So just what SHOULD librarians be teaching?
Saturday, January 12, 2008 at 10:27AM "As I have argued in Reading Is Our Business (2006), for too long library media specialists have abdicated our rightful position as critical partners in the development of reading comprehension. As a result, funds are being diverted from school libraries to purchase classroom libraries, library media specialists are being replaced by instructional assistants and when certified librarians are employed, they are not viewed as instructional leaders or as full partners in the learning process." Sharon Grimes
"... our CORE, unique curriculum contribution is information literacy - defined as information problem-solving and involving the learning of information skills and understandings. It's the INFORMATION side that is uniquely ours. Among all educators, we are the ones uniquely responsible for ensuring that INFORMATION skills are learned by students." Mike Eisenberg (see response)
"What might some of the functions of the Virtual Librarian be? Network administrator certainly. Staff trainer in using e-mail, remote file storage, and Internet search engines. An electronic information evaluator and selector. A teacher who can develop information evaluation skills in her staff and students. Certainly webmaster for the library, if not the school. When information is transmitted to a class instead of the class being transmitted to the media center, where should the Virtual Librarian be working with students? Simply, everywhere – both physically and as a “cybrarian.”" - Doug Johnson
Information literacy. Reading. Technology. Where should our primary teaching responsibilites lie if we are to both serve our students and make ourselves vital to our schools' programs? In the quotes above, two well-respected library gurus and one flake each offer different perspectives on the question.
Given the new student standards from AASL and ISTE, this might be good time to reflect on what our own programs look like - and perhaps what they ought to look like.
I don't believe Ms Grimes, Dr. Eisenberg or I would suggest a library instructional program that is entirely IL, entirely reading or entirely tech focused. All programs will contain some element of each skill set. But probably not in equal measures:
How and why might these proportions change?
Reading focus
The diagram above shows what the skill emphasis looks like in many schools, especially at the elementary level, with reading being given a greater emphasis. With greater concern over basic reading abilities as measured by test scores, more library programs are adopting this model. The reading bubble will be larger in schools with a large percentage of students who are not testing at grade level.
My hope is that library media programs have intrinsic reading motivation and free volunteer reading as their core contributions to a school's reading program - not just more bodies doing basal readers, worksheets and the reading method du jour. By providing and promoting high interest materials at a variety of reading levels that meet a variety of developmental needs, we will create kids who not only can read by want to read.
Oh, I've alway argued that reading fiction that meets a student's development needs (aka Huck's "Books for Ages and Stages" work) is a form of information literacy. Kids get questions about themselves and their world answered vicariously through the actions of fictional characters.
Technology focus
An increasing number of schools seem to be emphasising technology as a focus of the librarian's instructional (and managerial) responsibility. I see this happening especially in schools where there is no separate "technology integration specialist" available to students and teachers. This is also more prevelant at the secondary level.
The key to this being a successful model is that the library media specialist is able to actually teach the application technology tools, not just the applications themselves (nor only be used as a technician). As suggested by the new ISTE Standard, two-thirds of which address information literacy or problem-solving, the technology and information literacy bubbles are increasingly overlapping - good educational technology use means using technology to solve problems, answer question and communicate the findings.
But it is the application of technology like the application of reading skills, that should be a primary element of the library media specialist's teaching responsibilities.
Information literacy focus
Personally I'd like this to be our model - that our programs acknowledge our roles as reading and tech teachers, but we empahsis the application of these skills in an IL model that helps solve real problems and answer genuine questions. Reading and technology, while important, are subsumed by our curriculum that actually ask for kids to put the those skills to use.
Where do ethics, highter-order thinking skills, group problem-solving, and all those "dispositions" like fit into this model? My sense is that the larger the information literacy bubble, the more opportunity library media specialists and teacher will have to address these areas both formally and informally within the context of the IL projects. Asking kids to do just do traditional "research" does not give them practice using these "21st century" skills.
So which model best fits your school? In an e-mail discussing this question, Eiseberg writes: "it shouldn't be the librarian whom makes these types of choices. There should be a building team - principal, key teachers, teacher-librarian - who determines each year the priorities of the library & info program ..." I would add to this even a formal library advisory committee can provide input into the goals and activities of your program.
The best library program is the one that best supports the needs and goals of its school. It doesn't get much simpler than that.
So, OK, I sound a lot more confident of these ideas than I really am. What does your library curriculum model look like? Who determines it? Will it change because of the new standards?
Reader Comments (7)
Doug, you are right on the money with this post. Wow! However, I have to wonder about one scenario that happens in many places -- where reading and technology intersect and information literacy is orphaned over to the side and treated like a separate subject -- I've seen this quite a bit as well and it deserves mention, I think.
I sent this article through my feed as a must read for everyone involved with libraries and media centers. Wow!
Hi Vicki,
You are absolutely right - there needs to be another diagram with a very small IL circle and larger reading and tech circles - for schools were only the basics seem to be getting much attention.
It does seem logical (at least to me) that the larger we can make the IL circle, the more HOTS, ethics, and dispositions we are likely to be addressing.
I am still not sure how we teach a "disposition!"
All the best and thanks for the kind words!
Doug
I really like how you put this 3 areas in this format(s). I have been struggling at how to balance these 3 areas, working especially hard at Information Skills. I think your diagrams go a long way to helping LMS's look at their own programs and think about what their focus is and where they want to go with it. I plan on sharing this with the rest of my district and anyone else that might be interested.
Hi Doug,
This post is both thought provoking and sobering for me on many levels and I would happily welcome any of the scenarios presented in the diagrams above.
For the eleven years I have taught in my district, I have never seen a certificated librarian running a media center. Information literacy skills are largely not taught at all, and if they are, it is only in a few specially designed lessons given by highly motivated, tech savvy teachers. Also, technology is taught separately as part of our elective program, and not integrated (let alone embedded) except by individual teachers. Reading skills are hammered at students in the elementary grades to keep our standardized test scores above other nearby districts, at the expense of all else except math.
Given those circumstances, lack of funding, and the resistance to change seen in many administrators, it is an uphill battle to affect the kind of change to make sense of an instructional program so out of alignment with where students need to be.
Your final diagram makes sense, but I would like to propose a more fluid model; one in which the instructional "bubble" for each skill set changes as students progress through the system. In the elementary, more focus on reading and decoding skills, makes sense, increasing instruction in IL and technology as students move up. Going into middle school, the technology skills should be emphasized only slightly more than the IL skills, with the reading (except for remediation) taking a back seat. Finally, at the high school level, IL should be the focus across the board, as this is where the most dynamic changes will be occurring in the "real world," Students should have good reading skills without additional instruction, and they will be certainly be fully immersed in technology in their own lives at this point.
This is not to say that instruction in any area should be slighted for another, or cut out altogether, but that the model must be flexible to account for the changes that occur over time. How much has changed with respect to these subjects in the last ten years? If we can qualify/quantify that, then we must realize that we can expect exponential change in the years to come.
Hi Lisa,
Unfortunately, there seem to be an increasing number of districts like yours that are not addressing (or like ours, it seems, actually backing away) from teaching IL and HOTS to emphasize the reading and math test performance. I ask myself if I were a building principal or superintendent whose job depended on test scores, would I have the courage to continue to press for the other skills as well?
I like your "fluid" model a lot. One would hope that most kids would need little formal reading instruction after 6th grade and little formal tech instruction after 8th grade. High school could concentrate on skill application, including IL.
I am delighted to hear from you.
Doug
I was just sitting at a recent inservice where a question from our state tests for the 8th graders was about a bibiography and almost two thirds of the kids got it wrong. The question was in the Science portion of the test. I do teach about bibliography in my IL skills classes and I know many of my teachers discuss it too. However, where did I go wrong? I wonder if they weren't expecting this type of IL question in a Science test. I supposed we all need to realize that IL questions will be on these tests and we are the first line of teaching in these matters. So I am for emphasizing the need especially at the secondary level IL skills. My hope is to increase my teachers awareness of this so they will allow me to meet more often with students and I will definetly push bibliography and ethics with information. Just my two cents.
Hi Gayle,
My wife who is an elementary librarian and I were just talking about teaching kids to write bibliographies and she was concerned because her upper elementary kids couldn't do it. AND she felt it was the responsibility of the classroom teacher to teach them the skill. My teeth about fell out.
A joint effort in teaching these skills is of course the best. Good luck with all you work and thanks for commenting!
Doug