Barbara Braxton is an absolute genius when it comes to getting people interested in the library. A few of her ideas I’d heard before, but there were so many I had never even thought of! She suggests developing an interactive-competition between students reading the same series of books. This would have been perfect in my class this year, at one point 7 out of 21 of my students were reading Harry Potter (I just finished the series and was pushing it really hard). I would always allow them to have ‘Potter Time’, but never even considered having them ‘earn’ something for their efforts. Other ideas I love that she mentioned; make them feel ownership by helping choose books, have a principal’s reading challenge, or creating hypothetical dilemmas that favorite characters might get themselves into.
Braxton had a few different pieces that talked about the ‘roles’ of the librarian. I think for some people these might be good to see and look at, but personally, I think there is much more to it than just subsidizing responsibilities into different titles. Under all the different roles there was definitely a common theme about being the information specialist though!
The ‘brain work’ that was talked about in this article really struck me. All through college the big debate was about nature vs. nurture, and I found it relieving that Braxton included both sides of the argument. Even though I’d heard so much about brain development in the past, or everyone in awhile pick up an article in a journal about it, it’s often easy to forget how or why students learn what they do. The one thing that jumped off the page to me was the fact that 70% of what is learned is not directly taught. This makes sense if you take into consideration all the things going on in a single classroom. Alone the socialization is enough to learn about just by sitting back and observing.
Everyone has their own opinion on things, I happen to be one of those that generally has a pretty strong opinion. I always like to make sure that people hear what I have to say on something before the final decision is made. That doesn’t always usually go down so great considering my young age and ‘lack of experience’. So to me the article by Goldsmith ‘Effectively Influencing Decision Makers’ was very informative. Basically it’s how to make sure you’re heard-without being pushy. A few of the suggestions really influenced how I will start looking at things; every decision is made by the decision making person, not necessarily the right or smartest one, realize that powerful people are just as human as myself and they also make mistakes, support the final decision of the organization, focus on the future and focus on issues that make a real difference and be willing to loose on small points. Obviously some of these are common sense, but so often people get wrapped up in what’s going on and believe it’s so much more important than what it really is. Personally I had this issue dealing with a certain set of parents this year. It always seemed like whatever was going on at the moment was just absolutely necessary and I was often times unwilling to back down, trying to prove my point. If I would have stepped back and remembered that little phrase, “be willing to loose on small points”, my year would have been much easier!
I found the comments on Will Richardson’s article even more interesting than the article itself! As I was reading through “Transparency=Leadership” I kept thinking to myself ‘Is this a joke’, ‘Who is this guy’, etc., etc. Upon reading the comments I felt justified in my beliefs and feelings. As a teacher I work my tail off, I’m here at 7:30 in the morning, and don’t usually leave until 5:30-6:00. I am working the ENTIRE time I’m here. If the students are here- it’s with the students. After hours are when I get finished with curriculum, lesson planning, grading, all the fun things that makes up teaching. I almost felt like Richardson was saying “That’s not good enough”. I understand the point he’s trying to make- teachers need to be good leaders and strong role models, but I don’t think in order to fit that criteria you have to be found in a Google Search. One point that Richardson makes and I do think is fitting is the fact that none of the usual status differentiators carry much weight online, whether that be position, title, education, or academic degree. To a certain extent almost everyone is equal (or has the potential to be) online. Anyone can sign into Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, create blogs or wikis, and put information out on the web. This is why it’s so vitally important to make sure our students understand what a good search or resource looks like.
Even though quite a few of the comments didn’t agree with Richardson, I was very impressed that the readers (or at least the ones I read) made sure that they were clear on their opinion but did it in a professional manner. Often times people get very heated about these kinds of discussions, especially when it seems like one side is accusing another of lacking something.
"that 70% of what is learned is not directly taught." -- I think that is true at every level. I can't begin to teach you everything you need to know about being a librarian but if you understand that there is always more to learn then you will do fine.
ReplyDeleteRICHARDSON: So, you didn't buy anything he had to say about transparency?
I do- to a certain extent. I completely understand that he thinks role models should be strong educated people, and I agree with him as well. However, I do not believe that in order to be 'competent' you must be able to be found by a search engine. He says, "the fact that they (administrators/teachers) are veritably "un-googleable" in terms of finding anything they have created and shared and perhaps collaborated with other on troubles me on a number of levels." I honestly don't know what you would find if you Googled me (I should probably try this), but I can almost guarantee that little, or none, of it are things that I've worked collaboratively on, on the web. Does that mean I'm not doing my job? Does that mean I'm not providing a decent education for the students that I have? In my personal opinion that has to be a resounding 'NO'.
ReplyDeleteRichardson could have meant the above line in a completely different way, but for some reason upon reading it, I became completely defensive.