Librarian or concierge? Does it matter?

Do you ever think about how you fill your school day?  There are days, more than I like, when I feel like the library concierge rather than the school librarian. "Room for two more on computers? Sure, send them down."  "Can we use your space for testing .... class project .... videotaping ..... even painting projects!"  Fill in your own image here.  Sometimes it makes me grumpy, feeling underutilized and without value.  But then I think about it and realize,  these things demonstrate many things about myself and my library space.
The first one, and most important to me, students love to be in my space.  If a class has more students than computers in lab, I know students are chanting, I can go to the library, me too!  I know because these same students find ways to be here throughout the day.  You know the ones, you have them too, they are in several times for several periods daily.  Just yesterday I had a student come in from our satellite school, the Innovative Learning Space and say would you email my teacher and let him know I am sending the morning here studying instead of there?  I do so much better here.  And she did!  What a complement, that this space does give a student confidence and comfort, that this is where they choose to spend their time when they get to choose?  How many of you have those students who stop by your desk everyday just to check in?  I was out sick for two days recently and when I got back I had a young man go out of his way to come in and ask if I felt better.  This was not a student I would say is a regular, but it was one I speak to whenever I see him.  The climate we create is important, it impacts our school and our students.  You never know when one small act of kindness will create a huge impact.
The second thing about my space, teachers know I will be open and accommodating (even if I really don't feel that way!).  I want a filled, busy, productive space. And who knows, maybe if you are nice sharing your space the next time they will share their students, or their project, or, dare I hope, collaborate?  We are different that classroom teachers.  Yes, the media center is our classroom but it is also a community space and so we must juggle both aspects.  Confession, I never could juggle, but in this case I am moving as fast as I can, because I do want this to be "the" place that everyone wants to be in.
One last comment, when I was told that my space would be used  again for testing, the principal said, "Liz, you know I wouldn't take your space if I could help it, it is the heart of the school. But, in the same token, for the kids that have to come in and take this test, they couldn't be in a spot that makes them feel more comfortable and welcomed.  And that is a great way to feel if you are already uncomfortable about the whole testing thing."
So, okay, I am adding concierge in my list of "other duties as assigned."  And I will do it with a smile, and a, "Hi _____, how can I make your life better today?"  

Testing, redux!

After reflecting on the testing situation, and talking with wise friends, I am rethinking testing.  I now think it can be viewed as an opportunity - for solidarity with colleagues, we are all in this together, for demonstrating the spirit of team player, showing administrators we can work and play well with others, and for collaboration experiences.

 

I am always working for more and better collaboration experiences, and I discovered that testing opened that door.  My teachers had less time to cover what needed to be and when I offered to help out and be a part of their teaching some were thrilled.  A second teacher in the room, as I working on embedding myself in classes when the library space was closed.  Once they realized that I wasn't adding more time to their lessons, but supporting their teaching I was welcomed back; this is building that relationship I want.  Sometimes we need to step back and not push our own agenda, just be that extra set of hands.  I am anxiously waiting to see if we progress toward the next step closer to collaboration ...

There are  many resources available, to assist you as you move to a more collaborative environment.  Here is one I really like.

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much”
― Helen Keller

Testing, or Tested, that is the question

Education is not to reform students or amuse them or to make them expert technicians. It is to unsettle their minds, widen their horizons, inflame their intellects, teach them to think straight, if possible.
—Robert M. Hutchins


     I don't know about where you are, but here assessment, which should be spelling with a capital A, is taking over education.  Teachers as well as students are undergoing rigorous (yes, an other educational buzz word!) evaluation and another layer of assessment (also known as testing) has been heaped on students.  It all has me running like a hamster in its wheel, never actually getting anywhere.  We are in a time where there is so much to learn and so many exciting ways to teach it and it just seems a shame that we have this giant A hanging over our heads.  I am trying to continue with enthusiasm and encouragement for all.

      While I am fussing  over this state of education I decided to share a few books that deal with testing. I just finished reading "The Testing" by Joelle Charbonneau,  another dystopian novel in which w have almost destroyed the world with our wars and the authorities are looking for the brightest and best to help lead the world to recovery and further advancement. Students are chosen each year from their small communities, and if they can make it through the Testing they are admitted to the University. There is romance, treachery, survival and betrayal through the ordeal and in the end, your memory is wiped so you don't remember what you went through; or do you?

     In "Shadow and Bone" by Leigh Bardugo, all children are tested as small children to find out if they have a gift.  If so, they are sent to a special school to become a Greisha, a member of the magical guard that protects the country.Alina purposely fails the test as a young child so she can stay with her best friend, Mal. Eventually her powerful gift is discovered and Alina is tested on many levels, both with her gift and with the way of life.
One final thought about testing, what are you doing to improve the testing environment where you work? 

End of a school year, time for reflection

Only two weeks left with students!  Where did the time go?  I had plans to do so many things, was I successful or not?  Think it is time to do some reflection on the year; what things I did, what I didn't, and how did those decisions impact student learning.
This would be a good time to finish my annual report (must start it to finish it, though!)  Guess that is a good place to start, and I can use the report to guide my plans for next school year.   Stay tuned as I start this process; compiling my report and analyzing my results, and then making new plans.

I know there are things I am happy about; my Battle of the Books event, and new this year, a traveling BOB team.  The work I did with a special class for at risk students (it is a Read 180 class, Scholastic, if you know that) to make them more authentic readers and the work with my ELL classes because of the grant we received. 

I added new databases and some eBooks to the collection, as well as lots of fiction recommended by students, and put print magazines out as well; not sure that is curation, but it is collection development.

Areas I still need work are building a collaborative atmosphere with my content area teachers; Science and Social Studies are challenging; next year?

Looking over this rambling I realize I have a lot to do in the next two weeks! Yikes - I will continue to share what I am doing and hope you tell me how you are handling some of these things.

Bring on Summer!!

Strategizing the upcoming school year

I have been sitting here watching the women running the 26 mile marathon at the Olympics.  (Yes, I know I should be out there running, walking, or moving with them somehow but that is for another blog entry!)  But listening to the commentators talk about the strategies employed by these runners made me think, how should I be strategizing this school year to come. 
Pacing yourself.  How many of us start the year running then never quite make it to the finish line.  We are excited to try that new reading promotion, or start that new club, but by January we have about given it up.  To keep this feeling of failure away, we need to think long and hard BEFORE beginning a new program; do I really have the time and energy to continue to the finish?  Sketch out the year marking all the places you already have obligations (book fairs, research projects, testing that closes your library) and decide this new project would really be an addition to your program or a drain on your time.
Checking your spot in the pack. The runner out in front does it all alone, there is no help.  The group running a little behind, in a group benefit from it.  There is less pressure from the wind or the crowd, you find support even if it is unspoken.  It helps you stay on the correct pace and heading for that finish line.  I plan to do this through continuous conversation with my peers, other librarians I know are heading in the same direction I am.  We can help each other out, share our thoughts and ideas, provide ourselves with an understanding cheering squad, if you will.
Staying hydrated. OK, how many of us run ragged through the year!  Never taking a sick day, even when we should.  Staying late or going in early to work on one more thing.  Saying yes to whatever we are asked to do.  All of this makes us perfect victims, but not healthy, well rounded professionals.  We need to remember to take a "hydration" break, to recharge, to relax, to reflect.  It could be a mental health day, a mani/pedi, or a day devoted to reading in bed.  Maybe it is a weekend breakfast with friends, but whatever it is we need to take this time to hydrate ourselves so we can finish strong.

What kind of "athlete" are you?  Whether you compare your self to the long jump, the sprinter, or even the synchronized swimmer think about how you plan to do your event this year; plan, strategize, practice, and reflect.

Summer of Personalized Professional Development

This is a great summer! No, not the hot, hot, hot weather, but all the wonderful opportunities to learn more and engage with folks about what I am interested in.  I have been creating and enjoying my own personalized PD, focusing on those areas I want to, not a district driven expectation.  Don't get me wrong, my district can do good PD, but still ... 
In June I attended ALA in Anaheim, great!  Went to sessions about new databases (yes, I am geeky that way!), listened to publishers talking about what new books would be coming out in the fall, and wandered the vendor hall chatting individually with those businesses I had an interest in.  I also got to meet and talk with my ALSC committee members with whom I will be working for the next two years (Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Children's Videos). I came home with a suitcase full of books, which I am currently reading my way through, and a year's subscription to some ABC-Clio databases. 
In July I was back on the road to the Mazza Institute at the Findlay University (Ohio).  This is a week of illustrators and authors sharing what they do with additional breakout sessions by folks that related to teaching and learning.  (I actually got to hear Mary Higgins Clark, what a hoot! And David Diaz, and Wendell and Florence Minor!)If you don't know about the Mazza Museum, it is an amazing collection of illustrator art and the picture books they came from.  My kind of museum with original art and the artists I know, children's illustrators, and the book the art was from.  Gorgeous, amazing, and wonderful; I love it there! Here is the link to learn more about it: http://www.findlay.edu/offices/resources/mazza/default.htm
Also in July I was able to attend a wonderful one day Library Symposium held at Kent State.  I heard Candace Fleming and Shelley Pearsall (maybe I will give historical fiction and biographies a better look this year!) as well as some great sessions of web resources and a wonderful session about new young adult titles.   If you didn't know it before, yes I am a geeky girl who loves to spend her free time learning.  But why not?  I get to talk to people who are interested in the same things I am, I get my professional batteries recharged, and I always come away happy.
This first week of August finds me at another conference, this time it is held at my own high school.  It is an Innovative Learning Conference that has been held for the past few years and is getting larger each time.  Yesterday I heard Will Richardson (twice!), learned some new tips and tricks from the great folks at INFOhio, and co-presented a session myself.  I will be back there today, ready for more fun summer vacation opportunities!
How do you spend your summer vacation?

New Year, new ways of thinking about media centers!



A new library without books

http://www.cilip.org.uk/filedownloadslibrary/sliv32b.pdf 

This is a longish article, but well worth the time to read.  I have been thinking about change, when is it purposeful and prudent, and when is it just following the current trend.  The attached article has definitely given me a lot to ponder; I will be wondering and wandering through ideas about this "new" library space for a while.

What a lot to think about! After 25 years in elementary settings, I am in the secondary (15-18 year olds) for the first time. The media center usage is so different! It's January, and no one has used any of the reference section yet, except for a few dictionaries! Everyone goes directly to databses or the Internet! Because this school level is new to me, I go back to the evaluative resources I know, like the Wilson evaluation, or the evaluation in Follett's Titlewave, when I order materials for the library, but I wonder if "someone" out there is thinking of a  revisioning a model of what the "ideal" media center should contain.  For example, a student came in last week, to find a book about a US state; we did not have any, and I don't plan to order any, the Internet is the logical place to find update information for things like that.  Add in an online encyclopedia, and voila!, instant, current information!  But what about these areas of nonfiction that students read for pleasure -- sports books, leisure activity books, or crafting books?  Or, how many print sources should we maintain to support that teacher who has not yet joined the 21st century's tools for teaching arena?
Curation is a thoughtful, responsive idea, but your faculty needs to embrace it for it to be successful.
It seems as though we, media centers and librarians, are currently caught between two worlds, in which one do you live?  Or, are you like me, a foot in both worlds and tottering at the edge of both.

Next big wonder -- show me the books?!?  There are still students who come to check out physical books for the simple joy of reading, what about them?

Mid Conference Reflections, am I a curator? Are you?

Here I am, up at 4 in the morning, thinking about everything I have heard or seen in the last two days.  I am at the AASL (American Association of School Librarians) in Minneapolis.  While the conference has barely started, my mind is already filled with so many thoughts, ideas and questions.  I heard sharing about some wonderful web 2.9 tools I had missed; vimeo, lib guides, and many more I will share later.  I was introduced to a new idea for libraries; curation.  The idea behind this is that collection, by definition, is a person selecting, choosing, and organizing in a group of their own creation.  It has the stamp of that individual on it.  If you stop and think about your library collection, you will agree that it is filtered by the things you don't care as much about, and is more heavily filled with your personal interests and passions.   Curation, on the other hand, is creating a group of materials that answer one question, or are arranged to share one theme or thread.  Alright, I am not explaining that as well as I could, I am still processing through my thoughts about all of this, but hopefully you get the idea.  I think it is fine that we have collections for our libraries, but I also like the idea of curating a subject or theme.  The web 2.0 twist is that you design a curation page and download or link to all the resources you find that supports it.  This idea would come from a unit of study you were doing with students, or even better, show those students how to curate their own theme or idea to build a wealth of information on their topic of study!  One website that will help you find information, especially if you are looking for the most current, is Scoop.it.  You sign up, list what you want to follow (OCCUPY, or Bully in schools, etc.) and this site will send a page to you daily that links you to what has been said or done about that topic.  It continues to do this daily so you are creating oyour "collection" to curate.  You can delete pieces you do not want so that you have this page of information relevant to your theme.  Can you see the implications for student research?!?!  Here are a few places for you to read more about curation.  http://www.bethkanter.org/content-curation-101/ , http://www.masternewmedia.org/ (Robin Good),  and http://heyjude.wordpress.com/2011/10/13/new-content-and-better-access-content-curation/.
Have I left you with a lot to think about, GOOD!
More later ...