Collaboration - another view

Below is a response from Judi Moreillon to my comments. As promised, they are without editorial comment from me  since Judi is eloquent, passionate and possibly right. - Doug

 

This is the caption I would like to see under this photo, Doug.

“There is no limit to what we can achieve if we don't care who gets the credit.” (Attributed by some to Ronald Reagan.)

Like Doug, I served as a teacher-librarian for twelve years. Eight of those years, I served in two elementary Library Power schools. I know first hand the difference between an add-on library program and one that is fully integrated into the classroom curriculum. At its best, classroom-library collaborative teaching includes coplanning, coimplementing, and coassessing lessons and units of instruction. It is job-embedded professional development for teacher-librarians and classroom teachers.

Yes, “we” have been talking about collaborative teaching for 30 years, but we have not been practicing it. To say we have tried this for 30 years and it has failed to preserve school library positions is a fantasy. If we had been practicing it, there wouldn’t be reoccurring posts to LM_NET and the AASLForum that complain about classroom teachers and administrators not knowing what we do. If we did our jobs – all 4 roles as outlined in IP2 (instructional partner, information specialist, teacher, and program administrator)– then I contend “they” would know what we do. We would have been showing them all along!

Sociocultural researchers such as Lev Vygotsky and educational philosophers such as John Dewey have influenced my thinking. I do believe, and my experience bears this out, that ALL learners, regardless of age, can accelerate their learning by working in collaboration with peers and mentors.

Collaboration is not educational jargon. Look at the current literature in business, science, and technology. You will find that people understand that if we are to solve the world’s humongous problems, we must put our heads together. (How can we expect K-12 students to do this if we ourselves are unwilling? If we do not model it first?)

If the person serving in the role of teacher-librarian is tied to a fixed schedule that does not allow for collaborative planning and teaching, serves as planning time for other educators, stays on the periphery of the school’s instructional program, or teaches information literacy skills isolated from his/her classroom colleagues’ curriculum, and this is fine with that person, his/her principal, and faculty, then I say – Okay.

But don’t call that person a teacher-librarian, or school library media specialist, or library media teacher, or any term that denotes a professional school librarian.

Similar to Doug, I served as a teacher-librarian mentor and have taught preservice teacher-librarians. This is the analogy I try to draw:

If the AMA tells surgeons to sterilize their instruments, doctors do it because they believe their association might know something that will help them better serve their patients. Our national association, the American Association of School Librarians, charges us with four roles for professional practice, and some of us simply say, “You can’t make me.”

True, no one can make someone else be an instructional partner, which, by the way, on the last AASL survey was the #1 role (of the four we currently have) that respondents feel should guide our future work. But if someone is serving in the library and not assuming this role to the best of his/her ability and advocating for changes in scheduling, staffing, and funding that can support this advancement of the library program, then I say…

Okay, but I can’t, in good conscience, refer to that person as a teacher-librarian.

Comments

[Lazygal]

While I heartily endorse the idea of collaboration, it is less easy than you present to actually do it. I've gone to teachers, and administrators, with "let's try this" or "I hear you're working on this and here's how I can help". I've passed along websites and notified them when interesting books come in. I've let it be known - loudly, softly and in between - what I can do to enhance the educational experience, to help create a learning-centered environment, to do all the things that IP2 and AASL/ALA suggest.

It's fallen on deaf ears. I suspect I'm not the only one in that position. So let's not judge too harshly those that are serving as study hall/planning time and tied to fixed schedules. For some, it's not their decision and not their preference, but it <i>is</i> their reality.

[MSM]

I am very discouraged as a professional in MAssachusetts. Not only has our new principal basically blocked me from any interraction with students(1100) by creating a bizarre schedule which doesn't allow any time for library class, but he is now sizing up our library space, which is lovely, for 12 new computers and a wall so "you can teach computer classes". I have talked with him about reading and the deficits among our students and complete lack of interest in reading, and he basically laughed at me, and said I needed to get on the "technology" bandwagon. This in a school where a very high percentage of kids are failing the MCAS tests.
I think collaboration starts with professional staff, and I have worked in libraries where the teachers can't even spell collaboration, and have no interest in including the library teacher as an integral part of instruction. I see teachers who are very petty, who dictate exactly which book their kids may read (i.e., teachers who deny a student a book because that teacher hasn't personally read it), and who rely on videos and substandard literary choices for classroom instruction, with absolutely no input from the librarian. Leadership begins with the State Department of Ed. and this state isn't even sure where a library teacher fits into the school "equation" yet!!! I have worked for 5 years in the field (2 years with a union contract),have fulfilled all the requirements except for a Masters Thesis (I already have one Masters and 2 standard certificates), and only have initial certification in my field. I may have to retire before I'm certified. Funny thing is my 2 standard certificates are in fields in which I have never taught!
I love the rhetoric, but where is this happening?

[MF]

I have been a school librarian for many years, having first been certified in 1968 as a K-12 librarian. I left the field for a while, but returned to find a better atmosphere for teaching and learning. I have served at all levels. My current position lets me provide an excellent mix of usage in the Instructional Resource Center (our name for our school libraries). If you have no planning time built into your schedule, make some. Take a few minutes after school. Have lunch with teachers. What are they doing in their classrooms? Volunteer for committees. Both administration and teachers will get to know you and begin to realize that you are a professional member of the faculty. Don't try to change the whole system at once. Work on one teacher at a time. Offer coffee and cookies once a term. We all know food is a strong incentive! Set up a book display and some models for teaching with these books. Post flyers and leave bookmarks (your own creations) that help "sell" ideas in the faculty bathrooms. Believe it or not, some of my best contacts and strongest advocates have come from bathroom conversations!