Reflection for Chapters 1 and 2

Chapter 1
I agreed right away with Woolls' statement about the constant changes in education. It is kind of a running joke at my school that whenever the administration wants to dive head first into a great new idea that we will just wait a year and it will pass. Just in my 5 years in education I have already seen many trends come and go. My mother was a teacher for 31 years, so she can tell you all about the trends that come and go... and come back again! With all of the changes, I do feel like Dewey's theory that students should "learn" instead of memorize is one that has pretty well stuck around. Students must participate in order to learn. My school district is really pushing essential skills that force teachers to teach deeper, as opposed to wider. This is a difficult task for teachers like myself that have a hard time throwing out those non-essential skills.

I was pleased to read that although there has been much change over time from the librarian to the library media specialist, the main emphasis remains the same - books.

I really made connections while reading the section on the relationship between school and public libraries. This is something that I have pretty strong feelings about. I teach in a small town and our public library is within walking distance from the elementary school, so when I taught in that building I would walk my class over to the public library a couple times a month. The public library classified many books as YA and would not let my 5th graders check them out. An example of books in this category would be the Percy Jackson series. My students LOVE Percy Jackson and did not understand why they could check them out at school, but not at the public library. I feel like the public library and the school library should work together. It is a shame because the students were really turned off by the lack of selection. I think they need to have a good relationship so they will visit when they are not in school.

Chapter 2

Collaboration between the Librarian and the classroom teachers is, in my opinion, essential. Of course, I do have an interest in the library, so my opinion is probably pretty bias. I consult my librarian quite regularly, whether to have her pull materials for my students, or to get ideas from her. Being a communication arts teacher, I do think this is easier for me than for other subjects. I do think that teachers get so caught up in what they need to teach for the state test and how much they need to get done by a certain time that things like library collaboration get put on a back burner. The GLEs for Information Literacy can be covered in any subject, though it is done mostly in conjunction to Comm. Arts.

The library media specialist has a lot of responsibility, especially when it comes to technology. I see that more now that I am in the middle school building than I did when I was in the elementary building. The reason for that is because our building is across town from the others, so we don't have a tech office at our fingertips, so the librarian takes on the responsibility of being the building tech person. Facebook and blogs are blocked on our district firewall, so the guidelines for proper use is not an issue in my school library.

The internet is a huge resource. My school district is an eMINTS district, so the school libraries, as well as most classroom teachers, have their own web pages. This is an excellent resource to have. Because of that, we do have to filter what is out on display. At the beginning of each school year I always send a note for permission to use pictures on my webpage.

I look forward to reading more about the roles and responsibilities of a library media specialist!