Week 5 Wools and Empowering

Empowering Learners:
Chapter 2:
Often times in our community, students don’t plan on going to college, and instead work in the family business or go into a trade. This is their excuse for grades in the classroom. Regardless of what it is the child wants to be, the response should always be the same. Learning these things, like creating checklists, portfolios, journals, will one day help you move up in the job you have decided to do. If it doesn’t help you in your career, then personal life also benefits from having those skills. Also if a teacher/librarian uses effective practices for inquiry, like they list on page 25, they are given invaluable skills that will apply to life in general, like critical thinking strategies. What I found interesting and refreshing was the idea that students should be able to choose their own project at the end of a curricular unit. I can remember doing these things in school and always appreciated it much more because whatever projects I chose to do appealed to me much more than the others. Students have to have ownership of their learning in order for it to mean anything to them. Something that I found alarming, but not really all that surprising, is the fact that it’s truly the librarians responsibility to remain abreast of all new technologies. It’s important to be able to relay this information to educators, so not only do you have to be aware of it, but well rehearsed with it as well. This makes me extremely nervous, because I’m not a big fan of doing things I’m not familiar with. Often times when I learn a new program I’m very stressed at first! In this situation as a librarian you have to remain calm and professional , making sure you’ve worked out all the kinks, and trouble shoot as problems arise. This is something that I’m not all too familiar with. Usually if I have a problem, I send a quick email or pick up the phone after trying some pretty basic things.

The Learning Space: This subject has been quite popular in our class, however, it always amazes me the new information that everyone has to bring to the table. A lot of the actions to me seemed to be obvious, especially the part that says sufficient and appropriate shelving and storage of resources. Anyone who has been in a library knows this, let alone someone take Master’s Classes on the subject. There might always be the odd duck out when it comes to a few other things, like making sure the area is aesthetically pleasing, well-lit, and comfortable. This is especially true if the librarian comes from an age where these things weren’t seen as necessary. These days though running a library is almost like running a small business, making sure that there is flexible scheduling hours, encourages users to come in by providing nice seating, and ensures that there will be someone there to help a ‘customer’ if they need it. I like how the library was split into two different sections; virtual and physical space. Going into this field, and taking a few courses, I’ve learned how vitally important it is to think of both. As a classroom teacher, I think it would be handy to be able to get online and see what resources are available in our school library for certain projects.

Wools:
Chapter 8: I found this chapter interesting, because there were parts in it that I had not thought about before. For example, having it very clearly laid out about the confidentiality of a patron was nice. I’m reassured as a library user that my information will not be spread to anyone who asks unless they have authority to be looking at it. I’ve experienced very invasive parents who will stop at nothing to get any kind of information they can just because their child is in your class. I’ve had them make up fake FB pages trying to get me to accept them as a friend, so I have no doubt that the idea of looking at what books I’ve checked out has come into their mind. As a librarian it is their responsibility to keep correct and clear records on their patrons, which I see has many good reasons, as long as it’s not taken advantage of. Some might ask, “Why the big worry about what you’re checking out, are you doing something you shouldn’t be?” Obviously, the answer is no, it’s just knowing that you have that right of privacy that keeps you feeling safe.
All the different library systems and their capabilities were good information, however, I don’t see this making a giant difference for me today. The reason I say this, is because I have to have specific examples right in front of me, I need to be able to look at the information, read reviews on it, see the benefits, and if possible take it for a trial.
I think having a selection policy is a good idea for a school, as long as it broad, and doesn’t expect much censorship. For example, if a policy said anything about ‘offensive’ books, I would immediately question it, because what one person finds offensive the next might not. I can see the selection policy making a big difference when it comes to what books to accept to the library. There are always those people that mean to do good, and by cleaning out their basement and donating books from the 1970’s with torn covers, they think they are accomplishing that. As much as I want to say that staring a gift horse in the mouth is not a wise decision, I think it’s pretty obvious in this case the books wouldn’t be acceptable. Also, hasn’t anyone thought of the idea of going ahead and accepting these gifts, but not putting them up in the collection? I know this invites lots of ‘what ifs’, but maybe this would also offense a lot less people when you tell them, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

Chapter 10: While getting my hair done today I was asked, “How can you take so many classes in library? There aren’t that many things involved.” This is because there are really only 4 components that the average patron sees when going into a library- personnel, materials, equipment, and facility. Just like teachers, there is so much more behind the job that people don’t understand. There were a lot of good ideas in this chapter that I would like to see implemented in our school, that I believe would help with curriculum development across grade levels. The first one is having all the text books from the grades available in the library. Ideally it would be nice to have a to have a teachers book in there as well. However, if that is not possible due to funding (teachers books are pretty expensive I’ve been told),a curriculum map of each grade level in some sort of professional resource area would be ideal as well.
In this chapter I was really overwhelmed with the amount of responsibilities expected from the school librarian. Basically, it’s their responsibility to know the entire school’s curriculum. I understand if this librarian has been in the same place for going on 10 years or so, but to expect this out of a new one is asking a lot. I’m going on my 3rd year of teaching, and find myself still exploring just the curriculum of my grade! I think the classroom teachers would be able to help a lot if they could send a simple map of the different areas they will be teaching each quarter this way the librarian can have the resources pulled and even do some kind of display. It also says in the book it’s the librarians responsibility to know how each teacher teaches. I assume this could be done by classroom visits, but I know of teachers who say ‘Yeah, I’m doing this and this and this’, when in all honesty, they are still sticking to the lecture and worksheet format. So this is where I disagree with the book, the librarian can try to give the teacher all the resources possible, but unless there is another administrator backing up the use of these things, it’s not going to go anywhere. What I have find works best for me as a teacher, is to email our librarian about a week before a lesson and ask if there are any books that would help, or if I’m doing a unit multiple books for research purposes. Not a single time have I been ignored or denied books when asked! I think each teacher finds how the media center works best for them, but if the librarian sees that it’s not being used at all, I feel it’s their responsibility to find out why and see what they can do to fix it.