Not So Distant Future

I’ll be leading conversations about the issues facing librarians during a session at TCEA on February 9 from 10:30 to 11:30.  We’ll be using a specially designed “idea” space at the conference to foster discussions about many areas of concern facing librarians.  Feel free to join in remotely via the tools below.

If you are participating remotely, please join in brainstorming some of  issues that are placing pressure on libraries to change by posting them on our corkboard.

We’ll be sharing notes from the session on this Titanpad page.

These slides are points of discussion from the session, and a short list of resources to get the conversation started.  I will be updating this blog post with the slideshow from the beginning portion of the workshop this evening.

Time Magazine recently announced that Mark Zuckerberg was selected as their “Person of the Year.”    It seems a rather peculiar choice, since not only is Facebook “old hat”  but also because Facebook has not been the best player in regards to user privacy.

So I have my own end of the year suggestion for Time Magazine–how about making teachers the “Person of the Year”?

Yes, teachers.   After 29 years in education, both as a teacher and librarian, I”ve known a great number of educators.  And what I’ve seen demonstrated again and again by so many of my colleagues is how much, despite all the recent hype to the contrary, they care about children.

So instead of this being the year of software mega-giant or of the likes of Michelle Rhee or Davis Guggenheim,  or the year of union busting in education–perhaps this should be the year we begin simply to honor and celebrate teachers.

Teaching is a complex job.  There’s the subject matter, which is complex in and of itself;  there are the students, who are complex in all the ways every human being is, and there’s the place in between where you figure out how to bring the two together for real understanding and growth.  And again, despite claims to the contrary about experienced teachers, you could spend a lifetime as an educator honing your skills and still not master any one of these areas, no matter how dedicated you are.

Being a teacher means reinventing yourself daily and annually to meet the needs of the students in front of you, whether it’s figuring out a way to reach a particular student or learning the latest ways to connect your students to a global learning environment.

And so my heroes, my “Persons of the Year” are teachers like Diane Laufenberg, whose creative and authentic work with students in her classroom at the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia takes them out into the field to interview voters.  Or teachers like Vicki Davis, who leads her middle school students to a better understanding of a global world.   Or teachers like Karl Fisch, a technology specialist who, when brought back into the classroom, brought his talents to bear in rethinking what it means to teach Algebra in a wired world.  Or teachers like Lee Kolbert, another returnee to the classroom, who agonized over navigating the path between the practical daily realities of the classroom and the ideals to which she hears around her.  Or principals like Chris Lehmann at the Science Leadership Academy, who leads his own advisory period like every teacher in his building.

Or the teacher at my own campus, who sat side by side with a student during her off period, like so many teachers across this nation do, gently coaching and encouraging her through her math lesson.   Or the teacher at my school who recognized the stress students face in a high achieving school, and took creative steps to transform the school culture.  Or the coach at my school who works evenings, weekends, and vacations with his students to bring out the best in them, away from his own family to do that.  Or the library staff at my own library, who sit with a student and help him edit his college application letter one-on-one, or nurture students who just want to connect with an adult in the school.

Teachers, librarians, and counselors are there helping those students because they care.  And it’s not just about the heroics, it’s about the quiet, day to day care and support that they give students;  it’s about the late hours, the way you live/eat/breathe teaching; it’s about the passion and dedication that teachers bring to what really is almost an impossible job.

And so I believe it is time for our nation to respect teachers, value them, and care about them.  It’s time for the nation to recognize those quiet heroes who care for all our children and do their best to reach them.   It’s time for our nation to acknowledge, that although there are teachers who struggle, more often than not, side by side with them are teachers who are quietly dedicated to students and performing the real heroics of raising up our children.

That, Time Magazine, is why I think teachers should be “Person of the Year.”

This post is cross posted at Huffington Post.

A common thread of discussion among wired librarians is the struggle they face in getting recognized for how technologically connected they are and how students rely on their services for assistance.

In most high schools, particularly, the library itself is fairly “wired”–outfitted with computers and devices of all kinds for multimedia productions and research uses, online catalogs and databases, scanners, etc.   To librarians, these are ubiquitous tools that are just in a day’s work.  Recently I was asked on an application to explain the ways I used technology in the library.  I had a difficult time separating out how I use technology, because as a librarian, I don’t “use” technology–it’s just embedded into everything we do.

Yet, often, the fact that many of a librarian’s daily activities rely on their proficiency with technology can be overlooked both at the administrative level and in the public at large.  And too often librarians find themselves struggling to get the resources they need, or being treated like second class technological users within their schools, or discounted by policy makers,  instead of recognized as the strong, tech savvy leaders for students that they are, and can be.

The Speak up 2009 National survey by Project Tomorrow paints a picture of the strong role librarians play in schools regarding technology use in student learning. The survey showed that in all but two of 9 categories, librarian use of technology far exceeds that of teachers and even students(as reported in Knowledge Quest November/December 2010).

Just a few of the numbers tell the tale–according to the survey, thirty-four percent  of librarians used a social network to seek help, 33% posted to a blog (compared to 18% of teachers surveyed), 25% found other experts online to assist them , and 22% started a wiki or blog (compared to 10% of teachers surveyed).   Students bested librarians only in the categories of playing online games and finding an online tutor.

On social networks, another example of librarians’  leadership with technology is evidenced by the number of nominations librarians received for the recent Edublog Awards in every different category.

The point is, librarians are out there on the “social network” in a big way.  Sure, not all of them, but a significant and growing percentage of librarians are providing leadership on their campuses by using technology in embedded ways.   It’s about the students they are helping, leading, sharing with and teaching.

Librarians bring a great deal to the table–as quasi “social scientists” they witness students’ and teachers’ information gathering and technology use behaviors first hand;  they have an “across the curriculum view”, they are creative,  they understand filtering issues from a “student freedom of information” issue, they are copyright experts, they are strategic planners trying to look down the road and provide vision, they are collaborative and they are willing to share, both within their buildings and 24/7 on social networks.

Maybe it’s time that the story being told about libraries and librarians reflects what libraries really look like.  We’re not reframing by using technology to “stay vital” as articles so often suggest–we’re reframing because that’s what our students and teachers need.  And that’s who we are there for.

It’s time the paradigm changed.  Because we did.

photo credit: Darren Draper