A Hypothetical New School

In the post-modern knowledge society, the role of the school in the education of the youth is paramount.  Education should develop the holistic person through the implementation of an educational program in the school.

Among the auxiliary services of school, the library is directly related to the acquisition of knowledge, skills and attitudes, which are important to developing the youth’s potentials for a functional membership in his society.  This paper proposes a library design in terms of its basic features contained in the of a hypothetical school.

New School Library Philosophy

In the holistic education of a student, a school endeavors to develop the whole person composed of mind, heart, body, and spirit.  The school library herein proposed shall be devoted to the attainment of the basic vision of educating the youth to be a holistic person predominated by his spiritual intelligence with an ethical conscience that is able to guide his in living as a functional member of society—local and international.

With a superior spiritual intelligence, a holistic person is able to develop and utilize all the other aspects of his personality, mind, body, and heart since the spirit influences all these aspects.  Spiritual intelligence is “the guidance of all three other intelligences,” (Latumahina, 2007.)  Spiritual intelligence can be developed “through making and keeping promises, educating and obeying your conscience, and asking questions yourself and living the answers.”

Spiritual Intelligence and the Library. The school library herein proposed will provide great opportunities for developing the spiritual intelligence of its clients.  The working and learning environment is of great emphasis.

The library staff shall be imbued with compassionate and caring attitudes towards the school and the outside community.  Moreover, the library staff will be composed of highly trained professionals in the delivery of services to the students, teachers, school employees and outside clients.

They shall work for and with those clients, thus, making the school library a service center of the school.  Working closely with the clientele also develops and utilizes their spiritual intelligence, which they pass on to the students.  The staff will therefore be not only “servicing workers” but also “instructing librarians.”

Beyond the physical domain of the library, the staff will be rendering community service with the students, teachers and administrators, thus, making them an integral part of the school and community.

The school library emphasizes service to its clientele and the community.  It will focus on service learning. It will promote ethical, civic, and academic growth through learning projects. These projects shall bring the school to the community.  Students, teachers, and parent volunteers will participate in reading projects where teachers, administrators, librarians, parents and students read out loud to the community.

Projects like these will help school community members, students, teachers, parents, and other citizens discover core values they have in common, and they will learn teamwork, decision-making skills, and strategies for implementing effective service learning projects. These projects will enable students to acquire teamwork and decision-making skills as well as strategies for action.

The library materials shall be composed of books, journals, magazines, electronic media and others that will be useful for developing knowledge, skills and attitudes which are important to life and career.  They shall be influencing the development of mind, body, heart, and spirit.

The library collections shall evenly address the needs of the students in learning the basic sciences, social studies, humanities, arts, languages and technology.  Interactive electronic materials will be especially devoted to the development of social grace, ethics, values and morality.  Multicultural education will be given emphasis in the selection of reading materials and interactive materials in the social studies.

Ethics and the New School.     In realizing the vision of educating the holistic person, the mission of the new school, therefore, puts emphasis on the development of the ethical conscience of the students, thereby unfolding their spiritual intelligence.

This will be realized by incorporating ethics and morality as an integrated aspect of the school curriculum.  Ethics and morality guide the individual in being and becoming a functional member of society.  Foremost, the individual sets his goals in life in consideration of the overarching goals of society, which is peaceful co-existence and living with the rest of mankind — a main ingredient of multicultural education.

Goal-achievement is guided by an ethical conscience toward to tolerance for other cultures and societies as well as care for the environment.  The new school fosters tolerance through the compassionate and caring values and attitudes of its administrators, teachers and employees.

The school library shall be at the forefront of the service-oriented school staff.  The librarians and other library workers will set examples in the development of spiritual intelligence.  Every staff member will be an instructional model of ethics and morality.

A tender, loving, and caring attitude shall be radiated by every worker rendering services to the clients.  It is by fostering a library environment which serves and cares that the ethics of tolerance and co-existence will be taught to the students.  It will be teaching by example.

Primary at the New School.     Self-enhancement, therefore, shall be the main purpose for which the school’s educational program will be designed and implemented.  It is assumed that every human being is undergoing the educative process as she lives in society with all relevant social institutions nurturing and nourishing his.

But the new school will be enhancing that education through transformation.  Transformative education will, thus, be the hallmark of the new school.  It shall endeavor to provide every possible opportunity for the unfolding of the potentials of the individual for a fruitful and rewarding life spent with the rest of the community of mankind.