Tag Archives: instructional leadership

Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action February 1–5, 2021

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Wage justice. Wage Peace. Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action: February 1-5, 2021Dear Colleagues,
Considering historical as well as events of the past year and most shockingly this past week, I believe it behooves all school librarians to collaborate with classroom educators to confront racial injustice. The Black Lives Matter at School Week is being held the first week of Black History Month, February 1-5, 2021. This is an opportune time to co-design curriculum for the unique students in your school.

Black Lives Matter at School
#BLMatSchool is a national coalition of “educators, students, parents, families, community members fighting for racial justice in school!” You can follow them on Twitter or access their website. You can contribute to the network by posting what you’re doing in your school/community to achieve racial justice.

Founded in 2016, #BLMatSchool has designated the first week of February as their week of action. On their website, educators, students, and supporters will find a “starter kit,” 13 principles, “The Demands,” and curriculum resources.

The 13 guiding principles are described on the site. “The Demands” are intended to ensure safety and equity in schools:

  1. End “zero tolerance” discipline, and implement restorative justice
  2. Hire more Black teachers
  3. Mandate Black history and ethnic studies in K-12 curriculum
  4. Fund counselors not cops

Allyship
Since our education and library professions are predominately White, Black educators, students, families, and administrators need White allies who will work alongside them to achieve these demands. As allies, we must have a mindset that doing this work is not for our Black colleagues and students but is an essential part of our own liberation from White privilege and racial injustice.

To learn more about allyship, please read the “How to Be an Ally” article on the Teaching Tolerance.org website.

The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development has published another helpful set of resources for educators leading discussions with students about politics, civic engagement, and uncertainty.

These articles may be a place to begin your curriculum conversation with your instructional partners, grade-level or disciplinary teams, or at the whole-school level.

Curriculum Resources for Your Consideration from #BLMatSchool
Freedom Reads is a video series designed to help parents and teachers select children’s books through a multicultural, social justice lens at SocialJusticeBooks.org.

They have published lessons for online use from their Second Annual Teach Central America Week and the Civil Rights Teaching website.

The Zinn Education Project (with Rethinking Schools)  hosted an online teaching series on Teaching the Black Freedom Struggle.

Additional Resources
As librarians and educators, we know that responding to children’s and young adult literature can create a context for exploring deeply personal as well as universal themes. Skilled educators, who listen, ask thought-provoking questions, and display empathy can create the necessary open and safe spaces for these conversations. Combined with the participation of trustworthy peers, students can explore essential truths about our nation’s history and current culture and express their hopes and willingness to work for a just and peaceful future.

On my wiki, I have organized resources to support your curriculum development: https://tinyurl.com/jmBLMatSchool

  1. Virtual Book Discussions and Programming

2. Downloadable Book Head Heart Literature Circle Discussion Guide (adapted from Beers and Probst, 2017).

3. Links to Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Books and Resources

In addition, the American Library Association offers Black History Month Graphics, including bookmarks and posters with messages and quotes to frame your curriculum.

Hard Conversations
School librarians can be leaders when we create spaces for students and educators to engage in difficult conversations. I hope you and one or more of your colleagues will make time to design a thoughtful, respectful, and unifying curriculum to involve students in taking action during Black Lives Matter at School Week of Action. I also hope you will share your work on their website.

Wage justice. Wage peace.

Launching the New Year with Inquiry Learning

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Welcome to School Librarian Leadership 2021!

On this blog, I share research and musings, news and views with the hopes of prompting critical thinking regarding coteaching and collaboration between school librarians, classroom teachers, specialists, school administrators, and others involved in deeper learning and effective teaching.

A Dialogue Centered on Inquiry Learning

Screenshot of Judi Moreillon and Barbara StriplingLast month, I had the pleasure of participating in an interview with long-time friend and colleague Barbara Stripling. In addition to writing for School Library Connection (SLC) magazine, Barb is engaged in collecting video interviews to share on the SLC website. Over our years in school librarianship, Barb’s path and mine have intersected many times. We have many beliefs, values, and recommended practices in school librarianship in common, but inquiry learning may be the thread that connects all of them.

Student Motivation and Inquiry: A Conversation
In my experience, inquiry is a pathway that leads directly to deeper learning. When students ask personally meaningful questions that are relevant to their own lives, they are motivated to learn and will be invested in their learning outcomes. When students practice agency, they grow as independent thinkers, active participants, and knowledge contributors who express curiosity, demonstrate persistence, and build the foundation for lifelong learning.

“In this video, educators Barbara Stripling and Judi Moreillon discuss ways to motivate students and help them engage in deeper inquiry. As Moreillon points out, it’s not easy: ‘Today, students, and all of us adults, we want things to be quick and easy, and inquiry is anything but quick and easy. It’s messy. It takes commitment. It takes work. So, motivating people of all ages to ask questions and pursue knowledge and facts can be challenging.’ Both Moreillon and Stripling have risen to this challenge, and share their insights here (in this video)” (2020).

The video will be freely available until January 31, 2021 and then will be accessible to SLC subscription holders. Barb and I invite you to view the video and share your questions and comments here on my blog.

Connecting Research and Practice
As both a practitioner and a researcher who writes for practicing school librarians as well as school librarianship educators and researchers, I am always looking to make connections between research and practice. Coincidentally and also in December, Edutopia published an article by Youki Terada and Stephen Merrill, in which they list and provide abstracts for the “10 Most Significant Education Studies in 2020.”

Although I recommend practicing school librarians review all ten of these studies, there was one on the list that directly supports making inquiry learning a top priority in our teaching: “Students Who Generate Good Questions Are Better Learners.” It’s number six on Terada and Merrill’s list.

Although this study was conducted at the university level, the results and recommendations can be applied from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Students who participated in the study scored an average of 14 percentage points higher on a test than students who studied their notes or reread classroom material. “Creating questions, the researchers found, not only encouraged students to think more deeply about the topic but also strengthened their ability to remember what they were studying” (Ebersbach, Feierabend, and Nazari 2020).

Having engaged graduate level students in inquiry learning, I have learned that far too many students get to higher education without ever having had the opportunity to engage in inquiry learning. They do not even know the term or what inquiry entails. Far too many have only had experiences of teacher-led research projects that involved them in answering the teacher’s or the textbook’s questions and writing a report that simply restated the “facts.” While many of these students have been “successful” as compliant learners, they have not developed a passion for discovery and have not experienced all of the joys and challenges of the learning journey.

In my humble opinion, these students have not been prepared for life. Students should have inquiry experiences beginning in the early grades that set an expectation for student-led learning (See Edutopia’s video: “Inquiry-Based Learning: From Teacher-Guided to Student-Driven” – Ralston Elementary School is creating a culture of inquiry to nourish 21st-century learners.)

Launching 2021 with Inquiry Learning
School librarians and other educators can reach their goal of developing lifelong learners through guiding students in the inquiry process until youth are able to design their own learning process and pursue a question independently. Through classroom-library collaboration for instruction, educators can ensure that all K-12 students experience the competence, autonomy, and relevance that inquiry learning affords (see 11/30/20 Inquiry Connections blog post).

Let’s position our school libraries as hubs for inquiry learning. Let’s build instructional partnerships with classroom educators and spread the inquiry model in every classroom at every grade level and in every discipline in our schools.

Now that’s one high-impact 2021 New Year’s Resolution!

Works Cited

Ebersbach, Mirjam, Maike Feierabend, and Katharina Barzagar B. Nazari. 2020. “Comparing the Effects of Generating Questions, Testing, and Restudying on Students’ Long-term Recall in University Learning.” Wiley Online Library. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/acp.3639

Stripling, Barbara K., and Judi Moreillon. 2020. “Student Motivation and Inquiry [19:18].” School Library Connection, December, https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Home/Display/2259724?topicCenterId=2252404

Terada, Youki, and Stephen Merrill. 2020. “The 10 Most Significant Education Studies of 2020.” Edutopia.org, December 4, https://www.edutopia.org/article/10-most-significant-education-studies-2020

Inquiry Connections: Competence, Autonomy, and Relevance

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Image of 3 interlock puzzle pieces and the words competence, autonomy, and relevance (plus modeling)In the past two weeks, I have been engaged in an email exchange with Connie Williams, who retired from her high school librarian position in Petaluma City (CA) Schools and walked into her second dream job as a part-time History Room Librarian at the Petaluma Regional Library. In her current role, she often has the opportunity to work with individual students as they conduct research.

Connie and I began our conversation after my 11/16/20 blog post that referenced Joyce Valenza’s “Enough with the CRAAP; We’re Just Not Doing It Right.” We have been sharing ideas about using Mike Caulfield’s The Four Moves and SIFT process when teaching students to closely examine the reliability of sources.

Last week, I also had the opportunity to engage in a virtual interview with Barbara Stripling, which will be posted to School Library Connection.com (SLC) in the near future. Barb posed questions about how to motivate students to engage in inquiry and how inquiry motivates students to become lifelong learners. (Note: Barb also discusses relevance, autonomy, competence (confidence) in her recent SLC article.)

Central to these conversations has been how to engage students in the hard work of determining the reliability of sources—to dig deep enough to determine the perspective, bias, and authority of texts, free-range web browser-searched texts in particular. This work is essential for student-led inquiry learning.

These conversations prompted me to revisit the work of psychologists Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, which I first learned about in Paul Tough’s book Helping Students Succeed: What Works and Why (2016). Research conducted by Deci and Ryan points to the fact the people (students) are motivated by intrinsic needs for competence, autonomy, and relatedness (personal connection or what we in education call relevance). According to Deci and Ryan, motivation can be sustained when those needs are met.

I believe these three needs are the key to unlocking in our students the motivation to doing the hard work. (This is the order in which Deci and Ryan address these needs.)

Competence
Making sense of any text, also known as comprehension, is work. It requires that readers who want to know the answers to their questions apply a range of strategies. These strategies include self-assessing their background knowledge or building it, posing meaningful questions and questioning the texts they encounter, determining main ideas, perspectives, and bias, drawing inferences, and synthesizing information from multiple sources. It also requires that adults and more proficient peers model what is going on inside their heads when they use these strategies to analyze a text.

K-12 students who have learned and have been guided in practicing reading comprehension strategies have learned to “stop” and chose from a selection of strategies to gain or regain comprehension. The process involved in making sense of text is an essential practice in reading and therefore in inquiry, which often challenges students to learn from texts that are above their proficient reading level. Students who are accustomed to doing this work will have a leg up when they are engaged in inquiry learning.

When students have confidence built from success with difficult texts, they will realize they are empowered with the skills and strategies needed to investigate any question they want to pursue. They will experience competence in making sense of texts. This competence can be a foundation on which they will persist in doing the hard work of analyzing and effectively using unfamiliar texts for their own purposes.

Experiencing competence creates confident learners
who are prepared to take the risks necessary for inquiry learning.

Autonomy
Autonomy is a centerpiece of inquiry learning. From my perspective and in my experience, there are two big buckets of inquiry practices in K-12 schools: guided inquiry based in curriculum standards and open-ended completely student-led inquiry learning. I believe both practices can create the conditions that further motivate students as lifelong learners.

I have the most experience facilitating guided inquiry based in content-area curriculum standards. When educators create opportunities for students to exercise choice within a content-area topic to achieve a standards-based outcome, they have created what Bhabha (1994) called a “third space,” a negotiated space between the curriculum required in school and the student’s outside of school interests and experience. In this context, students have the authority to ask personally meaningful questions within the required curriculum framework (Kuhlthau, Maniotes, and Caspari 2012).

Junior or senior capstone (and some university-level) projects are inquiry examples in which students may assume complete choice over the topic as well as the questions of their inquiry. These projects can pave the way for supporting a lifelong commitment to the process of asking questions and seeking answers, solutions, and uncovering more questions.

Empowered students engaged in inquiry exercise choice and voice.

Relevance
Deci and Ryan use the term “relatedness” which we, in education, call relevance or personal connections. Again, inquiry supports relevance and relevance supports inquiry.

Inquiry learning creates opportunities for student agency. Agency involves students in taking an active role in and ownership over learning. “They may set goals that are relevant and meaningful to their lives, practice autonomy by having voice and choice, and be empowered to share, reflect on, and grow through their learning” (Moreillon 2021, in press).

Exercising agency and experiencing empowerment is motivating.

Plus One: Modeling
To these three, I would add one condition that creates the kind of learning environment that motivates youth to enthusiastically engage in learning and persevere when the going gets tough. I believe that modeling is the most important example educators can offer students. When school librarians and classroom teachers show students that we, as adults, continue to pursue personally meaningful questions in our own lives, students can understand the usefulness of a lifelong inquiry stance toward learning.

Educators who model lifelong learning show students and colleagues that doing the work is worth it. This is not easy at a time when the most common question is what’s the quickest and easiest path to success.

Educator modeling invites students into a supportive inquiry learning environment, a club of inquirers.

Works Cited

Bhabha, Homi K. 1994. The Location of Culture. New York: Routledge.

Deci, Edward L., and Richard M. Ryan. 2018. Self-Determination Theory: Basic Psychological Needs of Motivation, Development, and Wellness. New York: The Guilford Press.

Kuhlthau, Carol C., Leslie K. Maniotes, and Ann K. Caspari. 2012. Guided Inquiry Design: A Framework for Inquiry in Your School. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Moreillon, Judi. Ed. 2021. Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Tough, Paul. 2016. Helping Children Succeed: What Works and Why. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

See also: My 6/5/17 review of Tough’s book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.

 

Indigenous History, Land, and Climate Justice

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Photograph of Multi-colored Indian CornNovember is American Indigenous Peoples Month/Native American Heritage Month. It is also when many U.S. families celebrate Thanksgiving, a harvest festival, the origin of which as we learned in elementary school, was a feast that included Wampanoag people and Pilgrims at Plymouth Colony, Massachusetts in 1621.

In American Indian cultures across this land, there are perspectives on Thanksgiving that reflect the broader historical and devastating consequences that resulted from this shared feast and subsequent deadly conflicts between colonizers and Indigenous peoples. (See the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian “Thanksgiving” resources  and “Transforming Teaching and Learning about Native Americans” resources, part of the Native Knowledge 360° Education Initiative.)

Land Statement Acknowledgments
In 2020, a growing number of non-Indians are recognizing the fact that the land on which we live belongs to the Indigenous people who lived on this soil long before White arrival.

As an acknowledgment of that fact, many individuals and organizations are developing land statements. There are websites that help land statement writers examine their motives, their minds, and their hearts as they compose an acknowledgment that honors and shows respect for the Indigenous history of the land on which they live and work.

When I crafted a land statement for this blog and when I collaborated with members of the Arizona Library Association (AzLA) to create one for the organization, we used the guidance found on the Native Governance Center’s “A Guide to Indigenous Land Acknowledgement” website and in the case of AzLA feedback from the tribal members of our association.

I live in Tucson sixty miles from the Mexican border. Today, the Tohono O’odham American Indians live on approximately 3 million acres to the west and south of Tucson. Their reservation extends into northern Sonora, Mexico and is larger than the state of Delaware. O’odham also live off reservation throughout Arizona and in communities across the country.

This is the land acknowledgement you will find on the About page of this blog:

Land Statement Acknowledgement: I post to this blog and share information from my home in Tucson, Arizona, which is built upon the traditional homelands of the Tohono O’odham and their ancestors the Hohokam. Their care and keeping of this land allow me to live here today.

The Tohono O’odham
Our Tucson community is diverse in terms of race, ethnicity, and culture. Ten percent of the students at Elvira Elementary School, where long ago I served my first year as a school librarian, were Tohono O’odham children who were bussed into Tucson from the nearby San Xavier District of their reservation. This was a first-time experience for me teaching and learning with and from American Indian students and families. That year at Elvira made a lasting impact on my teaching, writing, and my life. (See 12/18/29 “Gifts of Windows and Mirrors” blog post.)

The Tohono O’odham are not well known outside of the Southwest. Some years ago when the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC first opened, I had the opportunity to visit and was pleased to see O’odham culture and art included in an exhibit.

I have since followed other NMAI events that have included O’odham culture and knowledge like this lecture by Terrol Dew Johnson, founder of Tohono O’odham Community Action (TOCA), “Living Earth 2019.” In his talk, he shares native food ways and how TOCA guides O’odham people in reconnecting with traditional farming, harvesting, processing, and preparing local food.

Indigenous Peoples and Climate Justice
Last September 12, 2020 on Indigenous Peoples’ Day, the Smithsonian hosted a Virtual Indigenous People’s Teach-In: Food and Water Justice. Teaching for Change offers a webpage devoted to a recap of the keynote, workshops, and teaching resources that grew out of this professional development opportunity.

In collaboration, the Zinn Education Project offers a lesson plan for middle and high school students: “Stories from the Climate Crisis: A Mixer.”  The Zinn Project also has a book of resources and activities titled A People’s Curriculum for the Earth: Teaching Climate Change and the Environmental Crisis.

The NMAI also offers “American Indian Resources to Environmental Challenges” resources to share projects today’s Indigenous peoples are leading to continue their stewardship of the land.

Gratitude
As you consider your blessings at this time in our shared history, I hope you will pause to acknowledge and give thanks for the land on which you live and work. As school librarians, I hope you will also recommit to teaching and coteaching with classroom teacher colleagues for social and climate justice and enlist young people in learning about and caring deeply for our Earth and its peoples.

Image Credit

Ulleo. “Corn.” Pixabay.com, https://pixabay.com/photos/corn-harvest-food-ornamental-corn-3663086/

World Kindness Day, Love, and Justice

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Image of two hands surrounding a heart with the scales of justice in the centerThis coming Friday, November 13, 2020 is World Kindness Day. The mission of Inspire Kindness.com is to “inspire the world’s greatest kindness movement.” World Kindness Day “has the purpose is to help everyone understand that compassion for others is what binds us all together. This understanding has the power to bridge the gap between nations.” The Inspire Kindness website offers posters and other printables, a video, and ideas for celebrating World Kindness Day at school.

Quote to Teach and Live By
During the presidential campaign, I was introduced to this quote from author, scholar, and activist Dr. Cornel West:

“Never forget that justice is what love looks like in public.”

World Kindness Day seems to me to be an appropriate time to consider the connection between love and justice. I believe a wise thought such as this one can be our guide as we, school librarians and other educators, negotiate our place in today’s and tomorrow’s civic and education conversations.

During this season of misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and bold-face lies, we have renewed our commitment to teaching students to be critical thinkers who learn and practice news/media literacy. This is essential work.

See Lia Fisher-Janosz’ 11/03/20 Knowledge Quest post: “We Hold These Truths to Be Self Evident: Learning and Discerning in 2020 and Beyond” and my own 11/02/20 post “News Literacy and Democracy.”

Public Education and Justice
Last week, Arizona voters passed Prop. 208! For students who attend K-12 district public schools, serve in and advocate for public education in Arizona, this hard-won outcome is cause for great celebration. Working toward providing every young person with a high-quality education guided by better-paid educators is both an expression of love and an act of social justice.

This measure includes funding for hiring and retaining state-certified school librarian positions in Arizona district public schools. I was just one among the many who dedicated time and energy to promoting this initiative. My personal thanks go out to all who worked on this effort, including members of the Arizona Library Association and EveryLibrary executive director John Chrastka.

When we resume the Tucson Unified School District School Librarian Restoration Project, we will be meeting with newly elected TUSD board members: Natalie Luna Rose, Sadie Shaw, and Ravi Grivois-Shah. Having the Prop. 208 funds in the bank will definitely make those conversations “sweeter.” (This win is important because it reflects Arizonans’ frustration with the inability of our governor and state legislature to restore public school funding to pre-2008 recession levels.)

Developing Hearts
As we serve young people, school librarians have the opportunity and the charge to guide students in developing their hearts as well as their minds. We have the dual charge to both teach and coteach our school’s curriculum with a focus on information literacy and critical thinking AND to develop students as lifelong readers who develop understanding, compassion, and empathy through reading and interacting with literature.

In order to serve our learning communities in both of these ways, we must practice our core values of equity, diversity, inclusion, and intellectual freedom. As Metro Nashville school librarian Erika Long states: “Librarians must commit to being radical change and equity warriors to ensure no one is omitted” (2020, 13).

The reading materials and learning opportunities we provide through our libraries must reflect our values, reach and speak to all students, and support all educators in guiding students to success. We must collaborate with other educators to engage students with literature, to invite them to discuss diverse literature with their peers and guides—to use literature as a springboard for personal growth and societial change.

SEL = Human(e)
I appreciate this “formula” that Steve Tetreault proposed in his 11/6/20 Knowledge Quest blog post “Finding Moments of Joy.” Whether or not we consider this an “academic” formula, it is true that social-emotional learning helps us develop as whole human beings—as humane humans.

Diverse, inclusive literature can be a large part of a “heart” curriculum because it helps us connect with others people’s experiences. Readers can develop our compassion and empathy, and can grow our human-ness through story.

Living with uncertainty, as we are today, is difficult for many of us, including our students, colleagues, and families. Let’s be sure to practice kindness every day and make a commitment to connect, to educate hearts as well as minds as we move forward into a more just future—together.

Works Cited

Inspire Kindness. 2020. “World Kindness Day.” https://inspirekindness.com

Long, Erika. 2020. “Radical Change Agents and Equity Warriors.” School Library Connection, October, 12-14.

Tetreault, Steve, 2020. “Finding Moments of Joy.” Knowledge Quest (blog), November 6, https://knowledgequest.aasl.org/finding-joyful-moments/

Image Credit:

GJD. “Heart Love Passion Peace Sign.” Pixabay.com, https://pixabay.com/vectors/heart-love-passion-peace-sign-2028061

News Literacy and Democracy

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Photograph of Woman Holding Her Head while looking at her laptop It seems fitting on the day before the U.S. national election day to review what we know or don’t yet know about teaching news literacy and how that instruction is related to democracy.

Last week during Media Literacy Week, I participated in the University of Maine Fogler Library’s week-long “Friend, Enemy, or Frenemy? News Literacy Challenge.” (It is not too late to participate in this activity. The Challenge links are live and will be accessible into the future.)

Below is a summary of each day’s information and activities and my takeaways.

Day 1: Does News Matter?
On the opening day, participants were asked to identify a news article that piques their interest and categorize it in one or more of these three functions: inform about daily life, report on one or more topical trends, and/or socialize readers/viewers in some way. Reading the range of articles on the comment board was a good exercise in itself. There were a number of COVID-19 articles and a few related to the Supreme Court confirmation.

From my own perspective on 10/26/20 and even though I am currently in northern California and have been under threats of wildfires, I was surprised to note that people found anything besides these two trending topics compelling and competing for their attention!

Day 2: Fact or Fiction
On Day Two, we were given four “news” stories to “guess” if they were real or fake without doing any research or background digging. This reminded me of guessing on a standardized test. I thought these examples were interesting because they could uncover participants’ biases as reflected in news headlines alone.

We were given sources to review including the Stanford History Education Group’s research: “Educating for Misunderstanding: How Approaches to Teaching Digital Literacy Make Students Susceptible to Scammers, Rogues, Bad Actors, and Hate Mongers.”

Coincidentally, I also received this link from the School Library SmartBrief that day. It totally aligned with the Day 2 activity: “Can Your Students Tell the Difference Between Fact and Fiction?” by Kimberly Rues (EdSurge Columnist).

Day 3: Deconstructing the News
How news stories are constructed is determined and influenced by individual people, organizations, and the cultures in which they are produced. The challenge noted how people (reporters), organizations (policies and priorities in terms of audience/revenue streams), and culture (including format, norms, and values) frame the news.

Challenge: “Find and link to a news story that demonstrates how people, organizations, or culture construct the news. Explain the connections you’re making. How might this affect what gets told and what’s left out of a story?”

Has Hunger Swelled? (In the U.S. During the Pandemic). This American Enterprise Institute (AEI) brief article summarizes research that suggests reports of “food hardship” during the pandemic are based on exaggerated data. (Thanks to John Chrastka at EveryLibrary who encouraged Lilead Project Fellows and Mentors to regularly read outside their bubbles, I have been receiving and reading the AEI digest for several years now.)

The AEI has a reputation for being pro-business and suspicious of reporting that shows the growing wealth gap. The .pdf file that includes AEI’s research is intended to add credibility to their perspective. Their conclusion: “We believe the share of households with insufficient food over a month is closer to 5 or 6 percent than 12 percent. Six percent is higher than at any point in 20 years.”

As a former educator who continues to see how our local school district scrambles to feed kids during school closures and as a contributor to local food banks, my own experience makes me question the validity of AEI’s “research” and “reporting.” The fact that they even use the word “believe” suggests that reliable data is really not available. As a result, I “believe” AEI would prefer to underreport food insecurity at this time when congressional decision-makers are considering pandemic relief funds.

Day 4: Deconstructing Bias
For this day’s activity, we were asked to compare two headlines and articles—one from CBS News, the other from the Washington Examiner. My practice in determining which reading news articles I will take the time to read involves reading both the headlines AND the first sentence (or two) in the article. If there is a disconnect between the two, I am inclined to not read on (unless it is so outrageous and I am in a “mood” to confirm my bias). In this case, the Washington Examiner reporter lost my readership for a sensationalized headline that misrepresented his own topic sentence.

On day 4, we were given two videos to watch: “Why Do Our Brains Love Fake News?” a video that describes cognitive bias.

“How news feed algorithms supercharge confirmation bias” by Eli Pariser, executive director of MoveOn.org, which focuses on how online data collection shapes the “news” that we are fed in our online searches.

Day 5: Constructing the News
On the final day, we were given a scenario, a series of photographs, and an assignment to construct a headline for a specific news outlet. I was assigned the Wall Street Journal. I used the WSJ’s news bias rating from Allsides.com to justify my headline and photograph selection.

As they did with their August, 2020 Racial Justice Challenge, the News Literacy Challenge organizers at the Fogler Library asked participants to complete an anonymous online survey.

Connection between News Literacy and Democracy
I suspect that, like you, I am not alone in my concern for the present and future of an informed electorate. Participating in the News Literacy Challenge with educated adults was illuminating. Participants’ understanding of news bias was wide ranging and their comments were not always as informed as I would have hoped.

The Pew Center conducted a nonscientific canvass based on a non-random sample of the individual tech leaders who responded to their query: “Tech Experts Say Digital Disruption Will Hurt Democracy.”

As reported in the article, Christopher Mondini, vice president of business engagement for ICANN, summed it up for me: “The decline of independent journalism and critical thinking and research skills resulting from easy reliance on the internet make citizens more susceptible to manipulation and demagoguery.”

Bottom Line:  We need U.S. and global citizens who will make informed decisions when we vote, take action, and influence the course of our collective future. We, in K-12 and higher ed, have work to do.

Works Cited

Anderson, Janna, and Lee Rainie. 2020. “3. Concerns about Democracy in the Digital Age.” Pew Research Center, https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2020/02/21/concerns-about-democracy-in-the-digital-age/

Berry, Alan, Judith Rosenbaum, and Jen Bonnet. 2020. Friend, Enemy, or Frenemy? News Literacy Challenge. University of Maine Fogler Library. https://libguides.library.umaine.edu/c.php?g=1062054&p=7722052

Image Credit:
Piacquadio, Andrea. Search: “News Literacy.” Pexels.com, https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-troubled-woman-using-laptop-at-home-3755755/

SLJ Summit Recap

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Image of Laptop with Bookshelves on the ScreenI appreciate School Library Journal for organizing a purely virtual 2020 Summit. The line-up of content was outstanding with many familiar as well as new (to me) and diverse voices represented. The interface was easy to use. My only regret is that my schedule did not allow me to attend all of the live sessions in real time, which were not recorded for later access.

CORRECTION: The live session recordings are now available! Please don’t miss the recording of “In Conversation with Patrisse Cullors” moderated by Erika Long!

Reimagining School
After a Zoom social and welcome remarks, the opening session “Reimagining School” was a perfect way to launch the day-long conversation about challenges faced and solved for successful remote learning, equitable access to resources, and serving underserved students and families.

The presenters were Susan Gauthier, Director, Library Services, East Baton Rouge Parish School District, Dr. Jacqueline Perez, Assistant Superintendent, Equity, Access & Community Engagement, Riverside (CA) Unified School District, Brian Schilpp, STEM Supervisor, Garrett County (MD) Schools, Marlon Styles, Jr., Superintendent, Middletown City (OH) Schools; the session was capably moderated by Kara Yorio, SLJ News Editor.

Each of these presenters shared their unique teaching and learning environments and highlighted that a one-size-fits-all response to remote, hybrid, or in-person learning during a pandemic is not recommended or even possible.

Susan Gauthier expertly presented the pandemic worldview from the school librarianship perspective in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana. With over 41,000 students, Susan and her librarians’ biggest challenge was scaling their digital collections to meet the needs of all students, educators, and families. She wisely started planning for the closure this fall with a stakeholder survey; the results showed that no one wanted physical book checkouts and all resources would be delivered electronically. Here are the highlights of what Susan shared:

  • Promoting and using e-resources exclusively meant the district had to rethink their reading culture, including orientations to the virtual library, reader’s advisory, and reading challenges.
  • Expanding adoption of e-resources from broad acceptance at middle school to the entire K-12 community was essential and a leadership opportunity to school librarians.
  • The district had benefited from FEMA hurricane funds and built on their “weather resistant” collections, including expanding into nonfiction and titles in Spanish.
  • District librarians made a concerted effort to collaborate with the public library to ensure all students had e-cards that provided access to the public library’s digital collection.

Susan thanked the vendors who provided their district with free e-resources, including MackinVia, TeachingBooks, ABDO, and Follett’s Lightbox.

Here’s one takeaway from each of the other presenters:

Jacqueline Perez stressed the critical importance of taking an asset-based view of each individual student in terms of addressing their needs and engaging them in learning. (Another asset-based view in Riverside district involves the community and volunteers in organizing and staffing learning hubs particularly for homeless or other students who lack adult support.)

Brian Schilpp noted that “aggressive” professional development for educators must be individualized—meeting educators “where they are” is essential. (The district’s drive-in movie theater set-up for sharing information with families is brilliant.)

While all of the presenters talked about the importance of building on the relationships they had formed with students, families, and community, Marlon Styles, Jr. reinforced this truth in all of his comments. His best quote: “Creativity is free!” (Co-creating individual reading plans with students and families is an outstanding way to gain support for youth from the adults in their homes.)

After the session there was a post-panel discussion in Zoom where participants crowdsourced ideas and resources.

I have watched two previously recorded sessions so far.

Nick Glass, founder of TeachingBooks, spotlighted the amazing digital resources offered on the site—232,000+ and rising! In addition to the TeachingBooks search tools, the site offers a Diverse Books Toolkit, Reader’s Advisory, and Library Programming. As an added benefit, particularly during remote learning, sharing tools allow librarians and other educators to connect TeachingBooks resources to their learning management systems.

Watching this resource evolve over the past twenty years has been amazing. If you don’t know and use TeachingBooks, be sure to sign-up for the free trial offered to SLJ Summit attendees.

I also viewed “Vote Woke: Empower Students to Vote with Books and Community Support” by Cicely Lewis, 2020 School Librarian of the Year and founder of Read Woke. (To learn more about Read Woke, connect with Cicely’s blog). In this session, Cicely shared how she engaged high school students in registering themselves and their friends to vote. She stressed how students took the lead in all of the voting initiatives launched at her school. Cicely recommended The Voting Booth by Brandy Colbert (2020) as a must-read title for engaging youth in discussions around voting. She earned a $5,000 MTV Virtual Program Grant and her students had the distinct pleasure of a private Zoom call with former First Lady Michelle Obama and Jenna Bush Hagar.

Cicely was joined by Ron Gauthier, Branch Manager of the Grayson Public Library in Gwinnett County, Georgia. He shared how he and his team have partnered with public schools and the community to provide supplemental materials and programs tailored to their needs. This public library – school library collaboration is admirable and should be replicated across the county.

Sadly, for me, I was unable to attend the final live session of the Summit: “In Conversation with Patrisse Cullors.” Patrisse is an artist, activist, and educator; she co-founded Black Lives Matter in 2013. The movement, now an international organization with dozens of chapters around the world, campaigns against anti-black racism. Patrisse’s memoir When They Call You a Terrorist was a New York Times bestseller. Tennessee school librarian Erika Long moderated the conversation. Erika was part of the ALA Presidential Initiative: Fight for School Libraries, AASL Presidential Initiative Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and is a co-contributor to the “Equity” chapter in the forthcoming book Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage (Libraries Unlimited 2021).

I turned to Twitter colleagues to get their takeaways from their session (with thanks to them):

Lindsey Kimery @LindsKAnderson Loved the conversation btw @erikaslong & @OsopePatrisse -Young people need to know they have the capability to be leaders right now. Educators need to be on the front lines of supporting the voice and vision of young people- Patrisse Cullors. #blm #sljsummit #mnpslibhack #tasltn

Jennifer Sharp @JenniferSharpTN – “Young people need to know that they have the ability to be leaders right now.” “There is a vibrancy to this moment that is very different than 2016 and everybody feels it.” Loving these thoughts about the activism of young people, @OsopePatrisse and @erikaslong Raising hands Clapping hands sign #sljsummit

Sara Kelly Johns @skjohns Just watched a powerful session at the @SLJ Summit with @erikaslong facilitating a conversation with Patrice Cullors, author of When They Call You a Terrorist. Whew! I am going back for another listen. #sljsummit #BlackLivesMatter

Kathy Ishizuka @kishizuka – An inspired and hopeful note to end on. @erikaslong @OsopePatrisse Peace, and remember to #vote #sljsummit #thankyou

Thank you again, SLJ, for this fine learning opportunity. I intend to make time this week for taking greater advantage of what you have generously offered.

Image Credit
kalhh. “Learn Media Internet.” Pixabay.com, https://pixabay.com/illustrations/learn-media-internet-medium-977543/

Inquiry Learning Today

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Former ALA and AASL President and retired library educator Barbara Stripling conducted and recorded an interview with Darryl Toerien, Head of Library and Archives at Oakham School in the United Kingdom. Both Barb and Darryl are engaged in an individual and a shared on-going inquiry into inquiry learning. This conversation focused on how students (and adults) engage with information when conducting inquiry in the digital environment.

Barbara has been instrumental in developing and recently revising the Empire State (New York) Information Fluency Continuum, a PK-12 continuum of the information and inquiry skills required for in-depth learning. Darryl is the originator of FOSIL (Framework of Skills for Inquiry Learning), which was originally modeled after the Stripling Model of Inquiry.

This transnational conversation, “The Process and Stance of Inquiry in the Digital World” was hosted by and is available online from School Library Connection.

Inquiry as a Process
Brian captured my attention immediately with this anecdote. There was a sign that read: “Are you ignorant or apathetic?” Under the sign, someone replied: “I don’t know and I don’t care.” This was a brilliant way to make the case for why inquiry is critical in today’s educational landscape.

The inquiry process involves a continuum of skills that some of us have called “information literacy.” Some educators approach and teach those skills as a linear progression; others apply a spiral approach in which students revisit more or less the same skills in increasingly more sophisticated contexts and applications. Regardless of the approach, Barbara and Darryl agree there is a decades long history of inquiry as an effective (and preferred?) learning process in librarianship and in education. (I was first introduced to inquiry learning in my preservice classroom teacher program in the 1980s.)

When thinking about inquiry in K-12, we cannot ignore assessment. Assessment in inquiry does not only focus on what we learn as the result of our exploration. Rather it also focuses on how we came to know what we learned. The emphasis on process is one that aligns with the school librarian’s goals for students to grow as lifelong learners who will be able to transfer and apply the skills they learn and practice in K-12 throughout their lives.

Darryl brought viewers’ attention to Chapter 5 in the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions IFLA School Librarian Guidelines, 2nd Edition that makes the case for inquiry as a “tool” that provides a means to an end—namely learning. Inquiry sparks curiosity and the desire to find out. Barb noted that inquiry has the potential to change students’ attitudes toward learning—to make them more generally curious and to help them realize the importance of taking ownership and demonstrating agency as they pursue answers to their questions.

Inquiry as a Stance
To build on the idea of increasing curiosity, inquiry can also be a stance. As Salman Khan notes: “The crucial task of educators is to teach kids how to learn. To lead them to want to learn. To nurture curiosity, to encourage wonder, and to instill confidence so that later on they’ll have the tools for finding answers to many questions we don’t yet know how to ask” (cited in Moreillon 2018, 37).

In order for individual students and classrooms of students to achieve success, the adults in the school must ensure that this stance pervades the learning community. When all educators at every grade level and in every discipline approach learning from an inquiry stance, the likelihood that students will become lifelong inquirers increases exponentially. Inquiry, then, will be experienced as an authentic approach to schooling as well as learning and life.

This idea of inquiry as a stance connects strongly with my experience as an educator. I believe and have experienced the role of the school librarian as a leader who ensures that inquiry is systematically integrated into school curricula. Leading classroom teachers and specialists to the need to dedicate time for inquiry and creating space for students to explore is essential work for school librarian leaders. Although I have never had the total experience of inquiry being the sum total of the curriculum, I can imagine it.

Inquiry in the Digital World
Along with our students, all connected adults have or have had the overwhelming experience of locating too much information related to a particular topic or idea. We have also experienced misinformation, disinformation, and outright propaganda, and the digital siren song of distractions that are constantly competing for our attention. All of these contribute to the challenges students (and adults) experience in learning in the digital world.

Remote learning during school closures has only exacerbated this situation because the alternatives to pursuing information online are constrained without physical access to resources. Sorting facts from fiction, perspectives from biased information, content that meets our purposes and answers our questions can be even more difficult when we are socially separated from peers and guides.

Problems Create Opportunities
Last week, I attended the Arizona Library Association’s virtual conference. Brian Pichman, Director of Strategic Innovation at the Evolve Project, was a keynote speaker. In his talk, Brian stated this: “Problems create opportunities.” I agree with this statement but I often wonder who gets to identify what the “problem” is. From whose perspective is this a “problem?”

In the case of inquiry in the digital world, my perspective is that “inquiry” is not the problem. Giving students time and space to develop curiosity and explore are essential to their development as thinkers and doers. For me, the “problem” is the digital part in that many students today—if they are given the time and space to be inquirers—lack the skills and guides they need to be successful in the chaos of the online learning environment.

How can school librarians capitalize on our knowledge and pedagogical skills to solve the problem of students’ digital overload? How can we insist on knowledge construction in the digital world rather than more and more consuming? How can we solve students’ and our problem with Zoom fatigue?

Is “isolation” the problem? I believe translating our practice and emphasizing interactivity between educators and students, connections between content and students out-of-school lives, and increasing one-on-one, peer-to-peer communication in the virtual learning environment may hold promise. What do you think?

Works Cited

Moreillon, Judi. 2018. Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy. Chicago: ALA.

Pichman, Brian. 2020. “20 Ideas to Spawn Innovation 2020.” Arizona Library Association Conference. Online. October.

Stripling, Barbara K. 2020. “The Process and Stance of Inquiry in a Digital World [15:46].” School Library Connection Video. October. https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Home/Display/2254856?topicCenterId=2252404.

Image Credit
geralt. “Laptop Question.” Pixabay.com, https://pixabay.com/photos/laptop-question-question-mark-2709647/

Innovation and Leadership During Challenging Times

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In writing an op-ed on the topic of the Invest in Education Act (Arizona ballot initiative Prop. 208) “Our Opportunity to Repair (Arizona) Public Education,” I wanted to be sure that I was accurately representing the work of Arizona school librarians during closures or hybrid teaching.

I connected with several Arizona school librarians and compared their testimonials to the Back-to-School Survey data collected by the American Association of School Librarians and to my conversation with North Carolina School Library Media Association (NCSLMA) Leadership Academy members.

I am proud to report that school librarians across the country have been and continue to be innovative leaders during remote and hybrid teaching and learning.

Last month, I had the opportunity to think and share with NCSLMA Leadership Academy members during an hour-long Zoom meeting. They had spent several months reading Maximizing School Librarian Leadership: Building Connections for Learning and Advocacy (ALA 2018).

Our September conversation focused on the challenges they have faced as librarians delivering library services outside the physical spaces of libraries. We framed our conversation with quotes from George Couros’s The Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead in a Culture of Creativity (2015).

These are some of my takeaways from our conversation organized around the quotes that guided our discussion.

Leadership: “Leaders, whatever their role, will more easily change if they allow others to see them taking risks, failing, recovering, and risking all over again” (Couros 2015, 59).

When we were classroom teachers, we took daily risks with our students. While students are still the primary “audience” for our teaching, school librarians work in fishbowls. When we take risks, we have witnesses: students, classroom teachers, student and adult library aides and volunteers, and administrators, too.

Remote teaching and learning during the pandemic have upped the ante. With libraries closed or in a hybrid model, we often have parents and caregivers who are supporting their children in the (Zoom) “room” just like today’s classroom teachers do. This may test our willingness to take risks, fail, recover, and risk all over again.

The NCSLMA school librarians shared their experiences with taking risks during school closures. They realize that their ability to be vulnerable has been tested in these challenging times. Those who shared expressed that their confidence has grown as they have tried new strategies for serving their learning communities remotely.

Innovation: “Innovation is not about changing everything; sometimes you only need change one thing” (Couros 2015, 60).

Striving for equity can lead to innovation. Spring semester 2020 required thinking outside the box, especially when technology devices and access to broadband were unequally distributed among our students and families. We talked briefly about how the Washington (D.C.) School District, led by Washington Teachers Union President Elizabeth Davis delivered 100% teaching via TV when they learned that 38% of students had no devices or connectivity.

One elementary NCSLMA school librarian talked about collaborating with art, music, and PE teachers to develop televised presentations that could reach all their students. This powerful experience with collaboration could provide the experience these educators need to continue offering topical or thematic connections among their disciplines into the future.

NCSLMA school librarians who were experimenting with curbside pick-up for students expresses the age-old concern of all librarians: will the books come back?

One NCSLMA high school librarian solved the equity problem at her school. She gathered all of the computers that remained in the building and set up an appropriately distanced Internet café in the auditorium. Students who lack/lacked devices or connectivity in their homes signed up to use these workstations to continue their learning.

Technology: “Technology invites us to move from engaged to empowered. It provides opportunities to go deeper into our learning by giving us the ability to consume, and, more importantly, create” (Couros 2015, 140).

The NCSLMA school librarians discussed the problem posed by an emphasis on consumption over creation in face-to-face or remote teaching and learning.

One NCSLMA school librarian mentioned a professional development plan she created in conjunction with her new principal. Their goal is to engage students in inquiry learning using “Applied Digital Skills with Google.”  The outcome and deliverable she has proposed is for 4th/5th grade students to create tech-enabled learning products.

One challenge NCSLMA school librarians identified is that when learning went remote last spring many devices were sent to students’ homes. With the return to hybrid or in-person learning, the resources that were previously in school are now dispersed.

As a result, we asked these questions: What do teaching and classroom-library collaboration look like when all the tech is in students’ homes? Could this be a return to “slow” hands-on learning? How will students respond to using pens and pencils to physically write and to use tactile materials to create learning products?

We talked about the potential of real “hands-on” learning and students working in collaborative small group pods as strategies for helping them rebuild social skills they may have lost when they had little or no face-to-face contact with their peers. We talked about how engaging small groups of students in projects such as writing and performing scripts and music could benefit the whole child/student.

We also mentioned the idea of an “emotional café,” a physical or virtual space, where school librarians can help classroom teachers stay grounded in today’s reality with its current affordances and constraints. We all agreed that leading the social-emotional health of our learning communities is important work for school librarians and other school leaders.

Collaboration: “To truly integrate new learning, it is critical to carve out time for exploration, collaboration, and reflection to allow educators to apply what they are learning. It is the application of learning that breeds innovative ideas and practices that work for your unique context and begin to make an impact for the learners across schools and classrooms” (Couros 2015, 182).

In meeting other people’s needs, school librarians are in a position to build strong collegial relationships that lead to collaboration and build advocates for the contributions we make to the learning community. Through learning with our colleagues, we will be able to apply innovative ideas and practices. We will be able to analyze the results, modify our practices, and engage in continuous improvement as we explore and integrate our own professional development.

Leadership and Vulnerability
I just finished reading Senator Kamala Harris’s autobiography, The Truths We Hold: An American Journey (2019). While I highly recommend the entire book, the “Test the Hypothesis” section near the end connected with the NCSLMA Leadership Academy conversation and with other school librarians navigating these challenging times for teaching and learning.

“Innovation is the pursuit of what can be, unburdened by what has been. And we pursue innovation not because we’re bored but because we want to make things faster, more efficient, more effective, more accurate… We expect mistakes; we just don’t want to make the same mistake twice. We expect imperfections; it’s basic for us… We know that the more we test something, the clearer we’ll understand what works and what doesn’t, and the better the final product or process will be” (Harris 2019, 253).

Thank you to the NCSLMA Leadership Academy school librarians for sharing your experiences, questions, and plans with each other and with me. I leave you with a parting quote: “Leadership requires confidence and vulnerability” (Harland and Cellucci forthcoming). You will be able to achieve a high-level of leadership if you continue to take risks, remain vulnerable, and continually increase your confidence through practice and reflection as you lead students, colleagues, and families through this challenging time.

References

Couros, George. 2015. Innovator’s Mindset: Empower Learning, Unleash Talent, and Lead in a Culture of Creativity. San Diego, CA: Dave Burgess Consulting.

Harland, Pamela, and Anita Cellucci. 2021. “Leadership.” In Core Values in School Librarianship: Responding with Commitment and Courage, ed. J. Moreillon. Santa Barbara, CA: Libraries Unlimited.

Harris, Kamala. 2019. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey. New York: Penguin.

Image Credit

Pixabay. “Abstract Blackboard Bulb Chalk.” Pexels.com, https://www.pexels.com/photo/abstract-blackboard-bulb-chalk-355948.

Advocacy Tools from the AASL School Leader Collaborative

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Advocacy Word Cloud: leadership, job description, school librarians, interview questions, decision-makers, school administrators, videoThank you to the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) past-president Kathryn Roots Lewis for her presidential initiative that resulted in resources now available to school librarians and other school library advocates (see her Knowledge Quest 4/29/20 blog post “School Administrators and the Power of School Librarians”).

Kathryn’s initiative centered on championing the work of effective school librarians with educational leaders. The resulting advocacy tools are invaluable to practicing school librarians and district-level school librarian supervisors who can share them with library stakeholders, and to university-based school librarian educators who can use them in teaching preservice school librarians.

In this blog post, I shine a spotlight on three of these now essential advocacy tools.

Advocacy Video: “Administrators Partner with School Librarians”
In this video, the seven members of the AASL School Leader Collaborative offer testimonials related to how their school librarians serve as leaders in their learning communities. Thank you to Shawn Arnold, superintendent, Valdez City Schools, Valdez, Alaska; Sean Doherty, superintendent, School District of Clayton, St. Louis, Missouri; April Grace, superintendent, Shawnee Public Schools, Shawnee, Oklahoma; Kelly Gustafson, principal, Pine-Richland School District, Wexford, Pennsylvania; Joel Hoag, principal, Franklin Special School District, Franklin, Tennessee; Kim Patterson, principal, Grossmont Union High School District, El Cajon, California; and Melita Walker, principal, Columbia Public Schools, Columbia, Missouri.

Some sample excerpts from the video: “I think that librarians serve as the heart of the school. I think they serve as a support system for so many different people in the buildings beyond just the students. We need to make sure that people have the right mental model about what a school librarian does for a school and make sure we are fostering that” (Sean Doherty). “The impact of the library or the librarian can only be in direct proportion to your (administrators) own willingness to elevate, encourage, and empower that person or that space as a central part of the learning experience for all of your students and staff” (April Grace). “My school librarian and librarians across districts in Pennsylvania are the ones who are feeding the administrators. My success as school principal and administrator in Pennsylvania is a product of being shaped by school librarians” (Kelly Gustafson) (AASL 2020a).

Similar to “Principals Know: School Librarians Are the Heart of the School,” this video, focused solely on the perspectives and experiences of administrators, provides school librarians with insight into how their work is perceived and valued by education decision-makers. As an advocacy tool, it can support school librarians as they speak with and encourage administrators, school board members, and community leaders to become advocates for the school librarian’s role in education for today and tomorrow.

School Librarian Interview Question Matrix
In collaboration with AASL’s 2018-2019 Presidential Initiative Task Force, the AASL School Leader Collaborative developed a set of interview questions based on the five roles of the school librarian (leader, instructional partner, information specialist, teacher, and program administrator) and organized around the six shared foundations (inquiry, include, collaborate, curate, explore, and engage) from the National Library Standards for Learners, School Librarians, and School Libraries (AASL 2018).

These questions provide future and practicing school librarians with specific criteria around which their job description and performance could (should?) be measured. While all of these questions are illuminating in terms of the school librarian’s potential to impact the learning culture in their school, these were the questions that stood out to me in the leader role:

* Give an example of how you would build a culture of collaboration throughout the school. How would you measure success?

* Give some examples of how you have been a leader, change-maker, thought leader.

* Describe your global learning network. How do you learn about trends and best practices in education and school libraries? (AASL 2020b).

School Librarian Job Description
The AASL School Leader Collaborative and the 2018-2019 Task Force also codeveloped a school librarian job description. These are some of the descriptors that stood out for me.

  • Collaborates and coteaches with classroom educators to establish learning objectives and assessment strategies to develop individual and group inquiry-based learning experiences.
  • Champions equity, access, and intellectual freedom for users within the physical space and beyond, including 24/7 access to the online library catalog; digital and audio books, and various information sources.
  • Models and champions digital citizenship and safety and adherence to copyright and fair use requirements.
  • Teaches all members of the learning community to engage with and use information in a global society (AASL 2020c).

Again, this is an invaluable document that can be used in so many ways to strengthen practice and the profession at large. Having worked with the Tucson Unified School District superintendent and the TUSD human resources department in fall 2019 to revise the school librarian job description, I will review our work in light of this document.

The Value of These Documents
These resources can only reach their potential to influence and strengthen the profession if school librarians review these documents, put effective behaviors into practice, and share the resulting student learning outcomes along with these tools. Then, these tools can help us reach our capacity to serve the learning and teaching needs of all library stakeholders.

Let’s take full advantage of the opportunity and express our gratitude to Kathryn Roots Lewis, her 2018-2019 Presidential Initiative Task Force, the AASL School Leader Collaborative, and the school librarian leaders who nominated them for making these resource available to us.

Works Cited

American Association of School Librarians. 2020a. “Administrators Partner with School Librarians,” YouTube.com, https://youtu.be/9fkTsLHFkS8

AASL. 2020b. “School Librarian Interview Matrix,” AASL.org, https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/SL-Interview-Matrix.pdf

AASL. 2020c. “School Librarian Job Description,” AASL.org, https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/SL-Job-Description_3-30-2020.pdf

 

 

 

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