Nearing the end

I am starting to worry about this blog a little, the last part of my assignment is looming large, and I wonder if I will have enough material to draw on when I get to it.  The comforting thing is, I have actually read a great deal, and written a great deal in other places, so I guess technically, I can upload some of those thought to the blog.

My view about the teacher librarians role have changed.  I don't think I have ever met a TL quite like the vision I now have of what that role can be.  I had no idea that it was so involved, so essential, with so much potential to impact students learning.

The librarian at my daughters school is a lovely woman (and to be honest, I have my eye on her job, shes no spring chicken, so perhaps she will just hang on until she retires, which sadly could be a good while).  Lovely woman, yes, but.  I have filled in for her on occasion, and the work she has left is not at all inspiring.  Reading stories (and I love doing that, so I wouldn't complain), and then a bit of colouring, a bit of borrowing, a bit of an overview of where things are in the library.  And to be fair, perhaps that is just what she leaves for me to do, so I don't muck up her real work, but I haven't seen anything that convinces me that this is the case.


The other librarian I have subbed for is also delightful.  And when I did her job, one of the tasks she left me in her free period, was to "tidy up the books", making sure all their spines were straight :-/.  Oh, and there was a worksheet on Whatsisname Dewey (of The Decimal System fame).  But that was just a straight comprehension.    I want to see a real librarian.  I want a Joyce Valenza, but all I'm getting is more Miss Masters, the large-spectacled librarian of my own high school years, who covered the books, put stuff away, and pulled out the encyclopaedias for us when we needed to research.  Or waved us in the right general direction at least.  Where are the Proper Librarians hiding?

But what gives me the right to judge and criticise?  If the schools don't mind that they cover books and read stories to the Preps, why should I?  Mostly, it's because it drives me mad to know how they are short changing the kids.  And I know that even now, one subject into this course, my vision for what is possible is so much bigger, and I want a library of my own to run.  I want to work on dreaming up fabulous units of work with other staff, I want to create a library wiki to publish the students writing, whether it is fiction or book reviews.  I want to make pathfinders, and web sites, and provide teachers and students with great resources, i want to show them that there is more to the internet than Googlesearch.  I want to make author visits happen.  I want to be at the centre of a library that hums. 

But I will never ever call it an iCentre.  And that's as a dedicated Apple user.  iCentre, honestly, I might as well tattoo "try hard" on my forehead.  Sorry Michael Hough, I loved a lot of your ideas, but not that one :-).