gottesman Libraries. With the beginning of the Spring Semester, we will orient you to a wide range of library resources and services, from access privileges, here and across campus, to research and information assistance, through to Course Reserves and library room reservations. We'll be glad to answer any questions you may have about using the Library -- and provide useful information to strenghten the start of your academic journey.

This event is hosted by the Office of Graduate Student Life and Development.

Where: Virtual, details forthcoming

Tours (rescheduled for early February)

Welcome Spring Semester students! Please join us for a tour of the Gottesman Libraries to see the many beautiful spaces of Russell Hall, including the first floor hub, second floor collaboration space, third floor quiet reading room, stacks, and of course, the beloved Big Bear! You'll become acquainted with key resources and services, from instructional offerings to room reservations, scanning to printing, sponsored events to book displays and art exhibits.

All tours meet at the First Floor Library Services Desk, and you may rsvp in advance with your interest and details.

Wednesday, 2/2, 3-3:45pm

Thursday, 2/3, 4-4:45pm

Friday, 2/4, 12-12:45pm

Workshops

Regularly scheduled instructional offerings include workshops, tours, orientations, and course-specific instruction in coordination with staff and faculty of the College.

Research Reboot, Thursday, 1/27, 3-4pm

Let's reboot for research in the Spring! In this workshop we will review important tools and strategies to use the library most effectively. We will look at Educat+, the definitive record of holdings at the Gottesman Libraries, and beyond, so you can best discover books, articles, curriculum, children's boos, and much more.

Come with your research topic, and we will search the relevant literature, while presenting multiple routes to information.

Please rsvp by Tuesday, January 23rd with your interest and details, and we'll follow up with a Zoom link.

Talks

The Gottesman Libraries sponsors talks by leaders in education, psychology, and the applied health sciences to recognize and celebrate scholarly work of interest to the Teachers College community. Stay tuned for details on book and guest talks, including the program,

Artivism: The Power of Art for Social Transformation, co-sponsored by Adelphi University and Sing for Hope.

Live Music

The Everett Cafe Music Program sponsors performances by TC student and affiliated musicians. Come enjoy a variety of genres and styles!

Stephanie Mayer, Wednesday, 1/19, 5:15-6:15pm (postponed)

Stephanie Mayer has been playing jazz with known artist such as Christian McBride, Billie Heart and Dave Stryker. Her inspiration and style is highlighted from jazz greats like Charlie Parker and Herbie Hancock. The best way to describe her music is a taste of classic jazz and R&B mixed with Latin Jazz flavors.

Want to play in Everett Cafe? If you'd like to showcase and/or volunteer your own talents, please contact us with your details via online support. Solos, duets, trios are welcome!

News Displays

Need to keep current, look to the past, teach a topic? The Everett Cafe features daily postings of news from around the world, and also promotes awareness of historical events from an educational context. Be sure to check the Cafe News postings on the library blog.

Roosevelt Outlines the Four Freedoms, Thursday, 1/6

Thomas Paine Publishes Common Sense, Monday, 1/10

Peter Mark Roget Was Born, Tuesday, 1/18

The Viet Nam War Ends, Thursday, 2/27

Book Displays

We are pleased to host the following curated book displays that draw upon special and current topics of significance to teaching, learning, and research.

Staff Picks: Hidden Treasures

"Does the library have what you're looking for? Do you know what you’re looking for? I, like many students, have typically used the university library as a place to find books and articles for required readings and research papers. I’ve also looked up a few children’s books to use at my student teaching placement site. In the past, I began my search for useful resources in the university’s online library catalog. I would write down the call number of the books I wanted and walk to the shelves to pick them up. But after working in the library for some time, becoming more familiar with the physical space, and learning how to better search the library catalog, I realized that there were many resources available that I didn’t know existed. I used to search with expectations of what I thought would be available at the library, but now see that my knowledge was limited. 

During my shifts at the library, I began to see the interesting titles on the Course Reserves shelves and on books that students in other areas of study returned. I noticed there were robotics kits behind the Services Desk and had more opportunities to explore the large collection of old books in the library’s storage rooms. Eventually, the way I looked at the library changed. Now, the library is also a bookstore and interactive museum where I often peruse the shelves, flip through books, and open boxes to see if there is something available that I wanted but hadn't known was there. This curated collection of resources is an invitation to challenge yourself to see the library in a new way. I invite you to touch the pages of the braille book, practice experimenting with the LEGO robot kit, borrow the “big book” for your next read-aloud in class, and explore resources that you, too, may have wanted but hadn’t known were there." 

-- Natali Constanza, Library Associate

Staff Picks is curated and designed each month by the Gottesman Libraries' staff to highlight resources on educational topics and themes of special interest.

Everett Cafe: Carbon and Climate

Activists, artists, citizens, diplomats, economists, lobbyists, media, political leaders, and scientists gathered together in Glasgow, Scotland, this past November at an historic and critical summit, the 26th annual climate conference, represented by countries bound by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They were united with a common concern: our dependence on fossil fuels which heat our homes, run our vehicles, and generate power for industry and manufacturing, but which fundamentally place limits on life. Said Sir David Attenburgh, British documentarian, natural historian, and author, “We are, after all, the greatest problem solvers to have ever existed on Earth. If working apart, we are a force powerful enough to destabilize our planet. Surely working together, we are powerful enough to save it.”

Without carbon dioxide Earth would be unbearably cold since it traps heat close to our planet and helps keep us warm. However, too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere serves to accelerate climate change to the detriment of our health; it causes compromised supplies of food and water; greater risk of illness and death from infectious diseases; and devastating weather events, like hurricanes, tornadoes, blizzards, droughts, and fires. Melting polar ice caps, rising sea levels, and disruptions in natural habitats are indicative of global warming which threatens the survival of species, ecological balance, and well-being of nature, as well as humans.

Did you know that carbon dioxide constitutes approximately four fifths of all greenhouse gasses, and that transportation, with the burning of fossil fuels (oil, coal, natural gas), geologically formed from the remains of dead plants and animals, generates the largest proportion of carbon emissions -- roughly 29%? Carbon dioxide emissions from cars, trucks, planes, and boats cause smog and pollution, harmful to humans, living creatures, and the environment. Passenger cars produce approximately 41% of global transportation emissions which equaled 7.3 billion metric tons in 2020 alone. Particularly in suburban United States where it's common for a family to have two, sometimes three vehicles, the car culture is consuming us with a deadlier price tag.

Cleaner modes of transport, including public transit, electric vehicles, biking, and walking, help reduce our carbon footprint, as will taking fewer flights in favor of trains or boats. Can we get to "net zero" emissions by taking certain steps in our daily lives to change our behavior and together work towards a smarter, more sensible way of living? Carbon and Climate invites us to examine the overarching question of CO2 emissions, from individual to corporate responsibility, educational to economic concern, political to health implication, present to future life. 

At the Everett News Cafe, you'll find a new book collection every few weeks that relates to current events, education, or learning environments.

Featured Databases: K-12 Resources

In January we highlight subscription databases that are useful in elementary through secondary school classrooms; these resources exemplify models for research at the K-12 level. Read more on the Library's news' feed.

Exhibit: Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations in Creativity Beyond Human

In times of ecological unraveling, Human-Nature Entanglements: Explorations in Creativity Beyond Human looks into biodesign as a creative space to reimagine humans’ relationship with nature. The exhibition presents an array of material explorations in shape, texture, and color resulting from an entanglement with mycelium (the underground networks of mushrooms), technologies, bioplastics, waste, and other materials. By blurring the boundaries between the practices of making and growing we are invited to interrogate sharp distinctions and hierarchies between humans and non-humans, culture and nature, artificial and organic. Instead, we examine the ways in which all material bodies are intertwined and constantly giving form to each other through pressure, friction, breath, growth, decay and ongoing material transformations by which all forms emerge. 

Isabel Correa is a designer, doctoral student, and research assistant at Teachers College, Columbia University. Her research focuses on understanding creativity particularly in education, and involves the development and study of playful tools and practices for children to make sense of the world around them and build alternative worlds. Working at the intersection of design, learning sciences, and biology her dissertation explores creativity across species through the development of biodesign practices that invite learners to reimagine humans’ relationship with nature. 

This exhibition was made possible through the generous support of the Myers Foundations. The pieces displayed in this exhibit are part of Isabel Correa’s dissertation research on Interspecies Creativity with the advice of Dr. Nathan Holbert, and developed in collaboration with Snow Day Learning Lab’s members Maria Lopez-Delgado, Ayse Unal, Uttarika Shetty, Yuxi Huang, and Blake Danzing. It was produced in collaboration with Trisha Barton, lead designer of the Gottesman Libraries.

Also be sure to visit the Everett Cafe book display, The Entangled World of Fungi, which invites us to unravel the kingdom of fungi in the search of meaning, connectedness, possibility, and life amid environmental decay. 

Where: Offit Gallery, 12/16-3/18

Guest Talks: TBA (virtual)

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To request disability-related accommodations contact OASID at oasid@tc.edu, (212) 678-3689, or (646) 755-3144 video phone, as early as possible.