Little Librarians at Xiaochao School

This semester, children at Xiaochao Primary School help to manage the school library. They use policies developed by third- and fourth-grade students during a summer service learning project. Before the start of school, rural teachers discussed with the children ways to manage a library. One problem the children anticipated was that younger students would have a hard time reading the labels on books. Thus, they came up with ideas like labeling the books by color or numbers instead.

After discussions, students agreed upon using colors to label the books and spent two days labeling all the books themselves. Today, the 1,400-book library is open to students 5 days a week to grades 2-6. Each grade gets one day to check out books, and one hour everyday for reading in the library. Student librarians check out and reshelf books, and watch over other students during library hours. Teachers are only there for supervision. Below are examples of student responses to the library books they've read.