Week Five Reading

This week, we read a few selections from The Many Faces of School Librarianship. In the section entitled "Librarians as Learning Leaders," I was struck by the emphasis on integrating research and educational theory within the classroom.  The relatively small amount of innovative theory and research within the field of librarianship is something that I find pretty annoying, because I think that this is a really important time for our field to become more alive with thought and discussion (about more than the books vs. e-books debate, please).  I was also excited by the fact that the emphasis on research and theory was balanced with practical applications or "Snapshots" of these ideals in action.  The "Teacher-Librarian as Curriculum Leader" section was a bit more confusing to me.  I don't really understand what makes us think that, because we are the only one of us in a building, that makes us qualified to do administrative tasks such as curriculum planning throughout our schools.  I get that we participate in every grade level and every subject to some extent, but I don't know if I feel like the educational side of my graduate studies are really preparing me for that kind of role in a school.

Aside from that, we read an article by Mary Keeling which looked at Newport News Public Schools adoption of UbD curriculum into elementary school libraries.  Basically, what I took away from this reading is that it takes a LOT of energy and resources to maintain an inquiry-based practice in the classroom-- probably too much for autonomous school librarians to handle all at once.  What I would like to see more of is collaboration across various learning communities or at least more feasible recommendations for future implementation of similar curriculum overhauls.  School reform is beyond necessary, but how do individual schools restructure decades worth of teaching and learning habits?

You shake things up, and Laura Warren-Gross has an interesting plan to do so.  Get the books out of the library and create a limited, core set of books that everyone in the school can read together.  Simple and surprisingly effective.  I think that this is a remarkable story of the success that can be had when school librarians look outside of tradition and listen to research and patron needs.  It's not for every school, but it was for this library, and I salute Warren-Gross for her chutzpah.

I LOVED the Valenza & Johnson article, "What Keeps Us Up At Night".  We are not "migrating our practice" fast enough (to quote a previous reading from... no way!! Valenza again!!) and I found myself nodding in agreement with every statement. yes. yes. and yes.