The Canadian Report

So I have just finished reading the Canadian report by Haycock. It's a long read! But it did raise some interesting points about teacher librarians. Also had a bit on the role of so good assignment material too.

Anyway one of the first quotes that really jumped out at me was about how the decline in school libraries is "almost certainly linked to the erosion of research skills among students at the post secondary level" (Haycock, 2003, pg 11). The reason I found that interesting is I am a student who never had library time. My primary school didn't have a library (but it only had 50 students) and my secondary schools didn't seem to think library time was in any way important. And when I got to uni and had to research and find my own information I floundered. It took me a while to develop some skills and strategies and even now I struggle with researching. So whether the two had any correlation with each other would be interesting to know.

Another point raised was "school libraries expose children from low income neighbourhoods to reading materials they may not otherwise had access to" (2003, pg 15). Whilst I am not refuting this statement I would also point out that whilst exposure is good for all students its often more of a problem with motivation levels. Such as the phrase 'you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink', librarians need to focus on how to make accessing the materials more interesting then just pointing in the direction of books on a dusty shelf.

The last point that confused me a little bit was the one about flexible learning. Whilst it would be ideal to have only small groups of a class come in for lessons you have to wonder about the practicalities of it. In a school of 500 is there time? And would you separate the groups by ability level? And if there is no fixed day and time then how would the teacher know when to send them down. I very much doubt a classroom teacher is going to appreciate having to change around lessons and catch students up because they were at the library. Plus that would mean less RFF for the teacher as that is often what library is used for. Does anyone work in a school where this sort of learning happens?

Anyways I shall stop my rambling as 'short and succinct' has turned to long and waffly. Hopefully random discussions of other readings shall appear soon :)

Lizz

The Role Of The Librarian

First off I have to apologise to people following this blog. My only excuse is I forgot lol. Although to be honest we didn't actually need to make a blog till this week so I'm technically ahead... and if I don't look at the blogs with 5 + posts I can keep believing that.

Anyways after glancing at assignments I decided that unless I state what I think the role of the teacher librarian is before I get to the end of the course it will be difficult to see changes in my thinking. So to me the role of the teacher librarian is first and foremost a facilitator of books. To me that should be the most important as it is becoming increasingly obvious that there are more and more families who do not start kids on books and instead leave reading skills to school. From my own experience I thank my parents every day as I learnt to read before I ever got to school and they installed a love of books in me that still exists today. So for me the teacher librarian should try to instill this love of books into the children that pass through their library.

I think TLs should also show students how to research. This was a skill that I was lacking and I quickly had to develop during my time at uni. So TLs need to consider providing both the resources but also the skills of researching. Not just the what but also the how so that students can go and apply those skills to whatever they have to research.

Lastly I also think that, especially for low SES students, TLs should teach, use and incorporate all kinds of technology including computers, cameras, video, audio and so on. For some students schools are the only place that they can access these and the library is a perfect place, combined with researching skills, for them to use these things.

So yeah there's my take on the role of the teacher librarian. Out of curiosity if anyone comments can you tell me whether the blogs have to all be formal writing or can we just have a running thought tally? And for those curious few yes I am doing both 401 and 501 so elements of both will keep appearing throughout. Assuming I remember about the blog this time :)

Feel free to comment

Lizz

In The Beginning

So today I have finally put my first post in for my ELT401 course at Charles Sturt University. At the moment I haven't actually gone through much of the work and have only just found out which password combination I need to access the readings.

So a little bit about me. I qualified as an Early Childhood Teacher in 2009 and through a university quirk I also have a primary qualification so I can teach from preschool up to year 6. At this point in time I am teaching casually as full time jobs are hard to come by despite what we were told :(

Books have always been my constant in life. My parents taught me to read before I got to school and it just took off from there. My goal now is for children to find the same enjoyment in books that I do and make reading a pleasure rather then a chore.