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Looking Forward

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years-textClosing out the month of December and the year, most folks take an opportunity to make a few New Year’s resolutions.  For teachers and teacher librarians, it’s a time to recharge ideas and plans for 2015 that refocus on “The Heart of the Matter: Why I Teach.” (Alber, 2014)

This month, as the BACC bloggers offered ways to find partners and resources to stretch scarce financial funds, we have tried to highlight successful examples of mutually beneficial projects/ideas that go beyond school walls, and engage a wider community of learners. We know that there are amazing things happening in our schools across the country, and we would like to hear about them.  Perhaps you might leave us a reply, or a link to other creative and innovative programs or projects that could be shared.

As an educator, whether you are planning for your students, or pursuing a partnership with community members, you have to be able to articulate your vision for learning, and show that you are committed to the long haul.  Throwing the spaghetti against the wall to see if it sticks is fine for cooking, but innovative ideas need to be nurtured to make them sustainable.  Collaboration with a partner, team, or co-teacher helps to clarify the purpose and process for transforming teaching and learning.  Trial and error are also part of the process for teachers and students in the quest for meaningful learning. Never give up!

When I read Rebecca Alber’s inspiring post (linked above) on Edutopia, I was reminded that teachers are creative, ingenious, and resilient problem solvers who enjoy a challenge, as well as their students. In addition to her list, I would summarize a few items as entry points for innovative planning that bridge traditional and transformative teaching and learning-and make it fun. These are not new ideas, but ones that seem to be trending in schools and beyond.

Options for innovative planning in the classroom and the future:

  • Flipping curriculum content through inquiry and technology integration. Using technology tools and applications for collaboration and personalized, self directed learning, not just another medium for pencil and paper tasks. Assessment for performance and knowledge, not recall.
  • Global thinking and awareness. Digital literacy is front and center to understanding differences in cultures and communities. Empathy is a habit of mind that comes from exposure to alternative points of view.
  • Social justice and personal responsibility through authentic learning opportunities. Communities thrive where all citizens, even the youngest have connections to the environment, the history, and the values shared by all.  Doing is learning and builds pride and a sense of worth.
  • Reflection and goal setting for students and educators. Mindfulness for empowering and engaging learners of all ages. Respecting individual differences and dreams. Multiple pathways for learning.

As you peck away at your New Year’s list, which ones will you choose to try out next year?


References:

Alber, Rebecca. “The Heart of the Matter: Why I Teach.”  Edutopia, December 25, 2014. Weblog. <http://www.edutopia.org//blog/heart-matter-why-i-teach-rebecca-alber>

Image: Morguefile http://mrg.bz/OoxaYL

Happy holidays from your friends here at the BACC Blog!

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family ties

Today’s Can Do Attitude

Across the country, the story about education financing is a variation on a theme.  Since the recession, budgets for public schooling have been on a downward spiral in most communities.  The reasons are multifaceted and many, but the bottom line is that fewer dollars are stretched, and stretched again to cover the challenges of teaching and learning in today’s schools.  Education is expensive and labor intensive, and dedicated teachers are working harder than ever to assure that young learners have opportunities to reach their potential.  During December my co-bloggers have been sharing the good news about how creative educators and teacher librarians have been maximizing scarce resources through collaboration on many fronts.

Judi highlighted ways that schools and public libraries can work together to bring richer service and resources to their common patrons, as well as to partner with non-profits in community service learning. Lucy had some exciting ideas about the benefits of sharing HUMAN resources, in essence, people to people collaborations that are meaningful and create community bonds. Melissa gave insight about ways that Open Education Resources (OER) can provide cost effective materials and access to information that reduces financial outlays.

Some key takeaways from their postings are that creativity, ingenuity, and resilience go hand in hand in problem solving, and working on common goals with other community members is a win for all.

Well, it also does help to have money for programs and resources for learners. The traditional sources- PTAs, book fairs, cake sales-you get the picture- have  provided  reserve funds, but there are other potential sources to tap, too.  There are foundations, and charitable organizations locally and statewide that are willing to fund programs and provide resources that enhance their mission within the community. It may be that there are folks in your school district who write grants, and you should talk with them, first. Many schools don’t have someone on staff, so grab your can do attitude and jump in.  It does take a bit of investigation to ferret out the possibilities and then to find a partner or collaborator who will work on a plan to apply for a grant or a donation.

When seeking funds for active learning projects, from a well known foundation or a local business organization, you have to prepare an action plan with a detailed description of goals, outlines of activities, needed resources, expenses and evaluation. Successful plans have an innovative twist and involve connecting student learners or school with the local or global community for a mutually beneficial purpose. While grant writing may not be listed in your job description, action planning should be essential to move your school library program forward. The process for identifying a problem or gap, and coming up with creative ways to transform learning in your school or district really depends on a clear understanding of the unique mission of your program, data collection and articulation, and how to work within a collaborative team.

Fortunately, there are many opportunities to access ideas for grant writing and action planning success, and also clearinghouse information for possible foundations and businesses.  Look no further than social media for crowdsourced ideas. Try a search using Livebinders, Pinterest, Scoopit! or any of your other favorites.

Here’s a couple that I have found to be quite comprehensive:

Sources for grants (Here are a few that are national, but you can find ones particular to your state or local community, also):

wildlife quiltFamily Ties at Founders School

In my own experience, a cross-disciplinary group of teachers-classroom, art, music, library, tech integrationist- collaborated on a three year project that transformed standards based learning units and curriculum.  As we developed our plan, we incorporated many community resources and applied for funds through grants and direct donations to bring visual and performing artists to the school, museum visits, and funds to self publish a series of student writings.  It was a major success within the community, because staff, students, parents, businesses, local cultural organizations, and  media outlets became united in a school wide theme titled “Family Ties.”  The images included here are from one of the  three self published books.  The collaboration team worked creatively and diligently to connect content curriculum, arts programs, and community resources to make learning exciting and meaningful for all students.  The culture of collaboration was in high gear, and the results were amazing-and lots of fun, too!

Images: Collection of Judith Kaplan

 

Innovation-Disruptive or Sustainable?

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surfer_riding_wave_34Are you riding a wave of innovation in your school, or are you caught in the curl and drowning in the surf?  In today’s world, innovation is a buzzword that appears universally across topics and disciplines, and the field of education is no exception. Melissa shared a definition of innovation in her post earlier in November, and encouraged readers to embrace emerging technologies to enhance innovative thinking in STEM curriculum. Judi looked at innovative delivery of professional development for educators in her posts.  Advances in technology have opened the possibilities for unleashing new ways to rethink teaching and learning, and this is a good thing!  The not so good thing is the lack of time and support for professionals to incorporate these possibilities into their pedagogy. In order to bring about meaningful change that will benefit students, educators have come to realize that collaboration is a critical component that enables sustainable innovation.

Sustainable change does not happen overnight.  Educators learn from each other and are connected across the hallway, the town, the globe. Ideas need to be pondered and discussed, tools need to be sampled, lessons designed and differentiated- all with the goal of engaging students in deeper learning.  Educators also learn from students, especially by allowing them to follow their passions and interests.  Innovative learners are curious, flexible, and open to taking risks and making mistakes.  It’s hard work, but fun.  The rewards are in student success and lighting the fires of learning for both teachers and learners.

School districts implementing new initiatives don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but can tailor local plans for sustainable change by examining existing programs that have a track record of innovation for learning.  The best models promote teacher leadership and a culture of collaboration to solve identified problems and impediments to student success.  Administrators, educators, parents, and community members are all stakeholders together.

In Vermont, middle schools have an opportunity to partner with the Tarrant Institute for Innovation in Education at the University of Vermont.  Funded in part through a generous grant from the Tarrant Foundation, experienced educational leaders provide:

  • A variety of services to help schools make the transition to engaging, technology-rich teaching and learning.
  • In exchange for their substantial commitment to a new vision for teaching and learning, we offer our partner schools intensive professional development, leadership preparation and planning, and small grants for innovative technologies — all free of charge.
  • To the broader community, we conduct extensive research, evaluation, dissemination and outreach.    (http://www.uvm.edu/tiie/)

Since 2006, the partnership has grown and evolved as a model for bringing systemic change in middle school education. A variety of Vermont schools, from large inner city urban to small rural schools have taken advantage of the opportunity to develop a new vision of education within their communities.  The learning has gone both ways-from the professional development facilitators to the partner schools, and back from teacher partners and students who embrace and run with the innovations.  The leaders of the project have shared ideas and challenges in a series of articles and by presenting at local and national conferences.  Take a close look at the website to see samples of student work, and to follow the blog.  A recent blog post features the mindset of one of the Tarrant educators, Mark Olofson. Check out his reflection on the reiterative process of analyzing a new app as a classroom option for learning. It gives us a glimpse at innovative problem solving, and is very refreshing.  Even the experts question themselves and can revise their ideas!

As our educational system evolves from a 20th Century factory model, to a system that personalizes learning for students in the information age, new ideas, technologies, processes, and learning theories will continue to bring about changes to the physical and virtual frameworks of schools in the future.

Do you have some suggestions for innovative schools that you would like to share?

Social media is great way to follow the progress of innovation at many schools.  You can follow The Tarrant Institute happenings by using the Twitter hashtag @innovativeEd, Facebook site https://www.facebook.com/innovative.ed ,Instagram http://instagram.com/innovativeEducation, and Google+ https://plus.google.com/u/0/105653617605343762368/posts

Next month, I will report on the impact of innovations from partner school participants, and look at the challenges and benefits as they continue to move towards sustainable, renewable  change.

References:

Olofson, Mark. “Monster Physics and the importance of careful consideration.” Innovation: Education. (Weblog) Nov. 22, 2014 http://tiie.w3.uvm.edu/blog/monster-physics-importance-careful-consideration/

Image: Classroom Clipart.com

Inspiring Innovation with Emerging Technologies

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In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama emphasized innovation as the main driving force for producing the jobs of tomorrow (Obama, 2011). To ensure that the jobs of tomorrow will be in America and not overseas, Obama challenged the nation to win the race to educate our children in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Innovation is defined as “…the creation and implementation of new processes, products, services and methods of delivery which result in significant improvements in outcomes, efficiency, effectiveness or quality. The keyword in the definition is “new,” where the newness, or the perception of newness, differentiates between change and innovation” (Agcaoili, 2012).

There are plenty of possibilities in education provide learning opportunities to inspire innovative thinking, but we need to focus on finding specific ideas for promoting STEM learning. These opportunities involve students in the learning process as active agents in constructing their own knowledge, rather than just passive recipients of knowledge from teachers. Knowledge construction is also facilitated in a social context or through collaborative efforts toward shared objectives or challenges brought about by different perspectives (Pea, 1997).

In order to inspire innovative thinking we need to promote STEM learning through allowing for play and constructive learning that allows students to work together to conduct research, share their results, and perform or produce a final project. Vygotsky (1962) advocates for not only student-student collaboration, but also expert-student collaboration on real world problems.

Innovative thinking is often the forgotten piece of STEM. School librarians can respond to this gap by promoting and integrating technologies that will inspire innovative thinking in students. One such way is through encouraging the most current emerging technologies that will promote STEM learning, such as apps. Last week I presented at the NYC School Library System Annual Fall Conference on apps for teaching and learning and several of these, taken from the AASL Best Apps lists, present just such learning opportunities. The apps in the STEM category provide a way for students to construct knowledge and be innovative, as well as collaborate with each other and share in a social context. Also think about the ways that you as the school librarian can facilitate this expert-student collaboration through using technologies. STEM education provides a great opportunity for school librarians to work with teachers to create learning experiences that inspire students’ innovative thinking!

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References

Agcaoili, K. (2012). Google apps: An opportunity to collaborate (Doctoral dissertation). Retrieved from Dissertation Abstracts International.

Obama, B. (2011). Remarks by the President in State of the Union Address. Retrieved from http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-state-union-address

Pea, R. D. (1997). Practices of distributed intelligence and designs for education. In G. Salomon (Ed.). Distributed cognitions: Psychological and educational considerations (pp. 47-87). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1962). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Online Professional Development: A Key to Adult Learning

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mouse_keyThis month the Building a Culture of Collaboration bloggers will share their ideas and experiences related to innovation. This week, I will be sharing two examples of virtual professional development.

Library 2.014 was the 4th-annual virtual conference hosted by the San José State University (SJSU) School of Information; this year it was held in real time on October 8th and 9th. Presenters from around the world shared their work in this free global forum. Attendees could have participated on the actual conference days or view recordings and YouTube video archives after the event.

Last week I had the opportunity to attend a Library Journal webcast  entitled “Participatory, Continuous, Connected: Top Trends from Library 2.014,” moderated by Michael Stephens, SJSU assistant professor. I was most interested in learning about the top trends identified during this year’s conference. In the webcast, Samantha Adams Becker talked about emerging digital communication formats; Ayyoub Ajmi described one academic library’s experiences using Google Glass; and Susan Hildreth shared do-it-yourself (DIY) learning opportunities that are taking hold in libraries and museums.

Dr. Stephens framed the 3-part webcast with this concept: “Library of Classroom.” He and the speakers challenged librarians to conceive or reconceive of the libraries as physical and virtual continuous experiential learning spaces. This concept aligns perfectly with my philosophy and experience of school libraries.

Ms. Becker shared highlights from the NMC (New Media Consortium) Horizon Report – Library Edition 2014. (These reports are targeted to different constituencies; you may be interested in the K-12 Edition as well.) Ms. Becker talked about removing books to make space in libraries for face-to-face social gatherings and group learning. The Texas Woman’s University Pioneer Center, located in the Blagg-Huey Library on the Denton campus, is a great example of that concept.

Ms. Becker shared a collaboration between Wikipedia and the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), which librarians may be especially interested in exploring further. She also talked about embeddable technologies—planted under the skin. An implantable GPS is already being tested. The youth in my community will be delighted to learn that implantable ear buds are not a pipedream!!!

These were just some of the innovations and trends Ms. Becker shared from the Horizon Report. Check it out!

On Thursday, I will share some of the innovations Susan Hildreth, Director, Institute of Museum and Library Services, talked about and what Texas school librarians are doing with the concept of badging. Please tune in again.

Copyright-free Image from Morguefile.com

October Connections…

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Segueing from Melissa’s recent post about tips for becoming a connected teacher librarian, I have a few examples of collaboration that demonstrate a shift from the individual (library) classroom to the global stage.  This shift is possible due to the willingness for educators to share best practices for effective teaching and learning through social media, as we have continued to highlight in this blog.

According to Tom Whitby, in a post on Edutopia in early October 2014, connectedness begins with collaboration. “The idea of collaboration requires a mindset of believing there is room to learn and grow. It is also a belief that we are smarter collectively than individually.”  Technology has made collaboration much easier than in the past, and “a teacher who benefits from collaboration tends to appreciate its effect, and will use it in his or her own methodology.”

One of the core beliefs that Whitby uses to describe the connected educator, really resonates with me.  “A relevant educator is willing to explore, question, elaborate, and advance ideas through connections with other educators.”  Every day, when I check my Twitter, Feedly, or Google+ feeds, I am amazed at the exchange of ideas in the global and local school library network.  It is like a fire hose, so I have to sort through and choose that which I need, and save others for future reference in my Diigo files-with just a click of the mouse, or a tap on the smartphone or tablet.

Here are just a few of the many “relevant” opportunities to explore, question,and elaborate ideas that I have appreciated in October through my social media/real world:

  • Connected Librarian Day, October 7: Hosted by the Library 2.0 website, an international gathering of librarians, educators, and library supporters took place in a virtual environment.  If you did not have time to tune in, not to fear, recordings of all the sessions are available, along with links to other resources.  Many speakers are shining stars in the school library field, so have a listen, learn, and leave a comment.
  • AASL Fall Forum Oct. 17-18:  School Librarians in the Anywhere, Anytime Landscape. To get an idea of how ideas were explored, take a look at the AASL Blog and the SLM Blog for several posts from different points of view.  It was an ambitious task to collaborate via teleconferencing between sites around the United States. Lots of great reviews for Best Websites 2014. Read the blogs and follow the links to see some of the unique ways ideas were shared, both face to face and virtually.  Twitter Hashtag #aasl14.
  • Buffy Hamilton, The Unquiet Librarian, has been sharing her collaborative journey with a co-teacher in her blog.   Throughout the month of October, she has been posting the step by step lessons that she and her colleague are using with high school students to introduce them to the inquiry and research process. Photos, videos, and sample strategies for self selecting and narrowing topics are explored. Buffy’s honest reflection of the successes and challenges of  each day’s tasks are well developed and we can all learn from their collaborative expertise.  Each time she posts, I am excited to see what happens next-sort of like being a fly on the wall!

I know that there have been many other events that get the brain juices flowing in October, and I’d like to hear from you about an event or a learning opportunity that you have enjoyed recently-in any dimension.  How about sharing some ideas here?  Leave a comment, I‘d love to learn more!

Resources:

AASL Fall Forum, American Library Association, Oct 17, 2014.  (Website) http://www.ala.org/aasl/conferences/fall-forum (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

“Best Websites for Teaching & Learning 2014.” American Association of School Librarians. (Website) http://www.ala.org/aasl/standards-guidelines/best-websites/2014#media (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

Brennan, Lindsay. “AASL Fall Forum-First-time Attendee Reports,” AASL Blog. (Web log) October 17, 2014.  http://www.aasl.ala.org/aaslblog/?p=5114 (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

“Connected Librarian Day, Oct. 7, 2014.” Library 2.0 (Website) http://www.library20.com/page/connected-librarian-day (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

Diaz, Shelley. Scenes and Resources From the Summit,” School Library Journal. (Website) http://www.slj.com/2014/10/resources/scenes-and-resources-from-the-summit-slj-summit-2014/  (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

Hamilton, Buffy. “Inquiring with Students: What Do or Can ‘Good’ Research Projects Look Like?” Unquiet Librarian. (Weblog) Sept. 29, 2014. http://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/2014/09/29/inquiring-with-students-what-do-or-can-good-research-projects-look-like/ (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

Morris, Rebecca. “AASL Fall Forum,” School Library Monthly Blog. (Web log) Oct. 18, 2014. http://blog.schoollibrarymedia.com/index.php/2014/10/18/aasl-fall-forum/ (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

“SLJ Leadership Summit Fire it Up: Sparking Creativity and Motivating Students, Oct. 25 & 26,  2014.“ School Library Journal. (Website)  http://www.slj.com/leadership-summit/ (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

Valenza, Joyce. “Live From the Summit,” The Neverending Search. (Web log) Oct. 25, 2014. http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2014/10/25/live-from-the-summit/ (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

Whitby, Tom.  “The Connected Educator: It Begins with Collaboration,” Edutopia. (Weblog) October 1, 2014. http://www.edutopia.org/blog/connected-educator-begins-with-collaboration-tom-whitby (Accessed Oct. 27, 2014)

Image: Judith Kaplan Collection

School Librarians as Connected Educators

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ConnectedAs Judy mentioned last week in her post, this month is Connected Educator Month. I was just reading this post from the Langwitches blog about the Four Big Ideas Around the Connected Educator. They identify these 4 Big Ideas as: Local Isolation, Gaining Perspective, Data Crowdsource Resources, and Model for Students. These four concepts or ideas definitely relate to the school librarian.

First is local isolation, being the only school librarian in the building definitely leads to isolation. Connecting with other school librarians, peers, and experts can provide a connection, a way to share, a support system, and a way to learn and grow as a reflective practitioner.

Gaining perspective is critical as we seek to teach our students to consider multiple points of view – to think and learn beyond their own four walls or zip code. Connecting with other educators through building and fostering your Personal Learning Network (PLN) provides a way to do this through providing different points of view, fresh ideas from new professionals, benefit of experience from those experienced school librarians, views from different cultures and locations across the world.

Take advantage of crowdsourcing and your personal learning network. Crowdsourcing “is the process of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community.” This goes way beyond networking in the traditional face-to-face sense! I experience the value of my PLN on a daily basis – I get resources for classes, I gather data for my research, I get help when I have a problem and tips on ways to do things more efficiently that save me time, and I collaborate on a global scale 24/7.

As we expect students “consider diverse and global perspective” and to “contribute to the exchange of ideas within the learning community” it is important that we model this for both students and teachers (AASL, 2007). We must use our PLNs for more than just our own professional growth – use them to to connect teachers to resources, peers, experts so that they can grow their own learning network and model for their students, in order to open up a world of learning opportunities for their students in their classrooms.

So make sure you are a connected educator and that the teachers in your school are too – get involved in Connected Educator Month!

 

References

American Association of School Librarians (AASL). (2007). Standards for the 21st-century learner. Chicago: American Library Association. Retrieved from http://www.ala.org/ala/aasl/aaslproftools/learningstandards/standards.cfm

Crowdsourcing. (n.d.). In Wikipedia. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowdsourcing

Beyond the Choir

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MP900202048 

Are we just preaching to the choir?  Collaboration, co-teaching, information and digital literacy, technology integration, deep Web… ideas we have explored from month to month here in the BaCC Blog. Social media provides an opportunity to reach audiences who have similar interests, but it also opens opportunities to connect with folks who may not know what they don’t know.  For those of us who have been immersed in the education world, specifically from a library POV, we tend to communicate in terms and concepts that make sense to us, but maybe not to others.   Dare I say that we are a bit insular…  and maybe we need to rethink how we can frame our conversations in real world vocabulary that demystifies the work we do.

This epiphany moment occurred to me as I was collaborating with a group of school, public, and academic librarians who were grappling with the wording of a proclamation to send to the governor of Vermont to sign about Information Literacy Awareness Month in October. The NFIL (National Forum on Information Literacy) is organizing and encouraging all states to join the parade and focus on information literacy as a critical component for lifelong learning and digital citizenship.  We know that this is true, but in the general public, who has information literacy on the radar?  And what the heck is digital citizenship?

As we struggled with the wordsmithing, we realized that we could not assume that our target audience (everyone in the state) had any idea what we were talking about.  So we went back to square one-a definition of information literacy, and we articulated it in commonsense language-what it is and what allows learners to do.  Of course, we added how libraries were  involved as physical and virtual spaces for promoting information literacy, too. Speak plainly-this is how we can move the needle on a common understanding of the big ideas that all citizens can embrace and support.

Not only do we have to define our terms and concepts, but we have to show and model what we mean.  That’s another strong suit for social media platforms such as flickr, googlesites, Pinterest, Scoopit!, Twitter, YouTube, and so many others. In Vermont, we want to show examples of information and digital literacy in action, so the Vermont Department of Libraries is curating a site that will showcase what is happening in schools and libraries throughout the state as a public awareness campaign. Instagram @your library! What is happening in your state?

October is also Connected Educator Month-for several years running. “Helping Educators Survive in a Connected World,” is the tag line.  Here is another opportunity to connect with an expanded choir, if you have not discovered this valuable resource already.  What is a connected educator, you might ask? How can you be a connected educator, if you are not already? Are you talking the connected educator talk and walking the connected educator walk? Check out the website to learn more.  Organizations that support the ideas and goals of the Connected Educator crowd source professional development  ideas and best practices for connected learning across all content areas and the world. There’s an impressive list of contributors and supporters from a range of organizations-both business and professional. (I was surprised to note the absence of AASL, though.)  Each day during the month of October there are opportunities to network and participate with others who are finding new ways to embrace the potential for technology innovations to impact personal learning and teaching.  Spend some time exploring the website and especially the Connected Educator Starter Kit (free pdf download).   Here is a forum to find people and experiences that will expand your own toolbox of ideas, and opportunities to lend your voice from the library media world.

October is a time for choir practice in a connected world. What shall we sing about today? Loud and strong!

 References:

Connected Educators. Website. http://connectededucators.org/

National Forum on Information Literacy. Website. http://infolit.org/

Image: Microsoft ClipArt

 

 

 

Purpose: The Performance Enhancer

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bulls_eyeDaniel Pink, author of Drive (Riverhead, 2009) and A Whole New Mind (Riverhead, 2006), contributed an interview to the September issue of ASCD’s journal Educational Leadership. In the article, “Motivated to Learn: A Conversation with Daniel Pink,” he makes a strong case for educators providing students with more autonomy in what they study and how they demonstrate their learning. (He also makes a credible case for why there should be less “standardization” in school systems.) While the majority of the article focuses on preK-12 student engagement, he also addresses educators’ motivations to teach.

Pink rightly notes that most of us did not enter the teaching profession to make a “pile of money.” Rather, we are educators because teaching gives us a sense of purpose. Pink notes: “Teachers need to bring that sense of purpose to the surface. They need to talk more about why they went into teaching, why it matters, why they’re making this contribution to the world” (16).

Mr. Pink and I are on the same page. Purpose is a “performance enhancer.” If educators (and students) know why we are doing something and what it means to us personally, then we are more likely to be committed to doing our best.

On August 20th, I had the opportunity to share an advocacy and coteaching workshop with K-12 school librarians in Northwest ISD (near Fort Worth, Texas). During the workshop, we engaged in some frank conversations about the state of librarianship in this growing-by-leaps-and-bounds district. We applauded the district’s commitment to full-time professional school librarians in every school. We wondered aloud together about how we can help the district take the next steps to ensure that all students and teachers have access to the resources of the library at the point of need and to collaborative work with the school librarian to help students achieve deep learning.

The “why” of our conversation was assumed but not articulated. If I had it to do over again, I would ask the librarians to remind themselves of why they entered the library profession. In what ways does serving as the school’s librarian give purpose to their lives as educators? As we launch into the new school year, let’s keep the “whys” on our minds. Those are the values that guide us as we teach with purpose. Those are the motivators that can enhance our performance.

Works Cited

Moreillon, Judi. Advocacy for School Library Leaders: A Call to Action. 20 Aug. 2014. Web. 4 Sept. 2014. <http://advocacy4schoollibraryleaders.pbworks.com>.

Pink, Daniel. “Motivated to Learn: A Conversation with Daniel Pink.” Educational Leadership 72 (1): 12-17.

Pippalou. DSCN8820.JPG. Digital Image. Morguefile. Web. 4 Sept. 2014. <http://mrg.bz/Eah87Z>.

Success Starts Here

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success_rock“To thine own self be true” (Hamlet, Act I, Scene III).

Shakespeare’s Polonius had it right. We should be “loyal” to our own best interests. In order to achieve that piece of advice, we must know ourselves and be able to clearly articulate our values and beliefs. For me this is not a “new age” interpretation of the Bard’s wisdom. Living a life aligned with our values and beliefs is in our own best interest.

This fall at Texas Woman’s University, our campus is trying out the “one book” or “common book” concept. All faculty received a copy of This I Believe II: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women edited by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman. All first-year students will be reading the book for class and all faculty are invited to use this text in their courses.

When I heard Mr. Gediman speak at our back-to-school faculty luncheon, I was reminded of an article I coauthored with co-guest editor Ann Ewbank for the “Advocacy: A Test of Character” issue of Knowledge Quest: “Is There a Teacher-Librarian Worldview? This We Believe…”

For me, our beliefs are as true today as they were seven years ago.

  • All schools should have a full-time state-certified school librarian (with graduate-level course work) on their faculty.
  • All school  librarians should be the champions in their schools for the First Amendment, intellectual freedom, and the right to read. (See the “Library Bill of Rights.”)
  • All school librarians should be advocates for all school library stakeholders (students, teachers, administrators, and families) to have unfettered equitable physical access to ideas and information throughout the school day and beyond.
  • All school librarians should be dedicated to helping students achieve intellectual access to ideas and information so they can be knowledgeable participants in a democratic society.

These are just some of my beliefs, honed through my library science education, that have guided my work as a practicing librarian and my preK-20 teaching. For me, success starts here. Knowing what I believe and why I believe it. Being an advocate for school librarianship from my core beliefs and values helps me stay true to myself and to align my life work with my “best interests.” Working in concert with colleagues, such as Dr. Ewbank, who share my beliefs strengthens our advocacy work.

As you begin the new school year, what do you believe? Why do you believe it? How do your actions align with your beliefs?

Works Cited

Allison, Jay, and Dan Gediman. This I Believe II: The Personal Philosophies of Remarkable Men and Women. New York: Holt, 2008. Print.

Ewbank, Ann Dutton, and Judi Moreillon. “Is There a Teacher-Librarian Worldview? This We Believe…” Knowledge Quest 36.1 (2007): 12-15. Print.

kseriphyn. Success Rock. Digital Image. Morguefile. Web. 1 Sept. 2014. <http://mrg.bz/vEb63X>.