How to destroy any school library program

For some reason, e-mails like the one below are inadvertently sent to me now and then.  I find them interesting and think other school library media specialists might as well. - Doug

From: "Screwdisk" <sdisk666@inferno.org>
To: "Wormwood" <wormie@terrafirma.edu>
Subject: How to destroy any school library program
Date: Thur Jan 18, 2007 :10:19 -0500
X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook 8.5
Importance: Scorching

  My dearest Wormwood:

Once again it is my unpleasant duty to report that your job performance in the area of retarding human potential was unsatisfactory during the past year (only two brimstones out of five).  At all the schools in your area, young humans are graduating at higher rate, are displaying a distressing tendency to do more of their own thinking, and are actually seeming to enjoy reading, problem-solving and even, Lucifer Help Us, learning. This cannot continue if we have an ice cube's chance in hell of keeping mankind ignorant, cruel, and brutal.

The single common denominator among all your schools is that they have an active school library program!  Once again it seems you've been reading your e-mail  instead being attentive at our staff meetings and have missed ways to cripple the school library program.  Find below ideas shared at a past meeting on how to effectively disable any library program, not matter what its current strength.

The fiendishly glorious thing about library programs is that they depend upon on a single fragile soul - the school librarian. You get to her, the entire program goes up in flames.

You must convince "madam librarian"  to:

1. Think of  the library as her  program where she sets all the rules, knows all the best practices, and owns all the materials.
   
2. Invite people into the library, but when they actually get there, set rules and expectations that make them feel uncomfortable, even unwelcome.
   
3. Place more emphasis on getting stuff  back and keeping it in order than getting it out and into children's hands.
4. Consider the only productive behaviors in the library to be academic in nature. Pursuits of self-interest mustn't count.
5. Assume people who like getting information in ways other than reading are stupid. Oh, and treat them that way.
   
6. Spend a lot of time making sure the cataloging meets standards. Stay in her back office while doing so. Don't let people say "anal retentive" like it's a bad thing.
   
7. Make sure she lets it be known that books are superior to technology in every way, under every circumstance.
8. Ban kids taking notes and certainly ban the copy/paste command. Make them work for their plagiarized term papers!
   
9. Only select and book talk items she likes to read. Make sure she ignores any nonfiction titles. Claim graphic novels are the devil's handiwork.
10. Make sure she has a set of goals that in no way relate to building or district goals.
11. Assume teachers who do not want to collaborate are bad teachers and treat them as such. Assume administrators who do not automatically value of the library are dolts and troglodytes and treat them as such.
    
12. Always advocate for what is in the best interest of the library - not the library user.
13. Never accept a task that she considers beneath her professional dignity - teaching a class, hosting a study hall, monitoring a test.
14. Develop an adversarial relationship with as many people as possible. Key are the principal, the custodian, the secretary and especially the technology director. 
15. Set as many rules on computer use as possible. Bans all forms of recreational use especially. For first time misuse, take away computer privileges for a minimum of a year.
    
16. Learn to play good cop/bad copy with her library aide. The librarian is  the bad cop.
17.  Make sure she is very, very fussy about her job title. Just make sure she cares deeply about many things no one else cares about.
    
18. Consider everything a collaborative effort, and to take no responsibility for that which could be directly attributed to or blamed on her.
    
19. Develop a good relationship with parents - after she finds out her job may be cut.
20. Whine. At every opportunity.
    

Remember to invoke the pernicious imps of Fear, Powerlessness and Defensiveness at every opportunity. A confident librarian is among the worst of Our enemies! If Earth is ever to truly become the devil’s playground, nasty concepts like critical thinking, tolerance for a diversity of opinions, the ability to empathize with others, and intellectual freedom must be stamped out faster than prison-made license plates. Allow me to remind you once again that with even the least diligence and effort on your part, libraries which support these heresies can be rendered ineffectual.

Fire up, Wormwood! Fire up! Get these librarians in your schools heading down the wrong path. And do make sure it is "down."

Insincerely,
Screwdisk

With apologies to C.S. Lewis

The vision thing

The unending revision process of our district's long-range plan continues, ad nauseum. I revise for the most part and then give the district's media technology advisory committee (and other groups) a chance to react, revise and improve. I find that it helps to have a starting point. (See Kathy Sierra's "The Dumbness of Crowds" which gives the reason why this seems to work well.)

I've reached the visionish part of the plan - the big, heady ideals:

Mission Statement
The Mission of the district media/technology program is to provide an environment in which all individuals in District 77 are empowered to become life-long learners and effective users of information, ideas, and technology.

Vision
If technology is to realize its powerful potential for improving education in District 77, it must be used for more than just automating the traditional methods and practices of teaching.

Rather than the computer simply being a tool which allows a common task to be done more efficiently, technology will fundamentally change how instruction is delivered, how student performance is measured, and how teachers view themselves as professionals. The technology is used to actually restructure the educational process to allow it to do things it has never been able to do before. These include using technology to assure:

• All students, including those with special needs, master the basic skills of writing, reading and computation.
• All students, including those with special needs, practice authentic information literacy and research skills, and the higher order thinking skills inherent in them.
• All students, including those with special needs, have access to top quality resources, including human resources, regardless of location.
• All teachers can use technology to provide students and parents
• individualized education plans.
• continuous feedback on how well students are meeting their learning goals.
• opportunities for virtual student performance assessments.
• All teachers, administrators and staff have the tools and ability:
• to locate the research findings that will guide their use of technology.
• to collect the data that measures the effectiveness of their practices.
• to use technology to communicate with all district stakeholder in a timely and effective manner.
• The maximum amount of financial resources can be spent on student resources by reducing administrative costs through effective technology use.

Media/Technology Program Long Range Goals

1. All students, including those with special needs, will demonstrate the mastered use of technology to access, process, organize, communicate, and evaluate information in order to answer questions and solve problems.
2. Technology will be used to provide the most current, accurate and extensive information resources possible to all learners in the district and community in a cost effective and reliable manner at maximum convenience to the user.
3. All district teachers will have the technology training, skills and resources needed to assure students, including those with special needs, will meet local, state and federal learning objectives and have the technological means to assess and record student progress.
4. The district will use technology to improve its administrative effectiveness through efficient communication, planning, and record keeping.
5. The district will have a reliable, cost-effective, and secure technology infrastructure that supports the learning, teaching, and administrative goals of the district.
   

Beliefs
The basic Beliefs of the district media/technology advisory committee concerning the use of technology by students, staff, parents, business, and community include:

1. Technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself.
2. All technology efforts must be designed to meet measurable educational and administrative outcomes and must be assessed.
3. The use of technology to access, process, and communicate information is an essential skill that must be acquired by students and modeled by staff.
4. Technology must be networked throughout the district and community in order to provide adequate information accessing, processing, and communicating.
5. Technology is required for effective school district administration, planning and decision-making.
6. Technology skills should be integrated throughout the curriculum and at all grade levels.
7. Effective technology modeling by staff requires adequate resources: equipment, software, training, time, and incentives.
8. The use of technology must be ethical, safe, secure, and equitable.
9. Technology planning must be a coordinated effort between building teams and district administration with input by all persons effected by the plans.
10. The use of technology, by promoting student-centered learning, will have a strong, positive influence on achievement.

OK, did you manage to make it all the way through this list? Pretty good, even if a little dull, huh? But here are an observation and a question:

This portion of the document remains virtually unchanged from Long Range Plan to Long Range Plan. The mission statement is the same as it was in the 1992-97 LRP. (Yes, I keep copies.) Beliefs, Vision and Goals are from the 1997-2000 LRP.

10 and 15 years ago were we prescient or are we now stuck in a rut?

Just how much do teachers need to know about technology, redux

Jim Forde over at edtechNOT <http://edtechnot.blogspot.com> sent this comment on the Just how much do teachers need to know about technology?  post from few days ago:

Here are some thoughts that rose to the surface as I read this excellent post.

1st- Educational technology staff development should be about creating better teachers. Whether or not they know the origin of the acronym "URL" is irrelevant. Will the ed tech staff development session offer them ideas that will make them better teachers, with their specific kids, in their specific setting? This should be the ultimate assessment.

2nd- Many of the frustrated reactions that teachers share via informal body language, rude comments or (in the worst case scenario) thrown objects are often the result of the disconnect of the "expert" from the classroom teacher. It isn't that they aren't organized, but it is that they really have no idea what great science, language arts, or math teaching looks or feels like...but "boy do they have a technology solution for you!" The reluctant veteran teachers are then labelled recalcitrant luddites. Poor alpha wolf. :-(

3rd- As it relates to the "omnivore's dilemma" and the depth of knowledge necessary, I don't want a great reading teacher worrying about why the ISDN line works or the origin of Spam. I want them to have the tools they need to entrance kids with wonderful lessons that encourage them to be life long learners. This is where their focus should be, not on why the tech around them is not working.

I probably just woke up on the wrong side of the lap top. Let me know what you think.

Jim Forde :-)

I'd like to agree 100%. Jim, but am not sure it is a simple and clear cut as you describe. Let's play with the idea that there are three skill levels all teachers need:

1. "Basic skills" How to open programs. How to use a mouse. How to organize files. How to trouble shoot why the the printer is not working.  This is where some of those "behind the scenes" understandings might be helpful. Does knowing the basics of IP protocol make a person a better teacher? No, but it might allow him/her to be a better teacher IF it allows that teacher to solve a problem quickly and get back to the business at hand - teaching. Some of these skills (how spam, filters and pop-ups work) might be essential to survival in this litigious age! See Teacher Guilty in Norwich Porn Case.

I might even include in this category things as mundane as knowing how to report attendance  online, keep an electronic gradebook, or e-mail a colleague. Whenever the mastered use of a technology allows a teacher to save time doing a routine task, it improves education.

2. "Personal productivity skills" A teacher knowing how to run a word processorto create instructional materials that are easy to read and quickly editable is a better teacher. A teacher who can use a search engine to locate best practices in his/her field is a better teacher.  A teacher who knows how to create a web page that informs parents of classroom activities and provides activities that can be done at home is a better teacher. My Beginning CODE 77 Rubrics were all based on the premise that a teacher can be a better teacher using technology even her/his students never touch it.

3.  "Direct instructional uses" I suspect this is where most of us would like to be offering staff development activities - how techers can use technology directly with students for greater content mastery or skill attainment. No argument. This might be a drill-and-practice program or a simulation program, but more likely it is some activity that has at its heart an information literacy skill asking for higher ordered thinking, enhanced (or even made possible) using technology. And this is as much or more about changing pedagogy as it is about technology. I tried looking at this use in my Rubrics for Restructuring.

 So yes, Jim, I definitely agree with your statement, "Educational technology staff development should be about creating better teachers."  I would only argue that we not be too narrow in thinking about what that looks like. I also worry that we are in such a rush to get to the third level of staff development and teacher use we slight the first two levels and that comes back to haunt us.

Oh, my rubrics are starting to look a little long in the tooth. Revision time approaches. What does teacher who takes advantage of the social web know how to do?