I went tonight to see Julie and Julia, re-envisioned from Julie Powell’s book of the same name to be a funny, moving intertwining of the aspirations of two women: chef Julia Child as she struggles to become a chef and, later, to publish Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Julie Powell, an aspiring writer who decides to blog about her experiences cooking her way through Child’s oeuvre.

My companion identified one key theme that emerges from the film:  the level of validation that both Julia and Julie find through writing.  And for those of us who have been on that journey (in our own little ways - nothing that compares with the bestselling qualities of both of the protagonists’ books), it’s a resonant theme.  There is something magical about being validated from outside.  It’s part of why I love to see SLMS get published - it’s so validating to see that others have respected what you have to say.

But as I reflected, I realized that it’s also about something else: about finding someone who mentors you and helps you to grow.  Though Julia Child is not a formal mentor (she actually did not like Powell’s blog very much, and they never communicated), she is a clear influence on Powell.  We have those kinds of mentors in our profession: the folks we may not have met but who influence us through their articles, their blogs, their books, their keynotes, or their webinars.  They urge us to keep moving forward and, like Child’s recipes, give us some ideas for how to scaffold that journey.  Other mentors are those we know well, those that we chat with at department meetings, over coffee, or in the hallways.  Those mentors often are less “inspirational” and more in the problem-solving mode. And boy oh boy, do we need both.

The movie made me reflect on those who have mentored me both locally as I develop my teaching craft and nationally as I stretch beyond my school.  Those who are too busy to answer my emails chock full of naive questions but answer them thoughtfully anyway.  Those who, in picking up their class from a fixed-schedule class, hint at a different strategy for classroom management or for viewing a kid with whom I’m struggling.  Those administrators who help me by validating (or shooting down!) my ideas as I move into a new half-time role next year as a staff development facilitator. 

What’s the point of this late-night rambling? I guess there are a few:

• Find mentors: local master teachers, inspirational national figures, even folks outside the profession whose perspective on another field gives us a new lens through which to see our own. Mentors help you know that you’re not alone and form a network that we all need.  Most of us haven’t had formal mentors since our student teaching, practicum, or pre-tenure days.  We need them!
• Be a mentor: take on a student teacher and/or share your expertise with a district colleague, at a conference, or in your own writing.

As we head into the new school year, and we return to face the many pressures and tensions that unfortunately can accompany our profession at this tough time, it’s good to know where your mentors are. 

And if you haven’t read Powell’s book, I highly recommend it.  It’s funny and real and irreverent.

A friend reminded me that there has been very little official or unofficial chatter on Empowering Learners, the new program guidelines that accompany the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner. $39 for 64 pages is steep (though I am tickled to be mentioned in the bibliography, which took the wind out my planned rage against the cost!).

With so much energy focused on the teaching role of school librarians, we haven’t spent much time formally as a profession talking about our role as in-house professional developers.  So here goes …

I’m more and more interested in how we can facilitate asynchronous professional development for teachers.  The teachers I work with have such different interests and toolkits.  One-size-fits-all-so-just-sit-there-while-I-talk doesn’t work for us, nor does PD that requires that everyone congregate in a lab at a specific time.  So I was interested to read that Thinkfinity is offering free Webinars.  Has anyone taken one? I haven’t, but the price iright!

 (Thinkfinity was formerly Marco Polo, whose resources are supposed to be part of our Michigan eLibrary portal … wonder where that stands now that Library of Michigan is being dissolved…)

 PS - On August 5, this blog will move to the magazine’s new Web page.  If you subscribe via an RSS reader, please resubscribe then using http://blog.schoollibrarymonthly.com .

Have you noticed some similarities with YA covers lately? So has the 100 Scope Notes blog, which has instructions for you to create your own YA covers using Picnik, Flickr creative commons images, and your imagination.

Follow Scopes’ instructions to randomly generate an author’s name and a one-word title … then do a search on Flickrcc (hadn’t seen this interface for accessing Flickr Creative Commons images - it’s great!) to serve as your cover art.  Flickrcc will let you auto-import your image into Picnik for easy editing and addition of text.

Here’s mine:

My friend Ann suggested that you could get students to create faux covers (maybe a little less queasy-generating than this one?) and then create a bulletin board interspersing the faux with real book covers. 

I was able to use Picnik without creating an account, downloading the final product to my hard drive.

Other possible uses for Flickrcc + Picnik in school:

• Create book advertisement posters after reading a book
• Take self-portrait photos, edit them, and add short poetry texts
• Create a tourism postcard representing a setting from a story
• Create a poster showing the theme of a book
• Take a subject students are learning about (Revolutionary War) and make a movie preview poster for it (”Johnny Depp in the Midnight Ride of His Life”) - Ann
• Create posters to classify items scientific characteristics (magnetic or not? reptile or amphibian?) Find a photo that illustrates the concept and label it

This can also be a very quick, one-class project (our efforts  took no more than 10 minutes) for times when you want to use technology to motivate learning.

Have fun! If you create one, please let me know!