“Oh,
you want to be a librarian, does anyone even read books anymore?” After a particularly stressful year
with a marking overload and the frustration of not having the time to plan
excellent lessons, I started to think seriously of becoming a qualified teacher
librarian. I love to read, my favourite class to teach is English Literature,
surely that means I’d be a perfect librarian? In each of the four schools I had
worked in, the ‘happy place’ of many was the library. The initial reasons that
drew me to undertaking this course was that I wanted to ‘become a librarian so that literacy
and reading comes to the forefront in my school’ (Dafoulis, 2013). I would get to read books to recommend to students and curate a
collection to cater to their needs, right? After the first few weeks of reading for this subject, I
began to discover that to be great teacher librarians, there is so much more
that you must do.
As I ponder the course so far, looking back at my previous blog
entries, I see a determined English teacher, wanting what is best for the
literacy of her students. She was a little defeated from an exhausting year at
a school that was a little too focused on number crunching than what was
actually happening in the classroom. With the benefit of a break and the promise
that a position in a new school has enabled, I have a fresh perspective. Now
that I have begun to understand the complexity of librarianship, I have been
able to expand my focus beyond classroom outcomes, to improving the overall
learning in the school community. My second blog post revolved around the
importance of literacy. While it is still a focus in the role of the teacher
librarian, it is much less to do with what I had been promoting as a literacy
coach in my previous role, and more to do with information literacy.
My third blog post demonstrated growth in my understanding of information
literacy and how to promote and encourage it as a teacher librarian. In my
writing, I reflected on the definition of information literacy, and that ‘it is not limited by a certain set of skills,
but it is a concept that is supported by skills’ (Dafoulis,
2014). To be a teacher of the concept, I must become a flexible collaborator
that is up to speed with new initiatives in information literacy models that are
appropriate across all curriculum areas. I have a renewed appreciation of the rigour involved in
implementing sound constructivist learning frameworks. There is so much to do in the process of
planning, so the success of using these models relies on collegiality and
flexibility. I can now see myself in the History classroom lecturing students
on the importance of critical questions and reliability of source material. I
feel confident that if I approach my colleagues with a helping hand and the
offer of shared planning and teaching, that the uptake of these frameworks will
be successful. ‘Educational change
arrives slowly’ (Ballew, 2014) so I want to do all that I can to steer that
change in the right direction.
The writing of
Joyce Valenza in her 2010 ‘revised manifesto’ resonated particularly with my
growing understanding of what it takes to be a relevant and innovative teacher
librarian. Her ‘non-negotiables’ list
is somewhat intimidating- how on earth will I be able to keep on top of all of
that? There are so many areas to be aware of, my humble high school library
might just burst! I take Valenza’s ever-growing list as a guide to the endless
possibilities that lie ahead. I
look forward to being able to ‘retool and learn’ (Valenza, 2010) and to
‘represent our brand’ (Valenza, 2010) to the wider school community.
My view of the
role of the teacher librarian has changed from my initial assumptions. I now
can see that “school libraries are not mini ‘public-libraries’ and should be
seen as centres for learning, not dominated by fiction books.” (Herring, 2007)
Curating the library collection and recommending books and publications to
colleagues and students is just the tip of the iceberg. “Librarians have a much
wider influence reaching a larger number of students and teachers” (Ballew,
2014) so I must use this influence to create better student learning outcomes,
and to support my colleagues to do the same. In my third post, I wrote, ‘It is my understanding that a teacher librarian has
to be the innovator in a learning environment if they wish to remain relevant,
and that they must challenge the perception of the library so a school
community can move forward into the future.’ (Dafoulis, 2014) demonstrating
my changing understanding of the role. I never really thought of the role of
the teacher librarian as one of leadership, but over the course of the subject,
I have come to understand that it is an integral part of the role.
