A response to what gets tested: guest post by Mary M

My good friend and colleague, Mary Mehsikomer from Region One up in Morehead, MN. sent this thoughtful reply of my blog entry, "BFTP: What gets tested, gets taught." She has kindly agreed to let me use her comment as a guest post. (Funny how I get more responses from my guest blogs than from what I write. I try not to take it personally.)

I too have struggled a lot with whether information literacy skills should be taught separately or be integrated within the curriculum content areas. Having worked with a couple of standards revision committees, trying to integrate these skills is no easy task, yet to have the skills be authentically mastered, shouldn't they be part of the content areas? When students go to postsecondary education or into the work force they are going to be expected to have these skills and use them as part of academic mastery or accomplishing the tasks required of them by their employer.

And, you are absolutely right - teachers have to focus on what they will assess as part of their teaching.

At this point, I would argue for a separate curriculum, preferably to be taught be a licensed school library media specialist. Here's why:

1. Information literacy is not being effectively taught to students in the content areas now. Yes, there are some teachers who have embraced the need for these skills and work very hard to build them into their instruction, but this is not a widespread practice.
2. Classroom teachers in other content areas have enough trouble getting through the curriculum assigned to them to teach and meet all the standards. It is really difficult for them to build time in to master information/technology literacy in along with everything else.
3. Classroom teachers aren't always confident in their own technology skills nor have they been provided the training to teach these skills themselves. A school librarian should have had the training necessary to do this.
4. The school librarian is supporting all the content areas so he or she may be better positioned to design content-based learning activities within their own curriculum that build the information literacy skills the students need throughout their school day. The school librarian is hopefully clued into the curriculum to do this.
5. Most classrooms still do not have enough technology to make information literacy a regular part of the learning day. At least in most schools there is a lab or some other type of set-up that provides the students with some access to technology in the media center or somewhere else in the building where the librarian can access it.

Of course, we have the problem that we are losing our school librarians to budget cuts, retirements, and other catastrophes - but if administrators were really cognizant about the types of 21st century skills students need to succeed in higher education and today's workforce, and if they really understood the role of a school library media specialist, they would be either hiring highly qualified school library media specialists or insisting that those still employed in their schools be building these skills for their students.

Comments

[J.]

They absolutely should be part of the content area. It would be like debating whether or not calculator class should be taught by a calculator teacher or whether it should be incorporated into the math class.

I wonder what future teachers are preparing children for that doesn't require information literacy?

[Dottie]

Today I observed a 5th grade teacher and the librarian working as a team to teach note-taking skills. The librarian had already taught the kids how to find the necessary books on the shelf, search the online resources, and write a citation. They were a dynamic team and I just sat there wishing all teachers and librarians were able to work this way. It was a joy to watch.

[Elena Williams]

True, true and true! This is the way things are in my world.

[Doug Johnson]

Hi j,

I remember 20 years ago hearing a fellow exclaim, "We don't have a class called "pencil."

But are tech literacy skills that simple? We do have classes called writing and reading, despite the fact that they really applied skills.

Doug