Leading Horses to Water

So.  Yesterday was "Web-Tool Wednesday," which means that the technology facilitator and I put together a 45-minute lesson on interesting web tools and how to use them in the classroom.  Ideally, teachers come to the media center during their planning periods, listen, take notes, and then pass their new-found knowledge on to their colleagues who missed out on the session.

Exactly two people showed up. 

Not two per session, not two per period.

Two... ALL DAY. 
 
I thought our session was pretty exciting, and in every reminder e-mail I sent out, I made sure to emphasize that it was relevant to all subject areas.

High-school teachers are notoriously collaboration-phobic; this I knew.  I was guilty of collaboration-phobia myself for a while.  One particularly nasty semester, our assistant principal, working on his doctorate, insisted that each grade level teach everything (from colons and comma splices to Tolstoy and Twain) with the same lessons, using the same assignments, reading the same literature, using the same assessments, on the same schedule.  After that semester, I was collaboration-phobic for quite some time.  But, that particular system was forced "collaboration" (or, as I like to think of it, our own tiny version of Ingsoc).  And, in the years since, I did learn that real collaboration could be incredibly helpful.

I've known teachers who geek out at every little possibility; who get honestly excited when introduced to novelties like QR-code scavenger hunts or multimedia papers or student-created webquests.  There are also teachers who, left alone long enough, will teach the same thing every semester, until it becomes utterly rote, and introducing anything new just means more work to do.  I want to know how to reach both, to grab their interest and make Web-Tool Wednesday worthwhile.

All high school teachers, particularly high school English teachers, like to choose their own materials, like to plan their own lessons, and basically like to be left alone with their creativity.  I want to find ways to collaborate with them without threatening their individuality.

...and until I figure out just how to do that, I'm afraid that all I can do is lead my metaphorical horses to water; I can't make them drink it.

Singing Instead of Sighing

I never thought I would feel this busy and be happy about it.

That's a strange observation, I realize.  There were days when I was teaching when I would finish the day bone-tired, emotionally, mentally, physically, and would crash onto the sofa and eat cereal because I was too tired to even nuke leftovers.  I don't want to give the impression that I didn't love teaching, because I did.  Obviously I loved something about it, because it took six years of laughing and tears (OH! A rhyme!) for me to realize that while teaching was incredibly rewarding, eventually I was going to reach that point where I was giving more than I was getting.  I wanted to get out before I was burnt out -- and over that last year or so, I could feel the burnout creeping up on me.

As for being a media coordinator, I think I'm still in the honeymoon phase.  I love this job so much I'm sillier than a fourteen-year-old girl at a One Direction concert.  I'm not sure I could name all the stuff I did over the past two days -- I walked all over the school jiggling projector cords and hooking up document cameras; I went to classrooms and presented Prezis on research and the sources available in the library; I walked up and down the bookshelves looking for novels to sate a voracious sci-fi fan; I co-led a staff development on infographics; I became a student's senior-project adviser.  Quickly, I am learning that a school media coordinator wears many hats.  But I was glad to do every bit of it; I leap into action as if there was a lifetime supply of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups waiting for me when I finish up.

Oh, there are downsides, I suppose.  Media and tech personnel at my school have been unwillingly drafted as back-up testing coordinators, since legislature was recently passed forbidding guidance counselors from test coordinating.  I'm not thrilled about that situation at all -- but understudy is better than the lead role when it comes to this sort of thing.  And, being the daughter of a guidance counselor, I know that they don't love testing (or the coordination thereof) anymore than I do.  I could jump onto my soapbox about how school systems (and the state) need to consider full-time testing coordinators as essential personnel, but, you know, that's a soap box, and more or less unrelated to my job.

But for right now, I am having a blast.

Titles

I recently became a school librarian.  I wear glasses (actually contact lenses -- but "through a librarian's contact lenses" sounds ridiculous, so we'll go with glasses).

I taught high school English for six years.  Round about the middle of year five, I realized that I loved working in public education, but I wanted to get out of the classroom.  I gave it some thought, and realized that I really, really wanted to work in a school media center.  I could still have the face-time with kids that I so valued, could recommend books and geek-out with enthusiasm, and could help teachers incorporate technology in their classrooms -- without having to grade papers or worry about teaching to a standardized test.  In May, I applied for a school media coordinator job (more or less) on a whim, and was hired three weeks later.  I have been a high school media coordinator (albeit lateral entry) for three weeks now.

So far, I love it.

This morning, I gave a presentation on research and library resources to a class of freshmen.  The classroom teacher introduced me as the "media specialist," which I've heard interchangeably with "media coordinator."  I, on the other hand, have been introducing myself as the "librarian," mostly because I just love the words "librarian" and "library."  They make me think of Ray Bradbury's essay, "The Book and the Butterfly," even though the librarian in that essay isn't particularly nice.  The word library just conjures up a romantic vision for me: rooms full of stories and facts, a place of limitless knowledge. I still swoon a bit when I see the library scene in Beauty and the Beast.

The term I think I prefer, though, is "teacher librarian."

I still consider myself an educator.  Yes, I work in the media center/library.  I am responsible for procuring books, managing a collection, and for ensuring teachers' projectors are plugged in when they mysteriously won't work.  At the same time, though, I am also responsible for making sure students know where to find information and reading material, whether it's an article on personal finance for a research paper or the latest novel in the Maximum Ride series.  "Teacher librarian" takes my two career passions, education and books, and melds them into one job.

Teacher + librarian = teacher librarian.  One person, learning a lot and staying busy in the best possible way.