On My Mind
Amidst the hustle and bustle of the last week of school, I’m prepping for a presentation at the Arlington (TX) ISD (Region XI) about rigor and technology.
As I prepare, I am reminded of this quote from Stephen Krashen on Twitter. In beginning a conversation about rigor with my building colleagues at an April PD session, it really resonated with them.
Rigor is about growing your own plants. Not cut flowers. Growing our own plants also means committing to dirt under our fingernails and a sore back. Push past it. Envision the harvest.
Twitter / Stephen Krashen: John W. Gardner on educati … via kwout
June 19th, 2010 at 12:18 pm
What a great comment by Gardner that provides a great segue into the recent active discussion on the ELMSS (Educators of Library Media Specialists Section of AASL) listserv about the education of school librarians. For many reasons, school library programs are more vulnerable now than ever. I don’t want to be Chicken Little of “the sky is falling” fame, but a perfect storm could be in the offing. The present economic situation has brought our vulnerabilities to the fore. Likewise, the Internet, Web 2.0 tools, and the ease of finding information levels the field–we aren’t the only “gig” in town–students have many other options . Rather than embracing these changes–and change is inevitable, the response of many school librarians is to outlaw Google and put down Wikipedia. All this leads me to feel more certain than ever that a different type of school library education curriculum is needed - one that focuses on the development of dispositions of school librarians to work effectively in a changing school library mileau.
In 2003, I started to write about resiliency after a young woman, Amanda, died. The question I posed then, and continue to ask, is what do school librarians perceive as their responsibility to care for students. Two educational philosophers who embrace the concept of care as the foundation of learning are John Dewey and Nel Noddings. Dewey writes in the School and Society, “What the best and wisest parent wants for his own child, that must the community want for all its children” (p. 20 in the slim volume The School and Society & The Child and the Curriculum). This seems like a good goal for us. Nel Noddings (2005) posits a need for “changes in the structure of schooling, and especially, of curriculum that will provide a climate in which caring relationships might flourish” (p. xv in The Challenge of Care in Schools: An Alternative Approach to Education). To this we could add Gardner’s notion that we should be focusing on planting, not cutting flowers.
The notion of climate and environment is especially meaningful to us and is represented in our standards. For me, Mr. Fridley, the janitor in Beverly Cleary’s Dear Mr. Henshaw, represents the type of individual needed in schools if caring relationships are to flourish. Do you remember the scene in the book about Leigh Botts, the young boy who is struggling with his parents’ divorce and hides in the bushes in front of the school because he arrives earlier than the rules allow? One morning, Leigh calls out to Mr. Fridley from the bushes that he is hanging the state flag upside down. Mr. Fridley asks for Leigh’s help and suggests that the boy “should come to school a few minutes early every morning to help him with the flags” (p. 35). What a wonderful example of care. But the most important words are Leigh’s acknowledgement that “it was nice to have somebody notice me” (p. 35). Wow, is it too much to ask in American education that children be noticed?
In this book, the librarian is a helpful character, too; however, in some schools the librarian is viewed not as a carer, but a formidable adult who imposes seemingly arbitrary rules about what kids can and cannot do. I contend that it is the quality of relationship with students, faculty, and administrators that has hurt us, not the economy, technology, or budgets. School librarianship is highly relational and knowing our students and their interests is crucial.
When I first started writing about the importance of resiliency, which Bonnie Benard defines as the ability to bounce back from challenges, I did not understand that care is the essence of what we do. It is the essential disposition of school librarians. Because we care about students we create safe environments to help them bounce back. Because we care we help students to develop their interests, thus promoting self-esteem. Because we care we collaborate with teachers to ensure that projects of inquiry are compelling and lead to learning. Because we care we do not waste students’ time on what David Loertscher calls “bird units” that don’t require thinking. Because we care we teach students to plant. There are many ways we show we care, or we should show we care, but the first step is understanding that the more important role of the school library program is relational, not collecting and housing resources. It is more about the planting, not the cutting.