Lamar Library/Coffee Shop

CLASSMATES' COMMENTS on "Lamar High's Library Ousts Books, Re-Opens as Coffee Shop" in the Houston Press 11/23/10:

from Pam (Cecil) Liebman:  Isn't it amazing the way education is going?  Here I have spent 42 years trying to impress on students how great a real book is and how one book can change one's life only to find my own alma mater has given in to the latest fad.  What is really sad is that teachers there did not organize nor did the parents to stop this abomination. Can [you imagine what] what might have happened in the "old days" if this had been instituted?  Ok, I am finished ranting for the moment.  It is time to write lessons for my community college class where most of my students also do not read and expect me to spoon feed them information... No wonder this state continues to elect the wingnuts.... 

from Bill McDugald:  Sounds Scary...but if the kids are reading more then maybe it's a step forward. Now they need to make standard practice the issue of Public Library Cards for those who still like the paper versions.

from Lane Corbin: It's a travesty to burn books!  I can't believe an "educator" would do such a thing!

from Ann Parsley Harper:  You have got to be kidding me . . . Mrs. [Miss] Greenwood is rolling over in her grave.  This is awful!!!  

from Richard Pulley: I'm a Lamar alum and an unabashed bibliophile. All I can think to say is: HARUMPH!!!  My best memory of the library is parking myself there immediately after F. Lee Duggan's civics/economics class, and attempting to reconcile his rambles and outtakes with the text, the better to make a passing grade. Couldn't have done it without the one bibliotheque. Mr. Duggan's nickname, Flea (get it?) was coined by one R. Lasser.

from Janie Ford Slack:  Horrors!!!!

from Susan Donoghue Weber: Thanks so much for sharing this info. It makes me realize that I really am getting old.  A new day has indeed dawned. PS -- Don't you think Lamar should let us all come to the "Coffee Shop" for coffee at our 50th Reunion weekend?  Can we tell them we need to join the 21st century as a group? 

from Wyatt Wade: This is one of the depressing moments in history of trying to figure out how to successfully incorporate digital technology into public education.  It’s all about the sales pitch and money going to the computer companies.  If all the money spent to date on digital tech by the schools across the country had been invested in professional development for teachers we would have a first class educational system instead of underfunded schools with outdated computers and rich computer corporations.  The most troubling comment to the article was the one that said the district that the principal came from was thrilled to see him go.  What a shame.

from Micki McClelland: I guess the twits have decided that tweets are all the reading they need. Sick stuff, this. But thank John for sending news of book burning. I'd rather know than not.

from Joan Unger Davis: Sorry - but I'm a BOOK in the HAND person.  I can't believe this.  I heard it on the news last nite.  What are kids going to have to do - go to a museum to hold a book in their hands!!!!

from Margaret Lane Lovett:  This is astounding, I don't know if I'm old-fashioned and behind the times--but it seems sacrilegious!

Lamar High's Library Ousts Books, Re-Opens as Coffee Shop

By Margaret Downing

Just adding a coffee shop to a neighborhood library so people can feel like they're in Starbucks and ultra hip was apparently too passe a trend for Principal James McSwain of Lamar High School.

Finishing up a week ago, McSwain has thrown out nearly all the books and filled the space they were unnecessarily taking up with couches and coffee and food and told his students that they can access the exciting world of reading through e-books! And if they don't have a laptop of their own and Internet access to do so, they can use one of the laptop computers in the library coffeeshop!

He's even expanded the library coffeeshop hours to 6:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. which works great if you're one of those kids with your own transportation and not one who is too young, too poor or with rotten parents who won't let you drive to school yourself rather than riding the bus.

And he's bought 35 new laptops! For a Houston ISD flagship school with more than 3,000 students in it.

A veteran educator who visited the school a few weeks ago said most of the books were already gone by then. "There were a few down one side. They assured me they're getting rid of those as soon as they could. The plan is to turn the whole space into a coffee shop run by students."

Students will be able to access places online such as Questia, an online resource facility where you can get articles about anything that you want, she told Hair Balls. There's books online, too, but as she put it, the selections are limited. Her reaction:

"I was appalled. I was stunned by the whole thing I can't imagine what he was thinking. I'm assured this is old school thinking and we should just appreciate that they're not old school thinkers."

The change, she said, was "designed to impress the new superintendent [Terry Grier] with the forward thinking nature of that particular principal at that particular school. "

She said she was told one teacher who had kids after school working on their volunteer hours was asked to send them to the library to "get rid of the books." She said he asked what they meant and "They said they didn't care; just get them out of here."

"He couldn't bring himself to throw away books. He said it didn't seem like a good thing for the kids to do. They got somebody [else]. My impression was that most of the books were thrown away. Some of them may have been donated."

Hair Balls tried to reach McSwain; he would only speak to us through HISD Sarah Greer Osborne. This is what she told us:

"The school library has been updated. It's got a lot of new electronic equipment. Most of it's e-books and new laptops and they're putting their money, instead of into paper, they're putting it into electronic resources.

Yes, there are still books there but most of it is now e-books where the kids can check out the book and as long as they have Internet access they can read the book. The library is now open from 6:30 to 6:30, a.m. to p.m., and he says the kids are eating it up; they have never seen so many kids in the library before. They only did this a week ago and he says the number of e-books being checked out is through the roof.

He says the kids love it. They did put coffee and food in there so the kids when they're staying after school and before the kids can have a little coffee, read a book it's just like Starbucks. Except they're providing the books as well. The kids are eating it up that's what they want. They want the e-books."

The veteran teacher wasn't as excited. "It's just stupid. It just boggles the mind. I'm sure there's more to the story and I'm sure that they can make it sound better than I'm making it sound to you but in the end it's a terrible story. There's no way in my mind that you can gloss this story and make it seem like a good idea.

"There's no way to get hold of a book on the campus to read for pleasure or to use to write a paper. If you don't have access to a computer of your own then you have to compete for one of the computers that are in the coffee shop. And you have to find a way to get it done during the time the coffee shop is open."

The teacher said the whole thing breaks her heart; but she can walk away from it. At least she's not the Lamar High librarian, whose library has been "repurposed" (a favorite educator buzzword these days), presiding over a coffee shop with all those swell couches.