Class 3

Last week in class we discussed the definition of a school librarian.  We went through a bunch of possible duties and descriptions of the school librarian, sorting them out for ourselves which tasks we valued as most important, and which we valued as least important.  Once the class brought our lists together, we noted that those tasks/descriptions we valued most are how school librarians perceive themselves, while those tasks/descriptions we least valued are how school librarians are perceived by others.

Here is my sorting.  I split the tasks/descriptions into 3 sections: important, medium important, and not important.  Then I numbered within each section going from most important to least important.

It proved difficult to order tasks based on importance, because some tasks are essential to the librarian's job but do not seem as important.  Perhaps this is because these essential tasks do not directly relate to teaching students?  For example, collection development and weeding are quite necessary, yet initially did not seem as important as teaching website evaluation to students.  Given another chance, I may have moved these sorts of tasks up to the important category.

Definition of a School Librarian

As I read through this week's articles, the authors all seemed to be calling for a reworking of the definition of what it means to be a school librarian.  I'm wondering if school librarians started out with intentions such as those listed on the School Librarian's Bill of Responsibilities, got sidetracked somewhere along the way, and are now going back to their original intent?  Or if school librarians are just now coming up with an entirely new perception of their job descriptions?  Are school librarians always attempting to redefine themselves in an effort to help their students and stay current, or is this attempt entirely new? 

In any case, school librarians are attempting to redefine themselves and their work, and why are they attempting to do so? - perhaps it is an effort to keep up with new technology.  Such new technology offers a multitude of ways in which to access information, which students often have easy access to.  School librarians view their jobs as important in order to guide students in their use of technology by "supporting multiple paths to understanding," "fostering the free exchange of ideas," and "providing open access to unrestricted resources for intellectual growth and personal enrichment."  Technology makes skills such as these much more useful and necessary in today's world.

Also, there is educational theory. I do not know much about educational theory as a hopeful future public librarian, but the educational classes I have taken have all emphasized the importance of active learning by engaging students rather than giving them busy work.  These many skills from the readings for today certainly support this current educational theory: "cultivate creative and critical thinking," "value experimentation and risk-taking," and "promote questioning and curiosity."

There's the idea of learning from and collaborating with others.  Students should learn from each other as a result of librarians successfully collaborating with teachers.  However, I was struck by the Bad Business Practices from the Zmuda and Harada article, which stated that you must make sure not to define success by the number of staff members you collaborate with, but rather by the quality of that collaboration.  In some ways, I would argue that you can determine success by how many folks you collaborate with.  The more you reach out to teachers, the more likely they are to trust you and collaborate with you.  Of course, the quality of collaboration is still important.  Going along those same lines, the article also says that success cannot be defined by helping students find what they are looking for, but again, I think success can in part be defined by helping students find a book they want to read for pleasure, or helping them locate resources.  Helping students find materials is important in addition to helping them learn from those materials.

Last, but not least, is the attempt to redefine school librarians more for the use of the school librarians themselves, or for the teachers they work with?

Revised Mission Statement

Mission: To complement the school in encouraging and preparing students to become life-long learners, teaching them to effectively navigate and synthesize information, by offering a variety of informational formats and media, quality instruction, and a safe and comfortable environment.

I decided to revise my mission statement in my previous post after our class discussion last week.  The concern was raised of whether having a mission statement alienated the school library from the rest of the school.  So, in my new mission statement, I tried to make it clear that the school library is working with the school as part of the school.  But I'm still not sure if mentioning this helps the situation any - it might just make it worse.

I also dropped the collaboration statement at the end, because it was awkward and related more to the librarian than the students.

Planning is Important

The theme for the readings this week is planning.  Woolls Ch. 5 talks about strategic planning - developing a mission, policy statements, needs assessment, collaboration with teachers, and planning for each day of the week.  The mission gives an overall purpose for the school library, the policy statements and needs assessment help enact that mission, and collaboration with teachers and planning each day help keep school library media folks on track daily to help with living out the broader mission.

Planning is a thorough process, and Woolls lays out the plan for planning.  For long-term planning, Wools advises librarians to develop a 3, 5, or 10 year plan.  Policy writing also involves a lengthy process of drafts, revisions, and collaboration with others.  Daily planning seems to be about keeping the school librarian sane - begin and end the day with quiet planning, start the day with one task that can be finished quickly, keep the planner up to date, meet all deadlines, etc.  Through all this planning, there is always the added mention of collaboration - collaborate with administrators, peers, and teachers during the planning process to have everyone on the same boat and striving the meet common goals.

Likewise, Doug Johnson argues that fixed schedules offer many advantages over flexible schedules.  A planned schedule enables school librarians to meet with all teachers/classrooms should they choose, cooperate with standards-based curriculum, promote life-long reading habits by regular library visits, more collaboration with teachers on continuous projects, and maintain job security.

In her article, Kathy Hribar discusses the advantages of taking time to go to a conference on Standards for the 21st-Century Learner.  She planned to take the time to learn from and collaborate with her peers, and as a result her school library benefited.  Kathy learned to carefully plan her lessons to revolve around inquiry in the midst of her fixed schedule.  Students became more curious, open to learning, and had a desire to come to their classes in the library.

Since I am a planner, this sort of talk makes me feel good.  I like scheduled days and scheduled goals.  Also, having regularly scheduled days and goals seems like it would be easier for collaboration between the school librarian and public librarian.  The school librarian is able to quickly assess her calendar for time and fit in the public library with her library's mission and policy statements.  However, what happens if there is no room for the public librarian in the school library's mission, or no time in the school librarian's schedule?  Hopefully calendars and planning are not so fixed as to prove disadvantageous to the school library, both internally and externally.

Mission Statement

Mission: To encourage and prepare students to become life-long learners, teaching them to effectively navigate and synthesize information, by offering a variety of informational formats and media, quality instruction, and a safe and comfortable environment, as well as internal and external collaboration.

In my school library mission statement, I wanted to present the idea of a continuous learning process which does not end with graduation from the school and its library.  This means students should be made excited learn.  Students should also be equipped to learn effectively, by making use of the resources available to them, and knowing how to extract and apply information from those resources.  The library should be up to date with its resources, offering a variety of formats and media, so that students are comfortable with current resources, and with accessing new formats and media.  The school librarian should always strive to be the best teacher possible, making herself available to students inside and outside the classroom, and making sure the library is an inviting place.  The school librarian should make sure to collaborate with teachers to provide the best education possible and share common goals.  The school librarian should also collaborate with fellow professionals and other types of librarians to become well-rounded and to bounce ideas.

Classes 1 & 2

Since I had not yet joined the class as of its first meeting, I listened to the audio and enjoyed hearing all the questions everyone had about what they wanted to learn from the class.  Some folks were interested in collaboration with school administration, some wanted to know about how best to work with library volunteers.  I myself am not specializing in School Library Media, but rather Library and Information Science.  I hope to work in teen services in a public library.  My question for this class is how best to collaborate with school librarians.  My hope is that this class will give me a basic understanding of the work of a school librarian, enabling me as a future public librarian to have a greater appreciation for the field, as well as a better idea of how to collaborate with school librarians.

I'm also excited for all our field trips to area school libraries!  This will help me envision the daily life of a school librarian, as well as observe how students make use of the school library.

In our second class, we talked about standards.  A problem we talked about was when we conform to state or national standards, what happens to those students that get left behind?  Measures must be taken to catch them up.  In a class semester, I thought it was curious that we talked about how there are all these enrichment programs now for smart kids, and discovery centers for struggling kids, yet what about those average kids?  We don't do anything special for them.  So the school library can become a place to which all students at various learning stages can go for additional learning.  I also think this can be an area in which school and public libraries can collaborate.  If students feel self-conscious seeing their peers in the library because it makes them feel too smart or dumb, then they can come to the public library to satisfy their curiosity.

As we talked about standards, in general I believe they are nice things to have, but I do not like standardized testing, since students not only learn differently but they also test differently.  I believe that testing is not always an accurate representation of what students have learned.  I wish that standards could be in place without the standardized testing, so that all schools would be striving to give students the same education without adding the pressure of testing on students or working to meet deadlines or gain benefits for their school.  This is how some students do get left behind, and ironically not all students receive the same education.

Standards and Missions

It seems to me that educational standards can be a tricky thing.  On the one hand, standards can prove negative by forcing teachers to make sure that the majority of their students are up to the standards - but then what about those few students that are deemed hopeless cases?  These students do not get the time and effort allotted from their teachers to their learning.  On the other hand, standards can ensure that students state-wide are receiving the same sort of education with the same end goals.  All students get the same fair chance at learning the material.

The AASL standards may be more friendly by not always setting specific goals.  For example, one standards is "Determine how to act on information."  Another standard is "Recognize new knowledge and learning."  No matter what stage of learning the student is at, he/she can probably be taught to recognize new knowledge and learning, as well as how to determine how to act on information.  Students can continuously be taught how to do this, building on previous knowledge.  Standards more difficult to integrate in teaching are the more specific ones such as dealing with copyright and technological tools.  These are specific outcomes that some students may have a more difficult time grasping.

Unfortunately, a tricky thing about standards which set less specific goals is that the outcomes are hard to measure.  How do we know if a student can determine how to act on information?  So, is standardized testing really necessary?  Going back to the TRAILS assessment test from 641, I remember I was rather panicky trying to fill out the test because I felt pressured by the time constraints, and my brain was trying to jump from topic to topic to answer each question.  Is a standardized test even going to be the best indicator of standards assessment?

School librarians can use standards to their advantage by showing how their teaching fits in with the standards.  In order to make their work more personal, school librarians can also create a mission statement for their school library media center.  A mission statement can express the librarian's own goals in teaching her students.  In order to make a mission statement more meaningful, the more specific the better.  This will make sure the mission statement does not sound generic, and more like a heartfelt vision.  A mission statement can also be tailored to a specific school.  The librarian will have clear clear guidelines from her mission statement that she understands completely, since she drafted the statement based on her educational values.  In this way, the school  melds both internal and external goals in the hopes of offering students a thorough education.