Core difference between a librarian and a classroom teacher

"This is what I think you need to know." Classroom teacher
"What do you need to know?" - Librarian

Over simplification, of course. Great educators are a combination of teacher and librarian. But at the core, I believe the mission of the librarian and the classroom teacher stem from the source of the content and skills being taught.

"Relevance" is at the forefront of many educators' discussions. In an interesting article by Peter Greene in Forbes, "Teachers, Please Don't Make Your Lessons Relevant", he gives relevance a different twist:

...Connect your lesson on parts of speech to a current popular song. Assign persuasive essays about something the kids are into today. Could we do an essay about the rap? I hear that teens very much like the rap these days.

But the problem is not teachers who are clueless about what a relevant connection might be. That's correctable (I still want back the hours of my life I spent watching The Hills so that I could follow student discussions). The problem is less obvious than the natural consequences of living on the other side of the generational divide.

Tying a lesson to popular culture as a means of providing relevance is shallow and unimaginative. Tying a lesson to a problem of relevance or need to the individual him/herself is deep and requires time and patience. And as I suggested in the The quiet disruption, it may be the students themselves who make their learning relevant:

Given an Internet connected device, whether personal or school-provided, students can self-individualize their learning during class. If a teacher has not made a persuasive case for the importance of knowing subject-verb agreement, double-digit multiplication, or the historical importance of the Crimean War, students have an alternative to glassy-eyed submissiveness or defiant rebellion. They can learn about things of interest and acquire skills of they see of value.

Students in our libraries seek individually relevant information, resources, and reading materials. Librarians honor those unique needs by not just supplying the requested materials, but teaching students how to find it and evaluate it themselves.

The honor paid to relevance may be the core difference between classroom teachers and librarians.