Speed Up or Slow Down?

I just realized my last posting was in July, talking about the beginning of the school year. Two months have gone by already? As I chronicle my last year in this school librarian position, I fluctuate as to whether I want things to slow down or to move along faster.

Funny thing about time, it will go as it does and there really isn't much I can do about it. However, it is interesting to think about the times over the last eight weeks I have longingly looked forward to the light at the end of the tunnel, or frantacally pulled the emergency break.

Slow Down!

One of my legacy goals is to have the library facility as teen friendly as a learning commons can possibly be. We have moved about 20,000 volumes and moved furniture around to accommodate five (and then some) different flexible learning spaces for classroom sized groups. But the signs need to be changed and the fun stuff is not yet on the walls. I only have 4 more weeks to make this happen and stay on schedule. Thank goodness for my wonderful co-workers.

I have not even started cleaning up the catalog or began populating a digital repository. I know, I know, is that really necessary? Do school librarians need to have cataloging concerns to be student-centered? Part of making the library facility more teen centered includes, in my opinion, the digital library and the library catalog. Unfortunately, our union catalog has serious issues, and a federation search does not even exist for all of our resources. I seem to be the only one in a hurry to make this all better (shocking) and I have no idea how much time this will take.

My colleagues and I are supposed to write three grants this week to fund a student driven literacy initiative. Tomorrow is Wednesday and I just today set up the google doc for our collaborative writing. At least we are on the way and the kids are so excited!

Banned Books Week? What? Already? OMG - my favorite school library holiday and I just today realized it is next week. Good news, I got my order into the ALA store in time and my promotional stuff came in yesterday evening. Bad news, I am going to drive everyone around me crazy with last minute requests. I just emailed my TV-Media teacher to see if we can run PSA's. Today, I was frantically planning with my honors teachers about changing up our annual BBW introduction to Huck Finn so that the kids can share resources using Diigo, which is of course, blocked for students and requires a request to open (see iTunes U woes below). Finally, I just contacted my robotics sponsor to see if we can throw together a publicity stunt in the cafeteria for 3000 students. Why robotics you say, well, look at ALA's cool logo this year! OHHH I hope it works! Robots are so cool.

I have not even scratched the surface of my slow down panic attacks.

Speed Up!

This section only deserves bullet points

• One of my new favorite collaboration teachers STILL can't access iTunes University even through access was approved in July and our request was submitted last April.
• Yet another hour long battle with a database manager about how yes, I really am an expert in using the library automation system, so it is OK to allow me access and grant my requests without a fight.
• Another year of paid licensing fees for a CMS that we will not be able to use because it just isn't working right on our network and/or talking nice to the SMS.
• Speaking of SMS, our "slave to the student management system and scheduling function" mindset has once again put my students in the wrong classes and they are not getting switched.
• I recently felt like I was being interrogated under a bright, hot, white light about my M.O. for writing a grant to create a new special library collection, and then berated for my audacity in asking for matching funds.
• The library sign-in system, which was promised by July, has not been installed because the licensing renewal bill was not paid on time.
• I feel like I am playing a mental chess game (and all bets are NOT on me to win) in order to figure out the absolute best time to officially resign so that my colleagues and students have a fighting chance that my job will be filled next year, and by a qualified librarian.

Humm, I think I am seeing a pattern. If you see it, I will send you a Banned Books Week prize.

Here's to focusing on those things that make me want to take my sweet time in finishing out this school year!

And so it begins, but with thoughts of the end...

The school year is about to begin, and it will be an interesting one. I have been a teacher librarian for 7 years in practice and after this year I will be taking some time to concentrate on my own research and studies.

I have been enrolled in a Teacher Leadership program since Summer of 2008, and am finishing my second master's this year. My studies have been wonderful, exhilarating, and life changing and I don't want to stop. By definition, I guess this makes me an intrinsically motivated lifelong learner. And yet despite these flow like feelings I am increasingly frustrated (on good days) and downright ambivalent (on bad days) as a result of living two connected but separate academic lives.

In addition to my ongoing research and studies, I crave MOST of the activities and responsibilities inherent in my role as a high school librarian. And while my job and my scholarship are intricately woven together and seamlessly whole at times this is not always the case. The daily battles I fight on behalf of my teachers and students (access, funding, technology integration, and relevant instructional practices) suck the life energy out of my being as if I were Bella and bad educational policy was a vicious coven of nomad vampires. If I am to remain productive, creative, and, well, fun to be around, I can no longer serve two masters.

My year begins with an interesting dilemma that makes me think of Chris Cruncher's novel, Deadline. Ben Wolfe, the protagonist, has a year to live and must decide what projects will fill his remaining days. Unlike Ben, fortunately, I am not dying a physical death nor am I keeping my time limits secret from everyone around me. Like Ben, I need to decide how best to devote my limited resources. I have a lot of thoughts on this matter, but only two rules.

1. I must intrinsically enjoy whatever I devote myself to achieving this year. Why? Because this means whatever I leave as my tangible legacy to the school will be AWESOME!
   
   
2. Everything I do during my contacted time MUST be student centered. Each goal must begin and end with a litmus test of how to best to create optimal learning environments and structure individualized learning opportunities for all of my students, no exceptions. Given it is a school of 3000 teens, well, "enjoyable" isn't exclusively synonymous with "easy."

So, if you had one more year as an employed school librarian, and you knew it, what would you do with your time?

BEDA #28 Read the Movie

I am really excited about the Cyber Book Club I am runnign with my co worker this month. My Readers Advisory Club always hosts a Books to Movies night, and this year we are exanding our event to be the celebration mixer after a couple weeks of particpating in the Online Book Club.

My coworker is moderating Yes Man, by Danny Wallance


I am moderating Stardust, by Neil Gaiman

One reason I am so excited is because I have never read, nor seen, Stardust. I have been following Neil Gaiman on Twitter for about a month, so I feel I can add a bit more to my the blog discussion with my students.

Here is a video of Neil Gaiman and screen writer Jane Goldman discussing Stardust at Comic-con 2007.



Got to go read now! More on the book club later.

BEDA 16 - The Seekret to Gruwell's Success?

I read Freedom Writers Diary from the perspective of a teacher in a very large urban(ish) high school who very much desires school reform. I have still not seen the movie.

I can break down, into three categories, the reasons why the students in FWD overcame their often times unbearable living conditions, made education their main priority, learned more than their non-freedom writer peers (even in those in the advanced classes), and made such a splash in the world. Basically, they were given what every young adult needs and deserves from a public education.

#1 - The School Environment

They had a small school environment. Wilson High School could have been the largest school in America, but those students were able to stay with the same group of about 150 students (at least for one class period a day), one willing and able teacher, and several caring adults, for 4 years. Even those who transferred in at a later date benefited immensely from a diverse, socially active, and caring group of peers.

Scheduling like this in a large school is not necessarily an easy thing. Wilson High counselors and building administrators had to be willing to stretch outside of their day to day responsibilities and traditional ways of doing things to make this happen. This means that they had to care enough about those students, and belive in enough in the teacher, to break the status quo.

Field Trips, events, donations, and community involvement were allowed to take place without too much red tape. Public schools today are full of red tape and it can be a deterrent for many over burden teachers to tackle.

Given this type of environment, any student, from any background, with any type of personal hurdle (drug and alcohol addiction, gang involvement, prison record, abusive relationships, language barriers, terminal illness, rape, homelessness, poverty, starvation, etc...) has a very good chance of succeeding in school.


#2 - The Dedicated Educator(s)and other Adults

A teacher, who honestly cared about her students, who had the opportunity to have the same group of students for 4 years, became very much like a family to her. She invested herself in their educational growth and was willing to fight for her students right to an authentic academic and socially aware school experience. She was free of, or ignored, artificial "professional" pressures so that she could communicate with her students in a way they could respect and understand.

Other adults in the community, including parents, public speakers, and business leader, became active stakeholders and philanthropic activists for this group of young adults.

When local teachers and administrators were not supportive of the Ms. Gruwell's methods, or the plans and ideas of her students, district, state, and even national educators took up her cause.

#3 - The curriculum

Here is a very important piece of the equation. The teacher was allowed to decide, in many cases, what literature and writing skills to teach and how to teach her students. She could move away from the decided "norm" and make decisions based on her individual and collective student needs. If she needed to slow down, she could. If she needed to assess differently she was able. If she felt that some traditional lessons or skills were not inherently beneficial to the long term goals of her students, she dropped them.

It didn't appear to me that this teacher felt forced to be a slave to nationally or even state mandated standards, common standardized assessments, or other such academic nonsense. Unfortunately, I see standards treated as the holy grail every day where I teach, and woe to the teacher who does not at least pretend to agree.

Ms. Gruwell's class showed their learning through socially constructed projects, as well as through individual, private, and non assessed writing.

Textbooks were replaced by authentic and good literature that were explored through the students' viewpoint. This included a mix of contemporary YA literature as well as classics that were usually reserved for the AP curriculum.

Just a personal thought here - if more schools would ditch the textbooks and give teachers the time and support to create curriculum from authentic literature and primary sources, schools would save millions a year.

There were exams mentioned in the book, but students found themselves able to respond to the questions without much trouble and all the teens that were mentioned in the book appeared to succeeded in a traditional GPA scale.

** The criticisms of traditional public education.

Many criticisms of this books stem from the statement that this type of learning environment is not possible or (in some cases) not necessary for most high school students. I would disagree with both of these statements. All students can and whould benefit from small school environment, a caring and able teacher, and community support, and if local and state communities decide that this is imporant, it could happen more often.

A database or google search will show you comments from thousands of educators who get discouraged when they read about the personal sacrifices that Erin Gruwell had to make in order to fight for the autonomy to make sound decisions for the learning of her students. I have personally heard administrators, who are not currently in the classroom, and are making large sums of money every year, point to Erin Gruwell and the sacrifices she made as the model for how their educators should live and work. Their mind set seems to be: "why can't other teachers work two jobs, fight with their fellow peers, and sacrifice their family time to make this happen?" I think types of demands would be rare amoung other professionals outside of the classroom.

Would we ever think that a surgeon should work a job at a department store to be able to fund necessary instruments with which to do surgery? Would we ever ask a superintendent to bag groceries so that the senior class would go on college visits?

To these criticisms, I have several responses in the forms of questions:

Why can't our districts and states support a small school environment by hiring more teachers or making decisions for smaller schools?

Why must we have this trend of supermarket schools, where everyone has to know everything, and we as teachers feel forced or compelled to base our methods on political initiatives that require us to machine gun fire knowledge at students for 50 minutes, 7 times week?

Why do we track and move students who can't learn in this type of environment to lower level, "non essential" or sub-standard classes as if they, the students, are the problem and not the system we as a society have created?

Why is a lack of funding always the party line for the lack of consistency in good research based academic programs when we see more and more high paid administrators and consultants being hired?

Why do politicians force schools to adhere to an economic formula that allows for millions to be spent on on big gyms, sports stadiums, textbooks, non essential staffing, and fancy architecture while ensuring that teachers are cut every year, class sizes are larger, and school library and classroom budgets are slashed?

Why do we expect more out of our teachers in terms of professional education and licensing, class sizes, assessment, dicipline, and number of courses taught, when more and more local control over what is taught in the classroom is taken away?

Why do our professional associations fight for trivial things and not concentrate time and funding by encouraging and protecting teachers like Erin Gruwell (of which there are hundreds in every school district)?

Why are socially aware and responsible teachers (like Ms. Gruwell) forced to fight tooth and nail for the right to teach their students in a non traditional way, spend all of their personal and family time (to the determent of their own families), and spend so much of their own hard earned income to help their students succeed?

If classroom environments, and curriculum development, like I read about in Room 203 were the accepted "best practice", then wouldn't there be fewer personal hardships exptect out of teachers who demand the right to use better and more effective methods?

Why are the students in Advanced Placement or who are severally learning disabled permitted to be blessed with a small school environment when research and experience says this is the best way to educate all young people?

How can educators, politicians, and the American public except that 50% to 75% of students in any given school are not worthy of the benefits of a small school environment?

I would like to see these questions answered without one financial or economic excuse given. In real life, we as individuals and as a collective society find and spend money based on what is most important to us. Maybe we need to reassess our priorities?

BEDA 11 - The Blooming of Ideas

While I was thinking of something quick and painless to blog about today, an organic piece of learning happened.

First, I decided to first look at the History Channel web page, http://www.historychannel.com. I like this site because there is a lot of cool multimedia sources and I personally like learning about the past. I clicked on the "This Day in History" link and by watching a short video clip learned that on April 11 1970 (today in history), NASA launched Apollo 13. A couple days after the launch, the crew had to return due to an explosion on board.

Here is the seal for that mission.

A month or two ago, my husband, my 11 year old son, and I watched Ron Howard's 1995 movie named after the mission. This movie starred Tom Hanks, Kevin Bacon, and some other guys. My son kept asking me through the movie, "do they live? do they make it back?" It was a really good movie based on a very emotional and excited true story. It always makes me cry. I couldn't remember if this movie won any awards, so I looked on the wikipedia page for the movie - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13_(film). It was nominated for a gazillion Oscars and took home two; one for film editing and one for sound mixing.

Here is one of the movie poster pics:

I remembered that NASA had a really good missions page at http://www.nasa.gov/missions/. I explored this page with students earlier in the year. They were learning about manned and unmanned space exploration. This is a difficult concept for some young people because NASA missions are not a much in the spot light as they once were back in the space race/cold war period. Even those awesome pics of MARS escaped notice by many teens.

The NASA missions page is a great place to explore past missions like Apollo 13, current missions like the the Voyager, Interstella Mission, and future missions of the International Space Station. I was amazed at all that NASA is up too on a day to day basis.

Here is a very nice photo collage of Apollo 13 crew and craft from the NASA mission page.

It is interesting how ideas bloom into inquiry. This short, impromptu brainstorming session of mine mimics, I think, real life patters or learning. I learned quite a bit in a few minutes about history, science, and pop culture by connecting new information to previous experiences. I think I have heard about this type of learning somewhere before...

Houston, it is time for bed!

BEDA 10 - BTW FONS R NP

My BEDA 10 blog today is a hybrid. A bvlog. My first vlog actually. I took all frames of me out to increase your viewing pleasure.

Part of my research is centered around asking students and teachers what they would change about high school.

Will the answers follow a pattern? Will answers intersect on some issue of practice? Will they connect in meaningful ways? Or, will teacher and student needs and wants run an infinite, generational parallel?

Today my blog is a segment of an interview with Kaitlin, a 10th grader at a medium to large public high school. When asked what she would change about high school, her first answer pretty much sums up what many teens are telling me.

Cell phones. In the school where I teach, and in Kaitlin's school (which are not the same), teachers are finding it very difficult to enforce the "no cell phone" rule. Actually, within the last 5 years, the prevalence of cell phones in the hands of students has made a once very "serious" offense of being caught with a phone, become more of a verbal warning nuisance for teachers and students. Some school are changing the way they deal with cell phones by officially allowing students to use phones in the hallways during passing periods and in class during down time. There is a lot of unofficial cell phone usage going on in hallways and classrooms right now because teachers and administrators become wary of spending too much time on writing disciplinary forms, arguing with parents, and fighting practices that are now accepted cultural norms.

Cell phones with 3G networks are also throwing a wrench in legal expectation. The federal and state government required that school filter Internet sites available to students at school. Before web surfing cell phones became common place, the arguments surrounding filters centered on poor quality software and 1st Amendment rights. Commercially sold filtering software is often seen by teachers and teens as being too restrictive. In my school, we have seen a librarian and teacher complaints at having software make access and content decisions on their behalf. As we work through issues of the amount of access to restrict the main problem is changing. The issue of "how much to control" is becoming lost in the fact that students are bringing their own networks with them from the outside. Schools can't censor student cell surfing habits because schools can't enforce the usage of cell phones, period, without taking time away from teaching and learning. And you know what? The kids know this too.

I think the issue of "control" is probably the most difficult hurdle schools will need to breech. What things do educators want to control about student behavior? How much control do educators need? How much control can parents or the government expect out of High School educators? How much control is even possible?

A wise administrator once said to me, "You should never make rules that you can't enforce." Large high school leaders may think they can control cell phone usage at schools, but they are kidding themselves. If students purchase their own phones and plans, or if parents do and give the student texting and 3G capabilities, is it worth the fight? Can we use the phones for learning purposes instead wasting time on forms, detentions, and suspensions?

I asked my husband how he would have answered the same question (what would you change in High School) way back when? Both of us had a hard time deciding what the answer would have been. One reason may be that it has been (OMG) around 20 years since we were in high school.

The first three things that popped into our mind were:
1) Pizza every day in the cafeteria,
2) Being able to leave school for lunch,
3) Bringing back the smoking room that was available to students a few years before we came to high school.

It might be that our brain cells are deteriorating with age, but mainly I think the reason we struggle to connect to our teenage memories is because the culture has changed so rapidly since the latter part of the 80's.

There is a saying that "the more things change, the more they stay the same." I wonder if this age old wisdom is becoming obsolete. Yes, student do still want more pizza on the menu and many of them would like to have the time and ability to leave during lunch, but these wants are not a priority. Teen awareness of smoking hazards and the current legal age of purchasing cigarettes has pushed the once coveted smoking room off teenage radars completely.

Yes, teens still want to spend more time with friends, and less with parents. However, the way teens communicate, share, play, and learn is different from teens one, two, and three generations ago. It is surely a question for social scientists to wrap their heads around.

So, if you are a teen, what would you change about school? If you are not a teen, how would you have answered this question when you were in school?

Textbooks Must Die

Good BEDA #9 Afternoon and Happy Thursday!

Today I received another timely link from edutopia.com about textbooks, so I am dragging this issue through the mud one more time.

From me to you for your reading pleasure: "the dysfunctional world of textbooks," a $4.3 BILLION per year industry.

Couldn't schools help stimulate the economy in other ways that are better for learning??? http://www.edutopia.org/textbook-publishing-controversy

My ideas: More authentic literature/media for libraries and classrooms, plus hardware, software and Internet connectivity for online learning environments. Add a healthy dollop of time for professional collaboration and development. Of course this one fix everything but would help get public schools on the right track.

Thoughts? Anyone out there (crickets chirping...) I would love to hear what you think.

BEAD 8 What Teens Want?

Since my blogs are usually very long and boring and I didn't want to write tonight, I decided to try my first vlog. I interviewed Kaitlin, a 10th grader, and asked her what she likes about high school as it is now, and what she would change. I do the introduction which reminds me why I should never be in front of a camera.

Then I also learned that it can take forever to upload a video and it may be faster to write. I tried several times, and now I am too tired to try again. I think BEDA is stealing sleep from me. I am a vlog looser :-(.

A Pox On Textbooks

BEDA 6 - Things I Would Change #1

If I were princess of my own school, what would I do differently?

Textbooks would never be ordered.

They are big, bulky, expensive, and in my opinion full of very biased and incomplete information. And even when textbooks are digital, the content is still so watered down from political and economic pressures that they are less valid than normal tertiary reference sources.

Here is one example of the lack of breadth and depth of textbooks. My colleague and I recently did a presentation on non textbook print digital resources for the social studies curriculum. We ran a quick discussion of the Japanese Internment during WWII. We had letters, pictures, signs, and interview, and a scanned image of the actual order signed by the president to move citizens into these work camps. It took me about one hour to gather all of these sources. Everyone got to choose one piece of information to review for 5 minutes. Then we discussed it in a large group setting for another 15 minutes. Everyone learned something and there were some emotional discussions. When I asked the teachers who much space the textbooks devoted to this subject, I was told "less than a whole paragraph and one tiny picture." BTW - we have many students in our school with Japanese heritage.

School districts spend millions of dollars per year on textbooks, and I per school district. I am not exaggerating. This money, at least in Indiana, comes from one of two places.

The first thing schools do is bill the families for these texts. Most call this book rental. School fees are getting really, really expensive. My daughter, who is in High School, brought home her book rental last August and the cost was almost $300. At about the same time, my mother just happened to give me some documents from my high school days in the late 80's. There was a receipt for book rental that amounted to $35. Book rental fees included some technology funds and other "disposable" fees as well (for toner, printer paper, and some supplies), but most of that money goes to pay for textbooks. Textbooks that I believe are worse than a lot of the free information on the web.

Unfortunately not every family can afford to pay their school fees every year. Our family is firmly on the middle class scaffold, but that $300 fee was a punch in the gut of our budget. So, what happens is that many, many families just do not pay these fees, ever. When $300 is all you have for food or day care, or your light bill..., well priorities are priorities.

What then happens is that the schools encourage students fill out forms for financial aid (free and reduced lunch as we call it) from the state to supplement what they cannot pay, or schools just don't get money for a student, period. If students do not complete the application for aid, or are deemed to be financially able to pay, some schools will send parents or guardians to a collections agency. Mostly that money is not recovered and if it is, the attorneys get a big chunk off the top. So schools in poor areas take a loss every year on textbook fees, and somehow in Indiana our property taxes or other state/local funds need to make up the difference.

No matter how much money schools recover (or not) for book fees, the publishers always paid. Of course they do, they are for profit organizations. They are in the business of making money, not in educating children. This, IMHO, is a huge conflict of interest. Not because publishers and authors of original work don't deserved to be paid. It is a conflict because these companies know that their client base (students) is basically unable to make their own choice for purchase because they are captive to a compulsory system that requires them (or the state) to purchase approximately one book per student per subject per year. The average high school students will have lug around more than 40 books in their 4 years in high school. This is a much different scenario then say, students and teachers deciding that it is worth to all read Elie Wiesel's, Night. This book was not written primarily for the purpose of making money off of schools.

Publishers spend millions on marketing to schools, especially schools in states like Indiana, where the DOE committee adopts a set amount of textbooks on a 5 to 7 year cycle. Schools are expected to choose from the vendors on a list approved by the state. It seems that publishers will do or say just about anything to get their product in front of administrators and teachers. And in some cases their marketing messages are getting downright insulting.

Last semester I was writing a curriculum review for a prepackaged curriculum along with other students in my class. One teacher wrote her review on a software/textbook/testing program that was all nice and shiny and shrink wrapped. Here was their selling point. The "Teacher Proof" curriculum. WT? In my line of work, them's fighten' words. What has our profession come to when a publisher can feel safe make those claims while marketing to the same people they are insulting?

Many states do not have compulsory text book adoptions. I think the ration of adoption states to non-adoptions states is close to 50/50, but I would have to double check this claim, my info is a bit old. Even Indiana is realizing mandatory textbook adoption is a waste of time and money. This year the DOE released a statement about the lack of quality in social studies texts (see: http://thejournal.com/articles/24033). However, still districts have the last word, and many teachers opt for the crutch of textbooks rather than choosing their own curriculum from better sources.

What would I do instead of textbooks?

Teaching and learning would be based on authentic literature, peer reviewed non fiction sources, primary source material and user created content. This would includes print, digital, and multimedia genres. All information collected would be written/produced from a variety of viewpoints (not just the rich white guys of old).

Students would read periodicals, picture books, trade books, short stories, plays, etc... in the original, unabridged form. Often the students would self select reading materials and as they get older and would evaluate the content they use in their learning. However, one of the main roles of the teacher or teacher-librarian would be to keep up with new information, creatively and collaboratively collect and create information, evaluate information for credibility, and then push it out to students, families, and the community.

Instead of purchasing millions of dollars for 6+ to 1 technology (each student has more than 6 books per year), we would invest in that old fashioned sharing technology I still like to call a library. Support your school libraries and there will be thousands of current and quality print and media materials that can physically circulate. Students would receive and create digital content on school provided Netbooks or inexpensive laptops. This isn't a stretch of my imagination. Schools are already doing this.

I would also invest in Internet connectivity for the community to ensure that all students had free and equal access to the same information. But more about that tomorrow...

Still Mucking Around

As I consider my discontent further, and try to find my road to research, I am thinking back on three pieces of advice I have gotten recently.

The first was from my husband (who clearly didn't coin this phrase, but I first heard it from him). He was not talking about public education, but investing in the stock market, which requires a good amount of research in order to be successful.

Invest in what you know.

I would also include ...what you love, and ...what most interests you. At this stage in my life I think all three pretty much connect in one form or another. Please just take my word for it and do NOT make me illustrate with a Venn Diagram. God I hate Venn Diagrams.

I would also argue that a person cannot really and truly "know" something unless they experience this "thing" first-hand on a daily basis (except of course on school vacations and other major holidays...).

This piece of advise is really common sense, but I guess I don't have a whole lot because I needed to hear it. Why would I spend time concentrating on anything else when I will be investing my time, money, and my soul (I think this is a requirement of admissions to a doctoral program) for this research.

So, by following my husband's advice and defining what "know" really means to me, I have narrowed my focus professionally (not personal, my family would be at the top every time) to the short list below (in random order).

High School Education
Library Science
Information Science (including web 2.0)
Literature
Writing (Probably what I know the least but it is more than a passing interest and I am actively involved)

I know a little about cooking, playing guitar and piano, and knitting, but not enough to warrant giving away too much of my time, money, and soul to further my investment. Maybe someday I will be a one woman band while whipping up a souffle and knitting sweater vests, not probably not in the next 100 years.

The second piece of advise was given to me, at different times, by two of my professors at Butler University (Shelly Furuness and Jody Britten).

Isolate the things about your work as a High School Teacher-Librarian that trouble you, that you feel are just not right, then decide if you want to change it.

Notice they didn't say "then decide if you can change it." As master teachers they did not limit my creative problem-based thinking by undermining my confidence. All learners can do that just fine on their own. What learners need is someone to believe in them. I digress...

So, how could I make change? I could stick around where I currently work and try to be a change agent at my school. Or, I could identify other educational environments that are more in-line with my academic ideology and have already implement changes, or are on their way. Regardless, I still need to narrow my focus on those things that rub me the wrong way.

Some people would say that I have another option: leaving the profession. Don't get me wrong, I do have those fantasies of leaving in early June and forgetting to come back in August. I could work at Starbucks (yummm, soy vanilla latte) or work in a Book Store (yummm, soy vanilla latte and that new book smell). I think all teachers AND librarians have at one time or another.

I didn't include leaving as an option because being a YA Teacher-Librarian is not a J.O.B. but a calling. Even if I didn't need the money (which is in no way lucrative or even desirable for most people with my level of education) I am not sure I would be happy doing anything else, at least not in this stage of my life.

The third piece of advise came from Dr. Britten about two months ago.

Articulate why these things are wrong and how you should make changes to the power holders in a way they could understand and not ignore.
Basically, beat them down with it. Leave no room for someone to come along and say, "Brunner does not know what she is talking about." One of my dreams is to start a free public charter school. When I look at research and learning strategies, I always see things through this lens. What would MY school do differently. Even if I was CEO and Principal of a new school, I would still have to answer to many people.

So, in short I am working on articulating what I think is wrong and then the why and how these things can be changed.

The what will come from mostly from my own organic experiences (invest in what you know).

The the why and how will come mostly from those who are much smarter than me and have hopefully done some of the work. (content area professionals, education researchers, master teachers, and proactive librarians) and those that will have the most to gain or to loose from my work.

Often times in education we forget ask the end users key questions: What do you want? What would make things better? What can we do for you? What are your goals?

In my case, the ultimate end users who could benefit or not from my work are are my students, current and future. Second on the list are high school educators including other YA teacher-librarians. Third, the community at large. Every citizen, domestic or global, has a stake in public education.

Tomorrow, what "I" think is wrong and should be changed in public high schools today.

Change. Blink. You Missed It. Here it Comes Again.

Hey, you. Yeah you. The library hipster drinking that Red Bull and Vodka at the bar. Your School Media program is OLD, OBSOLETE, OUT DATED, and INEFFECTIVE! Yep, you blinked, and one nanosecond later, you are reduced to the 21st Century equivalent of the bunhead herding teens out of the restricted section while book-talking the merits of the new Nancy Drew series.

Many of you who graduated from Library School in the last 10 to 15 years are probably feeling indignant or at least uneasy with this bold statement. You are no doubt thinking something along these lines...

Change? Us? But we are CHANGE incarnate! We are the GC (Generation Change)! WE brought Harry Potter, streaming media, manga, and blogging into the world of the school libraries. WE cast a pox on Donald Rumsfeld for his snide disinterest in the looting of Iraqi libraries and museums (yeah, "Stuff Happens" doesn't it Rumsfeld? People under pressure just "step down" from their jobs too...). WE (hand-and-hand with our bunheaded forerunners to be sure) earned the honorary title of "Radical, Militant Librarians" from the FBI for daring to question the Magnum Opus of the Bush Regime! WE don't shush people! WE even renamed our Libraries and call them Media Centers by golly!

So, how could the "new" generation of teacher-librarians be behind the times already? We are just hitting our stride, right? Wrong. Why?

Simply put: We are part of an outdated organizational structure that has been busy with the job of staying in business instead of effectively serving it's patrons. The Public Schools.

Our society has changed, rapidly. Our teens (and little ones too for my elementary hipsters) are Digital Natives. They come to school because they "have too" not because they "want to" or because they know it is the only way they can "get ahead" and "earn a decent living" someday. Schools are not in harmony with the rest of their social schema. School is a place apart to be tolerated. It does not connect with how they live and what they do in their natural habitat. This isn't about teen angst, rebellion, or coming of age. For the first time in history, we are literally speaking a different language (not just adolescent slang, yo) and living in a different world than our students.

But why? Why is it so hard to make changes that are research based or based on common sense? Don't bother asking the legislators and politicians who hold the purse strings because frankly, they don't know. That would be like asking my hairdresser to recommend the correct dosage of Prozac (that is, if I really needed to take Prozac, and being a teacher, chances are good that I would) and then asking my physician what level of developer would make my hair that lovely shade of strawberry blond (that is, if my hair wasn't naturally that color, and it is, really...).

We should instead ask the academic gurus (teachers, union reps, principals, supers, school boards, School of Ed professors) right? Here are some of the the answers I got when I asked:

- The teachers' union make it too difficult
- Parents would not like it or understand
- We would have to change the way the system works, (or better yet):
- The system can't do that (system being computer networks, scheduling programs, grading software, etc...)
- Teachers are not trained properly and will reject this change
- Our students just can't handle it
- The administrators are uninformed or don't understand the need
- There is not enough funding available
- We have to be very careful about how we spend tax payer money that is available
- and my personal favorite: I don't think we can do this under the current education laws and/or school board approved policies.

Frustrating right? At times, it kind of makes me want to stick my head in the wheels of the machine and be done with it! Well LMS's, times have changes, we missed it, we are still missing it, we have missed that we missed it, we are 1.0 in a 2.0 world, we are pullers not pushers (of info I mean) and we are NOT serving our patrons with the measure of equality they deserve.

Not surprising that over the years, and especially over the last 10, change (or reform if you dare) in public schools has been slow at best, stagnant as a rule, and punitive for students and change agents at worst. I know from experience that to introduce change, I mean real lasting curricular and pedagogical change, you must tirelessly fight the machine. If you are a change agent, you are a cog out of place. You will hopelessly throw everything out of whack if you go messing around with the way things are done and darn it missy/mister, they just can't let you do that! At the very least, not without a written and approved proposal, an action research pilot project, committee discussion, legislative action, and a papal bull!

But what exactly needs to be changed? All this talk of change, but no clear answers, no marching orders, no strategy? If you want to know what needs to be changed and how we can change it, join me for my BEDA installments and I will share with you what I am learning, real time.

But I warn you, if you want to make change my friends, get ready for a fight. Thankfully, the odds are in our favor. You will NEVER find a profession that can organize and defend civil rights like a School of Teacher-Librarians. We helped fight Donny, the FBI, and the Supreme Court, almost simultaneously, and we persevered! We can take on this insignificant institution we call public schools, right? Hum, well, we can always call on Batgirl and the Ninja librarian when we need reinforcements!

Keep reading, writing, and loving it, because you can!

Teachers are Fools! We Should Be In School Today

Today, of all days, teachers and librarians should be in school. But alas, so many of us are out on compulsary Spring Break.

This morning, I have been happily inundated with the most interesting of news, blogs, and tweets, and it is not even 11:00 a.m. Who knew how many ground breaking stories could be unleashed in one day? Much of this news directly relates to teens and their interests. Just think of all the reading, witing, and conversing that would be going on today behind those sacred institutional walls, if only... In less than an hour, I was privilaged to be one of the first (million) people on the pulling end of pushed updates on YA authors, Comics, Video Games, Google Innovations, etc...

For example:

Author Neil Gaiman is in danger of being stripped of his Newbery for The Graveyard Book - did you hear? http://tinyurl.com/conu44

Marvel Comics signs fresh, young, talent. Anyone can aspire to be a Marvel comic artist! - http://is.gd/q2na

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 developers just added a new butt-kicking character! This babe is none other than Aunt May. Could this be the beginning of the end for media discrimination of the elderly! - http://is.gd/q5hN

Google unleashes CADIE (Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity). An online social being that actually learns, you know, like artificial intelligence. And is it ever cute! - http://cadiesingularity.blogspot.com/

YA educators are missing the academic boat load today for sure. Of course we would have to deal with multiple requests for left handed pens, desks and chairs turned upside down and moved about, permanent marker in exchange for dry erase, and books all backwards on the shelves. I, for one, truly believe the pedagogical benefits of teaching on such a great day in history would outweigh these trivial annoyances.

We are YA educators darn it! We should be engaging our student, not lazying around, sipping coffee, contemplating a shower, or deciding for or against wearing our pj's all day. Today is a missed opportunity to teach, a professional crisis.

Are you with me? Then lets start a movement. No Spring Break on April 1st Act of 2009. Go to this form letter where you can write your congress person asking them to bring this bill before the general assembly. Let's put our students education first people!

I Wish I Could...

I will soon be finishing my fifth year as a High School Library Media Specialist. There are some really exciting things going on this year in my district. First of all, there are several opportunities for departmental doors opening (on their own accord, not with me using a pry bar) to some serious inquiry based learning and more curriculum centered around young adult literature. Secondly, teachers and administrators are coming together in a working committee to discuss opening up access to web 2.0 sites for students and trying to "mostly" eliminate online censorship for educators. Next, we received AdvancED accreditation for the entire district and the Media program was listed as exemplary. Finally, in these troubled economic times, our library budget looks better than ever! Our business department helped us address the issue of underfunded material accounts and I can honestly say that as long as we can rely on state and privately funded online resources, we are well funded to provide for our large body of students.

We've come a long way baby! So why do I feel such a disconnect lately? Why am I rethinking my future in libraries and education. In light of such exciting possibilities, why do I feel so overwhelmed and unprepared? Did I make the right decision about my post graduate education centering on education and curriculum instead of LIS. Is this just a five-year itch? Will I feel differently after spring break or summer vacation? Calgon take me away!

I think part of the disconnect is this: I wish I could teach a class. I wish I could get to know more of my students and create learning relationships with them. I wish I could teach two sections a semester on research and inquiry and/or on YA literature. Actually, I wish that all of the students in my high school could have the elective opportunity to take a course like this, not just 100 or so a year. Why? Because I really believe that any student who would take "my" course would reach new heights of academic and personal success. Now, if I said this to anyone else than a teacher-librarian, I would be labeled a naive dreamer or a self -entered boaster. But really, we librarians see the possibilities, right?

OK whiner (some of you might be thinking), "Just Do It!"

If I told my building administrators that they could open up a new elective course next semester they would probably be so very thrilled. Four new sections a year, without having to hire another teacher? That is the educational lotto for them, right? But alas, I am only one captain in a ship of over 2000 sailors (students) and 150 officers (teachers). I can't sacrifice the needs of the many for the benefit of the few. I need to protect my "exemplary" school media program. I can't, in good conscious, tell my teachers that I am always unavailable for two periods a day. This may be their prep period when they can meet, or it may be that they need me to collaborate on a lesson, or book talk to their classes, or teach a few days of inquiry skills, or the several other things I do throughout the day that are essential in serving teaching and learning. Believe me, I am always motivated to cut out the "non essentials" and I can spot those duties a mile away.

Then there is the other administrative duties that are extremely important to a successful high school library media program. The cleaning up of a messy union catalog to make searching a better experience for my students. The yearly weeding of a collection of over 25,000 materials. The systematic collection mapping to ensure a strong collection and that tax dollars that I have been given control over are used to purchase the absolute best in materials for my students. The leadership duties of heading up building technology issues. The professional development I plan and implement. And, of course, the constant communication it takes to get more inquiry based learning infused into the curriculum school wide.

Then, there is my own abilities I must consider. How much can I do? How much time can I give to my profession? How do I balance family, my own continuing education, and the time it would take to provide the best possible service and education to my students and staff?

When I was in library school, we talked a lot about making programs essential. We were charged with changing the way administrators, teachers, students, and other stakeholder see and use the school library media center and impacting student achievement.

I have worked hard to meet these benchmarks, and now I think I am dealing with the questions of the aftermath. "How much should I do?" "How much can I do?" "How can I achieve my own professional dreams in the current system." "What do I do next?"