Post-write Elementary Experience

This first year in the library has been a whirl wind of activity. I definitely feel more like a teacher than a librarian. I do not spend much of my day doing library maintenance. The library assistant does most of the maintenance but she ran far behind as there just was not the time to keep up with Accelerated Reader and book processing among other things. I teach 6 classes a day one for each grade level most days of the week, with 30 minute prep periods sprinkled throughout the week, never enough!

I learned a great deal about running a library and have made appropriate changes for next year so things can run smoother. I worked hard with the scheduling committee on aligning my schedule of classes to the other specials teachers. It took many hours and I am sure there will be some tweaking, but I think it is something we can live with. The students will have a 35-40 minute lesson followed by a 10-15 minute book check along with another class that will come in at the same book check time. That way the students will have at least 2 opportunities to do book check in a week. I am thinking about adding time on collaboration Wednesday for book check as well.

The KUSD curriculum hits all the Wisconsin Model Academic Standards for Information & Literacy however for next year I will be collaborating even more with the teachers so more of the core curriculum can be tied in as well. Having the students for more time next year has some of the teachers very concerned about fitting in all the core subjects. I informed them that is exactly what I am looking for in my lessons, how we can hit those standards and the Information Literacy standards all at once. It should prove to be a very rewarding experience and I am sure we will all learn a great deal from the collaboration effort.

Filling out the book orders three times this year was a ton of work but fun too. I enjoyed learning what the students are interested in and I felt great when I was able to show reluctant readers our new graphic novels, or introduce biographies as a way to fill a child’s interest in athletes. Boys seem to be the hardest readers to encourage but the Legos books rarely touched the shelves after they got their hands on them.

The skills my students learned this year are just the beginning to their understanding of rights and ownership of the written word and other creative expression, how to properly give credit to reliable sources, and just what reliable sources are. The Super 3 and Big Six will be tools they will use their entire lives and as I work with them over the years I plan to make those skills stick to help make their educational experience worth every bit of energy put into it.

Working in a library is a balancing act that can be extremely rewarding however I did have moments of self doubt that made me question if this was right for me. Thankfully those were short lived and overall I feel I am a true asset to this team of teachers. I do miss getting to know the students the way a regular classroom teacher does but getting to know all the students over years can be enjoyable too. Being able to tie in the core subject areas to technology through the information Literacy skills is a juggling act but one I am up for.