The Human Library: Making real world connections with the curriculum.

The Human Library: Making real-world connections with the curriculum.

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Teachers are always trying to find new and unique was to educate their students. Creating learning opportunities that have meaning and real-world connections can help to build a stronger understanding of the content being learned in the classroom. Finding ways to transfer the concepts taught into tangible ideas and uses gives a sense of purpose to the curriculum rather than just letting students feel like they are learning stuff that has no importance.

One of the most common things I will hear students say or ask is “Why are we learning this?” or “When will we ever have to use this?” Even at a young age, children will question the value of what they are learning. They don’t always see the reasoning behind what they are studying and when this happens kids can have a decreased desire to out in the effort required to learn.

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It is extremely important for teachers to help make those connections for students. Show them the purpose behind what they are learning and help them to understand how it will be beneficial. This can be done through engaging discussions, well-designed hands-on activities, field trips and more. There are some great creative things that happen in schools all the time. This year at our school one of my colleagues started a new initiative that was absolutely amazing and creative. She brought to our school for the first time ever, the idea of a human library. Basically, for an entire week, we had people from the local area come in and give 1-hour presentations about their profession. Presenters talked about all that goes into doing their job and the skills needed. They also discussed the education they needed to get in order to achieve a position in their chosen field.



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Her idea although simple was extremely thought-provoking and created some incredible opportunities for students to make some real-world connections with the work they do in school. It was also a great moment for students to take a look at some of the possibilities for them in the future. Students were able to hear about how the things they are learning about in class matter and can translate into things they will need later in life. Students also had the opportunity to ask questions at the end of each presentation. These presentations were also a great chance for students to hear about how strong character traits can help you throughout your life. They got to hear stories that demonstrated responsibility and hard work. Often you would hear about how one of these people had to persevere and sometimes pick themselves up and keep battling for their dreams after a failure. Messages that are so important to me.



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There were a wide variety of presenters who attended our human library week. They ranged from Olympians to business people and a wide range of professionals from the community. There were people who worked in a variety of humanitarian professions and some that worked in politics. They had people who worked in the arts and in dance and music. There was something for everyone. There were even several young presenters including an 11-year-old author from another elementary school in our city. This young man impressed me so much. He was very well spoken and handled the crowd of students questions very well. Teachers were able to sign their classes up for 3 or 4 of the 25 different presentations. There were 3-4 classes that could attend each presentation so teachers had to pick and chose what they felt was important to their class. This was easy for me because a couple of the presentations were very relevant to the work we were doing in geography in relation to quality of life and inequalities around the world. There were also some bigger presentations in the gym where all the classes were able to attend.



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I was blown away by how successful this initiative was. The students were so engaged and showed genuine interest. I think what impressed me the most is the thoughtful and relevant questions that were asked. Many students took this as a real opportunity to get more information. This was especially important for my grade 8’s as they are about to embark on their high school journey. This almost acted as a sort of career day for them.



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The set for this project was surprisingly simple and straightforward. The part that required the most work and took the most time was finding all the people to come and present. Once these people committed to the event it was a matter of creating a schedule and facilitating the presentations through the week. This was a tremendously successful initiative at our school and I would highly suggest it for any school.