Learning through Books, Media and Technology

ARTICLES THIS ISSUE:

1996 Administrative Leadership Award for Library Media Services

1996 President's Award Winner

1996 Technology Award

Editorial: Learning Comes in Many Languages

From Cave Writing to Computers

A Theme's the Thing

Primary Languages, Primary sources on the Internet

Update on a Model Library Media Program

Limited? There Are No Limits

A Bilingual Student Population

Cooking Their Way to Literacy

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A Bilingual Student Population

Baldwin Park High School

Located 20 miles east of Los Angeles in the San Gabriel Valley, Baldwin Park High is home to 2,050 students. Eighty percent are Hispanic, 10 percent are Asian, 7 percent are Anglo, and 3 percent are African American. With numbers like these, it would be easy to jump to the conclusion that one of Baldwin Park High's major challenges is to teach all these students to speak English. As it happens, however, only 10 percent of the students are limited-English speakers. Most students speak Spanish at home though, so Baldwin Park has taken on the challenge of providing services that develop and maintain the Spanish language while ensuring students' academic success in English.

Technology is a central component of everything that happens at Baldwin Park High.

Library media teachers Chela Cortez and Maria Rangel are helping to meet this challenge by teaching orientations and collaboratively planned lessons in Spanish and English, providing a large Spanish and bilingual collection of print materials that support successful Spanish and AP Spanish programs, and purchasing software that allows students to conduct electronic book searches in Spanish. The library lobby is the site of ever-changing displays affirming and recognizing the various cultures and activities represented at the school.

Chela and Maria collaborate with teachers to create everything from traditional information-finding activities to those involving such nontraditional tasks as researching etiquette and cuisine for a spring tea held as a follow-up to The Great Gatsby or generating information for mock trials or classroom debates. Baldwin Park High has a 12-station computer network which provides access to a CD-ROM reference collection, the library's print collection, and on-line resources. Students and community service workers are available to teach second-language learners computer skills where necessary.

Each year Chela and Maria and the classroom teachers develop new and different activities for the changing needs of students, all relying on a creative team of bilingual people anxious to create academic excellence. For the 1996-97 school year, after 11 years of job sharing, Chela and Maria will be launching independent, full-time positions.

Baldwin Park High School (Grades 9-12; enrollment 2,050)
3900 North Puente Avenue, Baldwin Park; (818) 960-5431
Esther Aguilar, Principal
Chela Cortez and Maria Rangel, Library Media Teachers
Baldwin Park School District