ETL 401 - Can the teacher and teacher-librarian ever coexist in harmony?

Yes, I know that it's probably not a question that plagues many of us, but it is something that puzzles me after this week's readings.

So much of what a teacher-librarian has to offer crosses over into the territory of the classroom teacher ... it's therefore perfectly natural for them to feel threatened or intimidated by the role that the TL wants to play.  Hence it all comes down to the building of relationships.  The TL must be prepared to be positive, supportive, open and friendly towards the classroom teachers.  There has to be an authentic partnership in operation with both parties making equal contributions to the collaborative approach.  There must be a common goal and a shared vision for the students to truly benefit from CPT. 

Schools are busy places and often operate at a frenetic pace.  Individual subjects compete for student attention and deadlines frequently clash, often placing unfair demands of the students.  Yet imagine a world where the curriculum was flexible enough that students were encouraged to formulate their own questions and investigate their own answers.  There will always have to be deadlines, but why do we have to focus on teaching 'essential' knowledge to then test how much of that knowledge has been retained.  Once we are able to accept that the process is far more important than the end result then we will all be better off.  It is only through this acceptance that we will be able to develop the critical skills that will empower life long learners who are able to adapt to the ever changing world.  

A thought that tickled my fancy ...

"I really didn't realise the librarians were, you know, such a dangerous group ... They are subversive. You think they're just sitting at the desk, all quiet and everything. They're like plotting the revolution, man. I wouldn't mess with them." Michael Moore.

ETL 401 - Assignment 1 Done!

Another week of stress and another assignment finally done.  Still not a painless process but at least I was a little happier with the end result of this one. 
Whilst completing this task I was forced to recognise just how under-valued the teacher-librarians are in my own school.  Whilst they are appreciated, they are mostly used for babysitting purposes ... stress and need a breather?  Book your class into the library for them to look after.  Sounds terrible doesn't it?  Or am I simply being honest??

There are very few times when the teacher-librarians are involved in the planning and implementation of curriculum; not because they are intentionally excluded from the process, but more because there's very little time to pursue a collaborative approach.  Yet it is precisely such collaboration that would make everyone's lives easier.  It's about time that school principal's were proactive and decisive in their promotion on the services that the school library can offer. 

The modern student is entering a technological world which is so far beyond what we ourselves experienced as teens.  It takes a whole community to teach the kind of critical literacy skills that they need, and yet so many schools continue to support a culture whereby classroom teachers work in isolation from their colleagues.  Excuses are overwhelming - schools are far too busy, they are under-resourced, their curriculum is alread overcrowded.  But at the end of the day some tough decisions have to be made.  Teacher-librarians have so much to offer the students and the teachers of within their learning community, they just have to get everyone else to understand this!

ETL 503 - Assignment 1

Returning to study after nearly 10 years has been far from an easy task.  Whilst the transition has not been quite as smooth as I'd hoped, the learning curve has certainly been steep. 

If nothing else, I've certainly discovered how little I knew and understood about resourcing the curriculum and creating a comprehensive collection ... and this was despite the fact that it was something that I did on a daily basis!  A terrible confession I know, but perhaps it's more of a reflection on the school that I work at rather than my own incompotency.  Rightly or wrongly, there is a huge gap between how classroom teachers and the library work.  Whilst there is plenty of lip service paid to collegial approaches yo our work, the fact is that we have very little to do with each other.  Classroom teachers usually don't have the time nor the skills necessary to acquire the resources necessary to target all our students, yet the teacher-librarians do.  So why don't we utilise the teacher librarians in our schools?  Is it fear of exposing our own classroom practice to criticism or is it because we would like to think that we know it all ... sounds more like ignorance to me!

ETL 401 - The juggling act of resource based learning

Those schools that believe that they can achieve the resource based learning model without the help of the teacher librarian are kidding themselves ... and I come from a school who think they can! The fall out of this is teachers who are so over burdened with the task of creating an inquiry approach that they are turned off from the model. TLs can help to share the responsibility of creating an engaging and dynamic curriculum by assisting teachers to identify appropriate resources and to help teach students how to formulate their research tasks, question formulation and research techniques (including resource evaluation skills). There is no way that classroom teachers can adopt such educational models without the support of others ... this includes the principal who must set clear expectations that staff will embrace this educational approach. It's about working together to achieve the best for our students, particularly if we want them to become discerning life-long learners.

ETL 503 - Creating an uncensored collection

In light of recent tough economic times and the never ending pressures to tighten budgets, it's more important than ever to ensure that purchases are carefully considered.  I was, however, completely ignorant to the various procedures undertaken by teacher-librarians to ensure that acquisitions add value to their broader collection.  There are so many factors to assess that it's a miracle that any new purchases are made at all!

One of the most significant concerns that struck me, in terms of collection development and management, is the prospect of a sole individual being in charge of the process.  How on earth can the school community be assured that their various needs are met if there is only one person involved in the evaluation and selection of resources?  The needs and learning preferences of the modern student are changing so rapidly that surely they need to have a voice?  The teaching staff must also have the power to recommend and select texts that suit their own curriculum needs.  If teachers and teacher-librarians are able to achieve collegiality then a 'team' approach is necessary.

The more people involved in the acquisition process, then the less chance that individuals are able to exercise censorship.  The prospect of being denied access to a diverse range of resources scares me.  Whilst TLs may strive to achieve neutrality, they are also carrying the responsibility of selecting resources for a potentially vulnerable demographic.  Excluding some texts on the basis of their offensive nature may be tempting, but we must also educate and equip students with the skills to interpret and evaluate such texts.

ETL 503 - The school library collection in a post-literate world

Am I the only one terrified by the suggestion that "the ability to read words, is no longer necessary"?  With a new age of information literacy is upon us, there has been a dramatic decline in the value placed upon the written word.  The internet and other digital mediums has meant that the printed book no longer holds the same weight that it did is years gone by.  Students are now seemingly able to unlock knowledge at the clock of a mouse button, yet they have ironically lost the ability to decode and evaluate the information to extract the answers that the are looking for.  How exactly have we got to this point?

Traditional library collections are becoming obsolete and the digital world allows us to share our resources more efficiently and effectively.  Understandably the economic savings that this achieves means that this medium is the way of the future, but does that mean that we simply turn our backs on the past?  Perhaps some will simply dismiss me as being out of touch, but the feel of an actual book in my hands (and the joy that it brings) is a feeling that no digital text  can possibly achieve.  The promise of a gripping read as I tentatively turn that first page cannot be matched by the iBook equivalent experience.  There is a certain personal attachment that I have to my books; my childhood favorites still line the shelves of my bookcase and I'm excited by the prospect of being able to share them with my daughter ... I can't wait to alight her imagination.  My personal collection of books seem to mark the journey of who I am and how I got to be here; they are a reflection of me ... my interests, loves, dreams, fears and hopes.  I can't even consider parting with them.

I never really considered how a school library collection, or any library collection for that matter, reflects the community that it represents.  The librarians obviously take time to consider how each acquisition will add value to the overall collection and what it might offer to individuals, yet it seems strange that the role of the library is so often undervalued by the school.  As the leaders of the school, principals must invest the necessary time, energy and funds to not only maintain the current status of their library collections, but to enable it to develop further.  The school library represents the central nervous system of the learning community, without it surely the remaining organs will not have the sustenance to thrive.