Written by Megha Dharnidharka, LEC 2017
My journey with LEC began in 2017 as a participant of the very first batch of LEC English. I couldn’t have imagined the profoundness of the experience and the manner in which it would transform my life. From the very first moment, I was struck by the welcoming and vibrant atmosphere of the library and found a space that demonstrated through actions and not words the values of equality, inclusion and freedom. The uniquely immersive and innovative experiences of LEC opened my mind and heart to the possibilities and compelled me to look inward while also looking at the larger world of libraries. Focusing on the ‘WHY’ along with the ‘HOW’ made me a reflective educator.
There were no simple answers at LEC but plenty of opportunities for questioning, dialogue, reflection and exploration. With each interaction and engagement, the faculty helped me look beyond my own lived reality, to unpack my values and assumptions and to question my biases. Through the course I discovered a deep passion for Library work. It was an incredible privilege to be invited back to LEC as a mentor in 2019. The opportunity to support future library educators while strengthening my own learning was beyond exciting. Through each interaction with LEC my learning continues to deepen and I continue to grow as an educator and as a person.
LEC is a dynamic and responsive course that is continually evolving to best support the needs of the participants. Each year I return to LEC, it is both heartwarmingly familiar and yet excitingly new. The core of the course and the vision of the faculty remains constant but the methodology and approach are constantly being reviewed and reimagined to ensure the best learning experiences for participants and herein lies the magic of the course.
When faced with the challenge of the pandemic and the impossibility of conducting in person training, the team behind LEC had a decision to make and true to the spirit of the course they chose to respond to the needs of their participants and reimagine the course for the virtual world.
Most online courses even in the pre-pandemic world were designed as content delivery systems wherein the participant was solely responsible for engaging with the content, making sense of it and staying with the course. During the pandemic the explosion of webinars and online training workshops weren’t any better with limited, if any opportunity for interaction and engagement. The existing challenges of online learning were exacerbated by additional challenges brought on by the pandemic. During the pandemic I chose to sign up for different online learning opportunities and was surprised at how challenging I found the experience. While I could easily engage in a 9-hour training in person, attending a 6 hour training online was taxing.
With entire families staying at home 24X7, significantly increased screen time and the limitations of the virtual space how could the LEC course be reimagined without losing its core, it’s unique LECness. The weeks we spent together at Bookworm allowed our daily lives to be left behind and enabled a deep immersion in the world of Libraries and the intensity of the engagement led to fundamental mental shifts for participants. And now in this new reality of the pandemic where physical meeting seems like a distant dream, myriad questions arise? How do you build a community with people so far apart? How can you immerse participants in the library world without access to a library? How can you create experiential learning opportunities in the virtual space? How can one imagine such an intense and meaningful engagement over the limited virtual world?
And as is the Bookworm way, by remaining true to the vision for LEC and through constant innovation and tremendous effort, the humans of LEC that is the entire team at Bookworm, faculty, mentors and participants came together to recreate the core of LEC online. Through intentional and thoughtfully designed engagements, the humans of LEC have transformed Zoom’s cold meeting rooms into vibrant and lively spaces for dialogue and interactions and by activating the humane in the digital, created a safe and welcoming space where participants can be vulnerable as they unlearn and unpack their beliefs and ideas. Through carefully curated online and offline activities a close-knit community of educators has developed. Even now I feel surprised by the depth of relationships that have been built without even a single opportunity to meet.
Each aspect that makes LEC so remarkable and different has been recreated through different digital tools, creating essential learning experiences. From virtual libraries to special gift packages, each little thoughtful act has sparked such joy for me and all of us in the course. The humans of LEC have been cognizant of and consciously tried to bridge the inherent inequities present in the virtual world. Unlike most online courses the participant is not alone in this journey. Extremely supportive mechanisms have been built into the course acknowledging the immense challenges participants are likely to face in this challenging new world thereby setting up each participant for success.
Returning as a mentor in this newly imagined course and trying to imagine how best to support my mentees in this virtual domain and helping them stay motivated and committed to the course amidst a myriad of life challenges was a bit daunting. As the course began my anxieties began to ease as a truly connected and passionate community began to emerge. Though the virtual space was limiting it offered us the ability to stay connected more continually through live sessions over Zoom. The trainings that may have been conducted over 6 days in Goa were now being opened up weekly over a month and that gave the opportunity to pause and reflect and offered space to take in big ideas and absorb their nuances. Each time I return to LEC, I feel like a participant again. With each session something resonates or is refreshed in a way that wasn’t possible before. Not only does my praxis grows stronger with each engagement, but through the process of mentoring participants and being mentored in turn by the faculty my ability to think and reflect is continually strengthened.
Reimagining every nuance of the LEC course has been a herculean task and the success of this reimagination is a testament to the vision, commitment and hard work of the humans of LEC. Though nothing can replace the sheer joy of physically coming together for a shared purpose, the new online imagination of LEC comes pretty close. 