Not your grandma's librarian
Thursday, February 14, 2008 at 07:47AM 
Not your grandma's librarian - Scholastic Administrator
Hell, it's not your older brother's librarian! - The Blue Skunk
Very heartening to see the article "Meet Your New School Library Media Specialist" in the February issue of Scholastic Administrator magazine. AASL President Sara Kelly Johns and ISTE CEO Don Knezek (whose librarian wife, Jana, seems to have trained him well) are quoted extensively.
The article included questions from South Carolina's ADEPT professional development system that administrators can use when interviewing LMS applicants. Worth a look.
Nothing revolutionary here for those of us involved on a daily basis with professionally current library media specialists, but it's great to see this in a publication aimed at administrators.
I've been following Justin Medved and Dennis Harter posts over on Dangerously Irrelevant this week (Part 1, 2, 3, 4). Justin and Dennis are tech integration specialists (as I understand it) at the International School of Bangkok. It is really fun to watch techs see The Light on the Road to Damascus - that the most powerful use of technology in schools is in helping make students information literate. They write:
Over the school year we ... came up five essential questions that we felt addressed the core elements of a comprehensive technology and learning curriculum - one focused on the thinking that was needed for the 21st century learner, rather than the technology.
- How do you know information is true?
- How do you communicate effectively?
- What does it mean to be a global citizen?
- How do I learn best?
- How can we be safe?
Something we librarians seemed to have understood for at least the past decade. Mike Eisenberg and I wrote the first version of this in 1996! I am not saying this to in any way diminish the great work of the team at ISB. We all have to experience our own epiphanies - nobody can give one. I like the simplicity of your approach.
But my question for Justin and Dennis is "where has your school's librarian been in your lives that you are just now figuring this out?!" And if s/he's been telling you about this stuff, why have you not been listening?
Reader Comments (11)
Doug,
Thanks for reading. While I am glad to hear that librarians have "understood this for at least the past decade", I do wonder why it remains largely un-integrated into classroom teaching and in the way that schools do business.
Maybe it happens at your school, but it remains NOT that way in most schools I see. The chatter on the edublogosphere seems to confirm this. Are librarians holding on to ownership of these ideas? We argue that this is not the sole domain of librarians or tech specialists, but rather EVERYONE.
Perhaps with many librarians or in specific schools, they are given the opportunity to integrate the library curriculum into the classroom. For the most part, I have not seen this, either due to teacher resistance, admin lack-of-support, or librarians who don't leave the library. Maybe international schools are behind the times. (Maybe not.) Regardless, a librarian-pushed curriculum of information literacy skiils isn't happening everywhere as great as it sounds and reads in your document.
On the other hand, most schools have been pushing "integrating technology" for years (albeit with an out-dated model). We emphasize that technology should be learned in the context of these thinking skills - for which librarians are our experts. We refer classes to our librarians for this very reason.
If we are to integrate technology, our work reminds teachers to focus their attention on our essential questions of literacy and let the tech learning come up at the time and context that is appropriate. As we said in our post, teachers talk about "truth" all the time with students. That conversation just continues when the students begin to tackle online resources and other media.
We believe that our questions make the conversations on information, communication, responsible use, and collaboration accessible and most importantly DOABLE by teachers all the time (anytime). Fundamentally, we need teachers to buy-in to this AND feel it's something that they can/already do.
Often we find ourselves in the position as tech specialists of being the "experts" on bigger-than-tech issues like information skills, cyber-bullying, and school management. It is a by-product of either who we are or what we do that people defer to us in these areas. (not to mention all the late night calls on why their e-mail isn't working)
[side note: we are tech and learning coordinators at ISB, which is a small, but important distinction from being "tech guys" who may be more responsible for infratructure, wireless, etc...though we do dabble in that]
In response to your questions, "where is the librarian" and "why haven't we been listening", I can only reply, librarians need to speak louder, be more active in curriculum building, and/or let go of ownership of ideas related to information. The Big 6 needs to be bigger, so more people use it.
These 21st Century (or 1996) ideas are everyone's job to teach. Shared understanding and accessibility for teachers in the classroom is what's most important to make that happen.
Honestly, like you I'm sure, we just want these ideas out there so kids can learn. Our work hopes to extend the teaching of these skills outside the tech classes, beyond the walls of the library, and into the classroom where it belongs.
Wow, Dennis, that's a powerful statement, and I think a really important one. I need to think about this and absorb the truths in it. Thanks.
Doug,
Thanks for linking and chiming in. These discussion are exactly the reason we took some time to write down our thoughts and look for feedback.
It has been the experience of both Dennis and myself as classroom teachers and now as "technology and learning coordinators" that when the school librarian "owns" this part of the curriculum then the extent to which it becomes embedded in the K-12 curriculum largely depends on that person. I have had the opportunity to work with some fantastic librarians in my time but I would argue that their success in embedding these "new literacies" was closely tied to "who" they were as people and the soft skills they possessed with dealing with teachers not their status as "librarian". You take this away and suddenly that part of the school and the skills that were taught from it fall to the way side.
The problem with the "lone champion" approach to really making this framework happen in a school is that it has to be the way everyone does business not just one person.
If you have been talking about a framework since 1996, I would love to hear how you make it happen across the school and a part of the way all of your classrooms interacted with information and technology. Moving from talk to action is the place where we are at now and we are looking for any and all advice on how to move forward.
We walk into school everyday and are confident that teachers are teaching math, language arts and science. We want that same confidence that they are teaching these same skills as well. Do you have this confidence? If so how did you get there?
Thanks for posting this, Doug. Gives school librarians a reason to initiate a conversation with their administrators. GREAT commentary...
I was struck by how well those questions reflect the new AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner...
Thanks, Sara. You may not care for the follow-up post as much. Sorry in advance.
Doug
Doug, if you weren't provocative, I's be disappointed...More later...Thanka, Rob Darrow for starting the response on your blog <http://robdarrow.wordpress.com/2008/02/16/tech-role-of-teacher-librarians/>
Doug, I really I've enjoyed workshops with you and I respect your opinions but I think you're off-base with a couple of your blanket assumptions about librarians today - and about the level of technology integration that we've been able to achieve.
I'm NOT your Grandma's Librarian, and I'm not your older brother's librarian. I'm a TEACHER-librarian who's dedicated the past twenty-two years to helping create a culture of service, integration and innovation in ISB's Main Library. I'm the first to admit that we're a long way from the technological utopia of having a shared vision of learning that every teacher on the one hand buys into but on the other is willing to reassess and update with each new innovation that comes along. Be this as it may, the impression left by your quotes (out of context, since their original posts focussed on school leadership and not on school librarianship; the same thing? No. Overlapping areas? Of course) from Justin and Dennis was that we "librarians" have had our heads in the sand for the past twenty years, and only now,a new wave of "Technology Learning Coordinators" have come along to save us from ourselves.
Yes, I'm one of those people that Dennis and Justin have, perhaps inadvertently, dissed, and I've decided it's time to join the fray. I'll spend more time lurking on the Infotech professional blogs and putting in my two cents there from now on, since it seems that just plugging away at DOING some of the things Dennis and Justin evangelize is not enough. We've got to ramp up our self-promotion to keep pace with the new instant-messaging technologies. I've recently launched my own "professional" blog (http://isblit.blogspot.com ) and I'll also be spending more of my time in the next while committing some of my thoughts to it - and trumpeting some of our successes. if you can't beat 'em, call 'em names. (er..Join 'em) :)...
How do you know information is true?
How do you communicate effectively?
What does it mean to be a global citizen?
How do I learn best?
How can we be safe?
We have been addressing, in lots of little ways, these "essential questions" that Justin and Dennis so elegantly teased out as they (re)created the core elements of a comprehensive technology and learning curriculum at ISB (BTW - we had a wonderful technology integration plan several years ago - before our FIRST wave of "Technology Resource Coordinators" was phased out - leaving the primary focus of media literacy, information seeking strategies and technology integration to we remaining TEACHER-Librarians)
A few key areas where we have had some success in improving communications skills, enhancing strategies for assessing information, raising awareness about metacognition and learning, and generally integrating technology into the lives of students (and teachers) at ISB in the past twenty years includes (but is not limited to) the following;
- we were the first school in the region to move to CD-based journals, then online journals and now web-based media tools (Discovery Streaming,Turnitin,YouTube, etc.)
- We're still the ONLY school in the region to have a larger Online NF collection (via ebrary, with 30,000 titles and growing) than a print collection.
- We have a robust suite of online Research Tools to assist ISB students with access to appropriate, relevant and timely information with tools ranging in breadth, depth and scope of coverage.
- We offer a variety of access points to our Research and Reference tools from links on our School homepage to divisonal library blogs (http://isbhslibrary.edublogs.org; http://isbmslibrary.edublogs.org; http://connect2.edublogs.org/
- We run from our Main Library a week-long IB Extended Essay "launch" program specifically designed to address those essential questions with our most advanced students.
- we offer an innovative wireless laptop loan program out of Main Library to ensure that every patron has easy access to the tools he or she needs to achieve his or her learning objectives.
Doug, your question closing this posting was the one that really convinced me that I must not let this pass.
"But my question for Justin and Dennis is "where has your school's librarian been in your lives that you are just now figuring this out?!" And if s/he's been telling you about this stuff, why have you not been listening?"
The answer to that question is simple. Dennis and Justin are the latest wave of skilled, motivated and very capable educational innovators to come through our doors. Unfortunately, the average stay of these folks is approximately 3.5 yers - not enough time to fully assess where we've been, what we've already got in place that's working, and how to build on an already strong program to make it better. They have time enough to just "Ready, and Fire". It often falls to those of us who are here for the longer term to try after the fact to "AIM".
Justin is a case in point. He will be leaving us this year after just two years here. Meanwhile, those who remain will be left to juggle our time as effectively as we can while we work at implementing programs to address the "essential questions" he leaves us with - until the next wave of innovators arrives - with their own unique insights on how and where we should go from here.
Rob Rubis
HS TEACHER-Librarian
Rob and I have had this conversation in person.
But for the readers of this post, let me say that it was never my intent to imply that ISB librarians weren't effective.
They are very effective.
Instead I wondered why I wasn't hearing from more librarians in the world about this. Why I hadn't heard of a library curriculum being embedded into classroom learning? Was it teacher resistance? Was it admin lack-o-support?
Our librarians, in fact, care very much about these information literacy skills. I should have added one more answer: maybe I need to be listening harder.
Why aren't you hearing from more librarians? Because in many places, funding for school libraries and teacher librarians are and have been the first to be affected by funding cuts. Many boards of education haven't had excellent library programs for years so no one knows what they look like. Many new (and very young) principals and administrators haven't got a clue. If a school has a teacher librarian, they are too busy providing prep coverage to classroom teachers to even do the job they are trained to do. That's even if the teacher put into the position even knows what to do because, more likely than not, they have absolutely no qualifications. Or you have a culture of unaccountability for library programs so there is no incentive/pressure for individual teacher librarians to do anything.
I am totally envious of districts like yours, Doug. Part of my job is to provide program support to our district's teacher librarians. It's really difficult when administrative support at all levels is sketchy at best. The challenge is to educate the administrators. It will be an uphill battle. Special assignment teachers such as literacy coaches seem to be getting all of the funding - administration has forgotten that they already had someone in place and one whose effectiveness has and continues to be proven in the research - the teacher librarian.
Hi Rob,
I really appreciate your taking the time to write and give readers a view of this topic from your perspective.
I was not intentionally dissing the library program at ISB, at all, but asking in a more rhetorical sense where we as profession have been when it seems our ed tech folks are continually reinventing the IL wheel, as it were. The international schools I have worked with as a rule have stronger library programs (and more effective librarians) than do their stateside counter parts.
I do hope that I am wrong too about the amount of tech integration that we as a profession have been able to make happen both nationally and internationally. I recognize there are shining examples of librarians really doing a fine job of this everywhere (Rob Darrow take me to task on this in his blog too.) But are these examples the rule or the exception. And if the exception how can we make them the rule?
Having worked in an international school myself (ARAMCO from '84-'89), I know that rapid turnover makes long-term planning difficult - especially among the younger staff.
I'm glad you are entering the fray. Again, there was never any direct criticism implied of your ISB program, but it was a way of asking the more general question about our role in tech integration as a profession.
Thanks again. Do keep in touch and keep young Mr. Utecht who will be joining you next year under control!
All the best,
Doug
Hi Sharon,
Thanks for taking the time to write in. I am sure your views are shared by many librarians in the field. A lack of understanding what librarians can and should be doing has long been a problem for our profession. The good thing is that it only takes an administrator the experience of having one good librarian before he/she will always want one.
All the very best,
Doug