SCHOOL LIBRARY: ITS ROLE IN THE PRESENT CONTEXT
ANIMESH MAHATA
MLISc
In the present democratic set up of India there is now a change in the educational philosophy and consequently in the methods of teaching. The role of education today is to promote intellectual and emotional development of the child through an effective and progressive system of primary and secondary education and Continuous & comprehensive evaluation. The school of the past was entirely dependent upon the text book. The school of the past concentrated upon drilling the child in a series of mental exercises in which leaning by writing the subject taught was a favourite practice. Today it is replaced by dynamic method of activity based teaching by which learning is accelerated and broadened by the use of many and varied device and materials(teaching aids,teaching learning materials). Through self effort and activity, the child has to develop an effective ’ art of study’. The child who is surrounded with good books of all kinds learns beyond the class room routine and through extensive reading’ he is able to develop judgment about books and to acquire standards of appreciation and taste’. This involves the training in the use of reference books, instructions or reading technique and regular use of school library as a” common literary laboratory for students of all ages and stages” and an indispensable agency for imparting real education through dynamic methods of teaching, An eminent educationist of India has beautifully visualized the concept and potentialities of a school library in India as under:
“A school library means for the child a new world of spiritual and cultural adventure; it means for the teacher untold increase in resources and power; it means for the school a new atmosphere of learning, a new vision of things intellectual, it means for the home elements of common interest and the development of habit of reading for its aesthetic value alone “.
AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:
1.To help the child acquiring ‘reading habit’ and ‘self study habit;
2.To develop in pupils the ability to learn fro books without a teacher;
3.To break down the rigid divisions which the school time table often creates between different subjects;
4.To give civic and social training in observance of democratic principles;
5.To supply teachers with materials needed in the teaching work and for their own professional growth;
6.To create a life long liking and longing for new knowledge;
7.To re-emphasize the pedagogical principles of self education at individual love of interest and abilities;
8.To help an individual to realize the full potentialitiesof his personality;
9.To contribute to the fulfillment of the educational aim of the school;and
10.To become the co-ordinating agency for the curriculum and to become the centre of learning programme of the school.
Therefore, broadly the aims of the school library are as follows:
1.To awake and foster interest interest in reading so that children become familiar with books as sources of pleasure and interest;
2.To help children to become independent in finding and selecting relevant information to a given job or to their interests and hobbies;
3.To encourage reading in new fields of interest and extend reading in familiar fields.
EDUCATIONAL USES:
1.To provide material to supplement the work done in subjects taught in the class room, taking into consideration the various interests, ability and maturity of the child;
2.To provide materials that will stimulate growth in factual knowledge, literary appreciation, aesthetic values and ethical standard;
3.To provide materials representative of the many religions,ethnic and culture groups and their contribution to our heritage;
4. To place principle above personal opinion and reason above prejudice in the selection of materials of the highest quality to ensure a comprehensive collection appropriate to the users of a library.
Now it can be said that class room work and school library work influence each other reciprocally; more over school library work will have similar reciprocal relation with the physical and social environment of the student what ever be the extent to which it is taken from the distant stars to the road surface and from the distant international occurrences to the intimate happenings at home, for,to the school students his entire environment is a unity and his experience itself is a part of that unity. He is like the young Ulysses saying :
“I am apart of all that I have met;
Yet all experience is an arch where thro’
Gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades
For ever and for ever when I move”.
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