lost blog

Small meltdown... lost the dashboard for this blog and have to post part of my last assignment to this blog. Forgot had signed into an old blog I started last year and used a different account... crisis averted, chocolate consumed...

libspeak

As I have passed out the address of this blog to a few people recently I thought I better get a move on updating it. I have been wrestling with my last assignment for my Teacher Librarian subject (whilst wrestling with the difficulty of coping with the fact that everyone else is on holiday!!), and feel slightly overwhelmed with information floating through my head. I have noticed that Library journal articles are as filled with jargon as Education journal articles and I have been impressing my husband with terms like "scaffolding" (a current favourite of our leadership team at school), "metacognitive scaffold" (one of those terms that I understand when I am really thinking hard about it but have difficulty retaining for any length of time), "transferring of knowledge" and many more. I have previously called educational jargon 'eduspeak' - 'libspeak' perhaps for library jargon?

thoughts on the role of a Teacher Librarian

I only wish I remembered or - in reality - was the sort of person who regularly updated things like blogs. This is in fact my second ever blog and I seem to have just as much problem with this one as my last one - the notion of sending my thoughts into the ether is just not one that I am overly comfortable with. To have to update my 'learning' on a blog I find rather difficult as most of my good thinking seems to happen in the quiet time when trying to get to sleep or in the quiet time on the loo - before the kids come looking for me.

My notions of a teacher librarian really started to change when I first started studying my Information Managment Graduate Diploma way back in 2002. The TLs around when I was teaching were there in the background but not that influential on what I was teaching or the sorts of things I was doing in the library. Some of that stemed from the personality of the person who was the TL - I didn't like going to him as he would talk and talk and talk and you could never get away. The kids didn't like going to him either. He was a teacher who had been 'moved' across into the library because his classroom skills were not that great. The other TL at the senior campus had been moved across as well and freely admitted he didn't really like reading... No wonder the staff as a whole didn't see much use in the TLs. This attitude of mine started to change when I was working casually in the library at Monash and I ran into another casual who was also a TL. She started to tell me about some of the things she could do as a TL and it was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me. I suddenly realised I could combine my love of teaching with my passion for libraries.

In my role as a Collection Manager at a public library I managed to infiltrate the local schools and kindergartens and help set up and run some educational programs. I began to see just how important and how influential a librarian could actually become. We have recently moved and to help support the family - and because we had moved into a small rural town with a small high school that did not employ a TL - I had to return to teaching after 8 years out of it. I have enjoyed the teaching but I have realised that there is a real role in my school for a passionate TL that can fill the spaces that the teachers can't. I have managed to convince the principal to allow me two days a week to work in the library as a TL and I have so many plans in my head of what I can do that I am going to need to cut them down quite a lot - there are enough plans for a full time TL easily.

The readings for the TL unit have helped me to refine my thinking of the philosophy behind what it is I am seeking to do and they have helped me with ideas on how to do some of the teaching but I don't think they have really changed the essence of my belief of the role of the TL in the school.

Flying high - crashing low...

Just got back the feedback and mark from my first assignment - am now very sad! I thought I had 'unpacked' the question and answered what was asked but obviously not quite enough. Even reading the comments I am unsure how I would have changed it - very frustrating. In the 'critical' discussion of the role of the TL and the ALIA/ASLA standards it seems I was too negatively critical - it is always hard to be objectively critical about something. Most times if asked to be critical I know I tend to approach it as a bit more of an argumentative type piece. The first assignment back from a new lecturer/university always gives you a bit more of an idea on what sort of things are expected I suppose. Am now somewhat dejected about assignment 2 though...

Back in the swing of things

Have just finished my first assignment for my Teacher Librarian subject and feeling rather good about myself - until I listened to the podcast that the lecturer put up about the assignment and now I feel worried that I have not done the right thing! Ignorance is bliss...

I actually enjoyed putting pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard more appropriately), and writing because (as I tell my year 9 english students 'I love writing essays!'), I have missed doing a bit of thinking and writing. Hopefully I have been thinking and writing about the right stuff. I have included a 'wordle' I have made using my assignment - the bigger the word the more times it appears in my essay - easy way to see what I have been writing it about.

It is a beautiful New Year's Day - the kids and the husband are at the beach (we live only 10 minutes from the coast) - and I am contemplating doing some more reading on the collaboration between teacher librarians and teachers. My head is stuffed full of information on TL standards and critical comparisons so it will nice to have a bit of change of pace... or I might go and get the trashy romance I have been reading to serve as a spot of head clearing...

Initiating collaboration

I am starting a new role as a two-day a week TL within a school that has not had a TL for very many years. My principal asked me whether I was prepared to go out and hassle staff to be involved in collaboration as there was a perception that having an expert teacher in the library was a 'waste' and I would have to prove the role was worthwhile for it to continue (nothing like a little bit of pressure!). There are a number of 'old-timers' who only see the library as a computer space or a place to put books and there are a number of younger staff who have never been in a school with a functioning TL (rather than a teacher who has been 'moved' into the library because of issues with their teaching).

Luckily I have already sounded out a few open-minded staff about collaboration and they seem keen. As I only have a couple of days a week I figure I will only really be able to work with a couple of staff each term and build up some units that can showcase our work for the rest of the school. Hopefully they will help to 'prove' the role to the administration, parents and students.

Encouraging administration...

I am in the process of trying to encourage the administration in our school to employ me on the basis as a teacher/librarian for a couple of days a week in the school library. Previously they have had an Educational Support Officer working full-time who was not library trained but was the only person willing to take on the job when the previous TL moved on. This lady has now retired and saw herself as merely the 'caretaker' of the library as she had no real passion for library work. They have now got someone who is training to be a library tech working three days a week and she is passionate about libraries. I am hoping that between the two of us we can re-invigorate the school library (and perhaps build our own empire?), and make it more of a place of learning than a place with some computers. Fingers crossed there is an extra bit of money in the budget that will enable the school to pay me as a TL.