The+Epiphany+of+St.+Jana

by Mark Ray

Now that I've been doing this a few years, epiphanies don’t seem to come as often. It seems that the longer you work at the same craft, the less likely you are to see things that truly startle you with their brilliance. New insights? Yes. Epiphanies? Not so much. According to Wikipedia (the guiding information source for most of the English-speaking world), epiphany means “the sudden realization or comprehension of the (larger) essence or meaning of something.” That’s good enough for me.

At a recent district teacher librarian meeting, a colleague made an observation that was epiphany-worthy. To paraphrase Jana P. (names withheld to protect the innocent), “we are the most-observed teachers in the school.” At first glance, you might say, “so what?”

Let’s back up a bit. In our district, we are in the throes of a PLC revolution. We are doing Professional Learning Communities in virtually every building. Some teacher librarians also experimented with them in an ad hoc way last year. Thanks to our district curriculum director, all TLs will participate in ‘job-alike’ PLCs composed solely of teacher librarian colleagues. With a focus on improving student learning, PLCs are designed to be discussions about instruction, not about shelving, curriculum planning or the latest bestseller. Concurrent with this effort, significant time and resources are being invested in Effective Teaching and Learning along with a home-grown framework of high probability instructional strategies. Notice we haven’t once talked about information literacy, Dewey or the fate of print.

Thanks to standardized tests and the fact the Lilliputian [|Finland] is whooping on Team USA, every administrator, curriculum director and school board member is asking every educator a very pointed question: what are you doing to improve student learning? So I’m guessing that while the acronyms and frameworks may be different, your district is also thinking a lot about teaching and learning, not in the abstract feel-good sense, but in the very concrete matters of good instructional practice.

What does this have to do with libraries and teacher librarians? I think it has everything to do with us. Up until now, our role v/v curriculum and instruction has been one of support—textbooks, instructional materials, and the various artistic stylings of library information and technology skills that occur when students come to the library for a class, lab visit or checkout session. Despite the fact that most school librarians are certified teachers with library endorsements, our instructional role is slightly out of order in the moniker ‘teacher librarian.’ All too often in practice, if not philosophy, many teacher librarians don’t teach that much. And if they do, I’m not certain that they are particularly reflective or conscious about their teaching. After all, we have more important things to worry about, whether they are pitched battles over what to call ourselves or another resolution to defend books from the evil devices of Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs.

Our future depends on our teaching, not our cataloging skills. It doesn't take a Masters degree to keep a library open. My new clerk is a brilliant member of our library staff. She can do virtually everything that I learned in library school save one critical thing—teach. She is neither licensed nor trained to do what I do with students and teachers. That’s not to say she couldn’t do it. But that’s not her job. She is paid a fraction of what I am paid. She is underpaid. And I am overpaid…if I don’t do what I’m contracted to do which is to //teach//.

This is one of the reasons that librarians are being cut nationwide—teacher librarians have let their teaching roles languish and have became highly-paid and often highly-difficult-to-work-with ersatz library clerks. Can you honestly blame a school board for saving classroom teaching positions by cutting librarians if the majority of a librarian’s time is spent shelving, ordering, cataloging and processing books?

We are teachers first. And then we are librarians. And in this 21st century, the need for us to do much of the librarian stuff we’re used to doing is rapidly going away.

So let’s revisit my epiphany. Saint Jana made the astute observation that teacher librarians are the most-observed teachers in the school (unless the classroom teacher takes an extra prep period during your library lesson.) Why is that powerful?

One of the things that scares the chalk out of teachers is the idea of being observed by their peers. Teachers that can rock a class of kids balks at the idea of being in front of other teachers. Teacher librarians do it almost every day, with different grade levels, different subjects, different demographics and different needs, all without missing a beat.

That’s rock star status. Powerful stuff. What are the implications of that power?

First, we must work on becoming the best teachers we can be. The content is less important than the delivery, practice and pedagogy. After all, most teachers could care less about a lesson on shelf order or how to use a library catalog. But what would happen if we suddenly threw down proven instructional strategies like learning targets and thoughtful formative and summative assessments? What if we integrated technologies like responders, interactive whiteboards and bleeding edge websites like Prezi and Google Docs? What if we actively engaged kids in meaningful collaborative and creative work? Do you think teachers would notice? Sure they would.

Second, if we did incorporate best practices and research-proven pedagogy in our instruction, we would launch ourselves from being merely vaguely-defined school librarians to master teachers. When was the last time you thought of yourself as a master teacher? From here, it’s not that hard to become instructional coaches. Add a bit of confidence, a few hours of training and we can do that job too.

Please notice that we have not devolved this discussion into a //reductio ad adsurdum// rumination on what we’re teaching. That’s another matter and at this point, it doesn’t matter. The important part is that we are teaching. Publicly. In front of other teachers. But if asked, I bet you that not one teacher in my school would list me on their top five greatest teachers of Skyview High School. That means I have work to do. I need to improve my teaching and change the perception of those that I work with.

I need to care as much about instructional practices as I do about choosing books when I go shopping at Barnes and Noble. Strike that. I need to care //more// about instructional practices than I do about choosing books. I need to put myself out in front of my peers not as a librarian, but as a teacher. When freshman classes come for library orientation, I need to care as much about asking my teaching colleague to observe what I’m doing and give me feedback as about making sure my freshman know where my manga resides.

Whoa. That’s big.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Yes, I need to be explicit both about my teaching and my desire to be observed. Can you imagine how powerful it would be to ask your teaching colleague to give feedback on how you teach with their class? Suddenly, you go from being background noise to the most important thing happening in the room.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">For all of you that are looking for ways to keep teachers from running to the break room during library/extra prep time try this. Tell them that you are working on something like questioning strategies (but almost anything will do) and that you would like them to give you feedback on a short exit slip at the end of your lesson. How can a teacher say no that? You are simultaneously making yourself look like a god(dess) of teaching while cornering them into not only staying with their class, but engaging in what is going on. And beyond the self-satisfaction you’ll get, you are simultaneously advancing both your practice and theirs. Most importantly, they will walk away stunned by your professionalism, not as a librarian, but as a fellow teacher.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">In our district, our teacher librarians have begun a year-long discussion and reflection on our instructional roles, led by our curriculum director. At some point, we will get around to discussing //what// we will teach. But for now, we’re focusing on //how// we teach.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">And getting used to thinking, talking and acting like the teachers we are.