GIFSL* 65: from top stand-up comedians. Yes, really!

Photo used under a Creative Commons license

I am happy to get ideas and inspiration from wherever I can find them, and so clicked through on a Twitter link to read Michael Bierut's design column on Seven Things Designers Can Learn From Stand Up Comics.

What did I find?  Seven things teacher librarians re-imagining their libraries and looking for design ideas and inspiration and all sorts of things can learn from stand up comics.  Really truly.

This is the brief version, with my own comments. 

1. It's all about the basics.  Librarywise, stuff being shelved and findable.  A welcoming, helpful atmosphere and friendly staaff.  A library that encourages and inspires.  Resources and services that the kids want and need.  You know.  So do the kids
2. Once you've mastered the basics, make the work your own.  Every school library, like every classroom, bears the stamp of the personality of the teacher/teacher librarian in charge of it and responsible for it.  The art and science of teaching is a juggle of personality and knowledge and human relations and all sorts of other alchemies.  I know, in another library space, that I wouldn't do exactly what I have done at my present school.  I know that another teacher librarian, in my current library, wouldn't do things the same either.  It's not about better or worse, but different.  Playing to your strengths, with the goal of making it as effective as you can for the kids.
3. Respect your audience.  That's kids, and teachers, and parents.  Kids, because sometimes they're so easy to respect, and sometimes difficult to respect: although I have found that exquisite, courteous interest from a teacher librarian can completely discombobulate a noxious student, opening the way to achieving a positive outcome for both.  Teachers can be irritating (late and lost resources, forgotten bookings etc) but like anything, there's a story both sides (teacher librarians can be irritating too: let me count the ways...or not; you know).  I'm not keen on a them and us mentality.  It's us, all teachers (whether teacher librarians or other classroom teachers) working together.
4. Know your tools.  The standard stuff - cataloguing and other organisational tools.  The teaching tools - methods and strategies and ideas.  More resources in print and digital form and more than we have ever had before.  The tools of character and style - patience, interest in kids, enthusiasm... We have a huge toolkit, as big and Tardis-like as the mother's bag in the Swiss Family Robinson (I've never forgotten that - whatever they needed, she'd popped in that sailcloth bag before the shipwreck).
5. Honour your craft.  Work hard, create challenges for yourself, aim to never coast and always improve.  Use your personal learning network, your willingness to be a lifelong learner hunting out new ideas from blogs, Twitter, email lists, the media, anywhere you can. 
6. Don't be afraid of failure.  Not everything I try works out.  Last week I planned an exciting lesson and realistically, on reviewing how it went, would barely give myself a pass grade.  And a prac teacher watched it.  So, why didn't it work as well as I'd planned and hoped?  How can I do better?  If we don't model coping with failure, valuing failure, using it as a launch pad, how can we expect kids to learn how important it is, learn to be resilient, learn to be brave?
7. Finally, never forget you have a special gift.  How much fun is it to work in a school library?  Huge fun!  Barack Obama in a speech to librarians some years ago, talked about libraries as being a magic threshold.  We not only get to cross that magic threshold each day, we get to influence the experience of everyone who crosses it too.  Teaching is an amazing gift - that alchemy when it works, the pleasure of the company of so many different, engaging personalities and dreams and ideas.  Lucky lucky lucky (as I remind myself on the days when I end up tired and dispirited; because tomorrow is another day, and plenty of good things happen even on the tough days).

Click on to read the article in full here, with Michael Bierut's designer observations rather than my teacher librarianish ones:
http://observersroom.designobserver.com/oblog/post/seven-things-designers-can-learn-from-stand-up-comics/27038/

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL= good ideas for school libraries.  An ongoing series on this blog.  Find more of them by clicking here.

Final Report: School Libraries and Teacher Librarians in 21st Century Australia

The final report has been released today.

The full report pdf is here:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/ee/schoollibraries/report/fullreport.pdf

Here are its recommendations:
List of recommendations



2 Impact of recent Commonwealth Government policies and investments on school libraries


Recommendation 1


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government partner with all education authorities to fund the provision of a core set of online database resources, which are made available to all Australian schools.


Recommendation 2


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government work with the states and territories to develop a discrete national policy statement that defines the importance of digital and information literacy
for learning in the 21st century, which can be used as a guide by teachers and principals.


3 Potential of school libraries and librarians to contribute to improved educational and community outcomes


Recommendation 3


The Committee recommends that the Australian Curriculum, Assessment  and Reporting Authority include statistical information about the breakdown of all specialist teachers, including teacher librarians, on the My School website.

Recommendation 4


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government support additional initiatives to promote reading, such as a National Year of Reading. The Department of Education, Employment and Workplace
Relations should collaborate with the Australian School Library Association, Australian Libraries and Information Association and other education stakeholders in developing these initiatives.


Recommendation 5


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government initiate an Australian-based longitudinal study into the links between library programs, literacy (including digital literacy) and student achievement, including their impact on improving outcomes for socioeconomically disadvantaged students.


Recommendation 6


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government support promotional activities undertaken by ASLA and ALIA that demonstrate to the school community the valuable work that teacher librarians are doing in respect of e-learning in their schools, including those that highlight their leadership capacity.


4 Recruitment and development of teacher librarians


Recommendation 7


The Committee recommends that the rollout of the new national curriculum, which is to be made available online, include a component of training for teacher librarians.


Recommendation 8


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government commission a thorough workforce gap analysis of teacher librarians across Australian schools.


Recommendation 9


The Committee recommends that the Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth, through the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood Development and Youth Affairs, establish a national dialogue, including with tertiary providers, on the role of teacher librarians today in schools and into the future. The dialogue should include an examination of the adequacy of the pathways into the profession and ongoing training requirements.


xx


5 Partnering and supporting school libraries and teacher librarians


Recommendation 10


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government, through the Ministerial Council for Education, Early Childhood and Youth Affairs, discuss ways to enhance partnerships with state and territory and local levels of government to support school libraries and teacher librarians.


Recommendation 11


The Committee recommends that the Commonwealth Government partner with ASLA and ALIA to produce a document that showcases some of the successful partnerships and programs between school
libraries and other libraries, and joint-use libraries. The document should be made available to government and non-government education authorities and school principals.

The whole report is 180 pages plus.  Haven't yet had time today to read/digest, but certainly will.

Cheers

Ruth

Are teacher librarians teachers?

Just retweeted this.

RT@walkyouhome: The disgraceful interrogation of L.A. school librarians latimes.com/news/local/la-… #savelibraries #austl #tlchat #APPALLING #yam
Twitter for iPhone • 15/05/11 6:31 PM

Go read that article, dear teacher librarian colleagues, and ponder having to be in their shoes.

Alternate link to same article:
http://t.co/S73bqhq

Here's an extract from it:
A court reporter takes down testimony. A judge grants or denies objections from attorneys. Armed police officers hover nearby. On the witness stand, one librarian at a time is summoned to explain why she — the vast majority are women — should be allowed to keep her job.


The librarians are guilty of nothing except earning salaries the district feels the need to cut. But as they're cross-examined by determined LAUSD attorneys, they're continually put on the defensive.

"When was the last time you taught a course for which your librarian credential was not required?" an LAUSD attorney asked Laura Graff, the librarian at Sun Valley High School, at a court session on Monday.

"I'm not sure what you're asking," Graff said. "I teach all subjects, all day. In the library."

"Do you take attendance?" the attorney insisted. "Do you issue grades?"

I've seen a lot of strange things in two decades as a reporter, but nothing quite as disgraceful and weird as this inquisition the LAUSD is inflicting upon more than 80 school librarians.


And here's a teacher librarian's account of those proceedings:
http://mizzmurphy.blogspot.com/2011/05/settle-in-its-long-one.html

Cheers (for those brave souls).  I'm appalled for what this may mean for the kids in that education system.

Ruth

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

GIFSL* 58: Enchantment and your school library

@brainpicker on Twitter, and the associated blog Brain Pickings, provide a constant supply of inspiration and ideas on a huge range of topics.  Not narrowcast "teacher librarian-focused stuff", but all sorts of things from left field and out there and what about?, and hey, here's something to think about.  I love foraging among the wider world to bring back good things to inform my teaching (eg. this blog! - see the intro reference to a flypaper mind).

Take this infographic from a recently published business book, Enchantment: the art of changing hearts, minds and actions, by Guy Kawasaki.  Not something I've tripped over in education circles, but a great lens to use in thinking about our business as teacher librarians, promoting our libraries and their services.

Read the whole blog entry on Brain Pickings here, including links to an enchantment aptitude test, an interview with the author, and more. 

As school library staffing is being challenged, our work as teacher librarians evaluated, the ill-informed happy to spout that 'it's all on the internet now' and so forth, this infographic is, to me, valuable professional reflection for considering what I do and why and how, and how I can do it better.

Cheers

Ruth

*GIFSL: good ideas for school libraries

A Glog of school library links

Now and then I take a squizz at the blog stats, and look at the ways people find Skerricks - via Google, or Google Reader, or Twitter, or Bing, or Unknown...

And a little while ago I came across this source:




Which gives you a whole bunch of useful school library links. Thanks for including my name (and thus Skerricks!).  If the above doesn't work for some reason, here is the original link:
http://edu.glogster.com/glog.php?glog_id=14697435&scale=100

Cheers

Ruth

What is a good book? Nancy Pearl's answer

Nancy Pearl, yup, the one that's the model for the librarian action doll, was recently named Librarian of the Year.  In Library Journal's article about this, Nancy discusses her idea of 'a good book'.  I've highlighted a couple of bits that particularly caught my attention.

What is a “good book”?



As part of the author tour for her newest book, Book Lust To Go: Recommended Reading for Travelers, Vagabonds, and Dreamers (Sasquatch Bks.; LJ Xpress Reviews, 10/8/10), Pearl went to Westport, CT, to “talk about good books” to librarians and library patrons. “By good,” she says, “I don’t mean any literary canon, but just books that you might enjoy. A good book is a book someone likes and a bad book is one they don’t like. When someone doesn’t like a book, it doesn’t mean they will never like it. They don’t like it for that moment,” says Pearl.


“We shouldn’t be afraid to suggest a wide variety of books to people. I think libraries are the last democratic institution, small ‘d’ democratic. It wasn’t always that way. Librarians were gatekeepers.... When it comes to readers’ advisory, though, I think we need to validate a patron’s reading,” Pearl says.


“When people ask, ‘What should I read next?’ we should always try to give them three books. One should be pretty close to the one they loved. The second should be a little bit different, a bit of a stretch. The third book is the real stretch book, the reach book. The book they never would have found because it is nonfiction and they only look at Westerns,” Pearl says.

“People come into the library and head straight to the section where they have found the most pleasure.... It is our job to take them around to the rest,” she ­continues.

“I do believe that the more well-written books you read, the less tolerance you are going to have for bad writing, but the hardest thing to define is a well-written book. When someone tells you they liked a book because ‘I love well-written books,’ they usually mean books like award winners, for instance the Pulitzers. Those books win awards for the writing. You don’t have to understand what somebody means by ‘well-written,’ but you have to go beyond the awards we all know and see which books won the Governor General’s Award in Canada, or [Britain’s] Man Booker Prize. No one who reads for the story will say, ‘I like well-written books.’ They will talk about page-turners, books you stay up too late to finish,” Pearl ­concludes.

Lots of food for thought there.  I'm going to try that three book idea... I think I've been more likely, when kids ask, to find three similar rather than that three book progression.  Not always, but often enough that I should be trying to extend myself, as well as my readers.  Always good to get a new perspective!  Read the complete article here.
 
Cheers
 
Ruth

PS.

A few more thought-provoking quotes from the article:

...she is a passionate and diligent advocate for old and important library ideas: literacy, reading, entertainment, enjoyment.... She is neither snobbish about the old ways nor disdainful of new ideas. Ask her about audio or ebooks or gaming, and you’ll get an earful about the importance of stories told in their myriad forms,” says Janes.
*
says Pearl. “My fear is that we don’t recognize or will forget that library service is like a three-legged stool: information, outreach and programming, and reading.”
*
The book will never disappear as a piece of narrative fiction or nonfiction, according to Pearl, but it is obvious that the format, the way it is delivered, is changing. She knows people will always need escape, stories, and ways to look at the world through the experiences of others.


“I think the more you read, the better person you become, because you can see how other people respond, the way they think, and the way they behave in various circumstances,” Pearl asserts.
*
“When you read a book, it is just you and the author. Even when people read the same title, everybody reads a different book.... When you listen to a book, a third person enters the equation,” Pearl says. “It is a different experience.”

The happy life of teacher librarians: Today I... (a late Day in the Life)

Today I...

• supervised the library before school and at lunch, and throughout the day
• worked with a teacher during roll call to ensure all her class had books (and buried the 'lost library card' excuse) - we had lots of great books out on the tables and they all found something to read.  One in particular was very happy to get a brand new copy of I am Number Four - film out soon.
• helped a teacher set up the digital projector
• introduced a Year 8 class to adventure fiction book possibilities and found novels for individual students
• met with the Principal and SAM regarding library SASS staffing and discussed same with my head teacher
• discussed a future lesson combining adventure fiction and film study with an English teacher, revamping a lesson I created last year for her class, which she liked and wants to repeat this year
• bought fundraising Valentine's Day jellybean bags (and gave them away to eager students)
• because I'd baked Valentine's Day chocolate brownies for my staff
• copied the file of last year's school photos for the computer co-ordinator (who ate a brownie with considerable enthusiasm)
• discussed a work issue with another colleague
• ate lunch with my library staff colleagues (we also ate brownies)
• watched a short "Batman safety video" that was an obsession of one of my students.  You must watch this, Miss!  Hmm, I still prefer the so-bad-it's-good shark scene from the '60s Batman movie
• was the recipient of three sheets of perspex from a staff member who knows I was after some (I'll show you why in a later post) - she found a cheap source and only wanted a can of Coke in return - and then was more than happy to settle for a brownie (brownie diplomacy is fine fine work!)
• added a Jeff Kinney article to the display cabinet with book and film reviews (usually of books from films - I added a bunch of new pieces there last Friday)
• lent and reserved and discussed books with students
• helped some lost Year 7 kids out with a late note
• calmed down an agitated Asperger's kid who was worried about why the book he wanted had gone from where he left it on Friday (it's called borrowing, honey, but we can reserve it for you...)
• asked the general assistant to trim a couple of pieces of MDF for our new bookcases
• admired the bookcase my school assistant had assembled (will show you soon when all three are done, they're FABBOBANANAS! - photos soon!) and helped put it in its planned location, where we all admired it again
• reminded seniors of the distinction between 'study periods' and the no-go concept of 'free periods'
• organised a student who's doing a short volunteer project with us for his Work Studies course (will post about that, too - it's a very very handy list!)
• discussed the senior study skills program with one of my colleagues, saw her presentation draft and helped with image/Flickr/Powerpoint advice for slides with impact
• organised the duplication of study skills materials
• planned the worksheets needed for my study skills presentation on Thursday (topic: Ethical Assignments, a revision/reminder of HSC All My Own Work)
• discussed/demonstrated Hipstamatic (iPhone camera app) with several people
• shared some brownies with our wonderful cleaner
• got to the end of the day and wondered about how fast the day had gone!

Today, I am sure, this list doesn't represent everything I did; but it's a reasonable, representatively varied and busy if inevitably incomplete, day in the life of a teacher librarian.  And tomorrow will be different again.  All the fun of the fair!  I wasn't at school during the sixth round of Library Day in the Life (I'm number 93 of about 250 on the wiki here), but figured I'd get to a reasonably representative day sometime. 

How did your day go?

Cheers

Ruth

Outfitting a teacher librarian for the 21st century

If yesterday's blog entry was lowering to your spirits, here's an alternative view: Joyce Valenza on the skills needed by a teacher librarian in the 21st century:
http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/slj/home/888448-312/fully_loaded_outfitting_a_teacher.html.csp

Always handy, lists like these, so you can give yourself pats on the back for the stuff you know and new directions to explore in the things you haven't yet tried.  Doesn't just apply to teacher librarians either, but all teachers...

Cheers

Ruth

What teacher librarians make...

If you haven't yet read Joyce Valenza's brilliant blog entry on the topic of what teacher librarians do, let me usher you her way...

http://blog.schoollibraryjournal.com/neverendingsearch/2010/11/27/what-librarians-make-a-response-to-dr-bernstein-and-an-homage-to-taylor-mali/

Found via Anne's always-informative blog, Reading Power, here.

Cheers

Ruth

Parent-Teacher Night: reflections, and 10 questions for your child's teacher

We've just had a parent-teacher night here.  I make a point of attending, as a member of the teaching staff.  I may not, in advance, have many (or any) appointments with parents - kids tend to make them with their class teachers.  But I'm not lonely.  A number of parents stop by to say hello - I was year adviser to one of their older children, or am mentor to one of their senior students now, so I hear how the older ones are going, talk about the ones still at school.  Some I'm able to help find other staff members (the kids may know what each of their teachers looks like, but parents need the name tags on the tables). 

And my colleagues see me there, part of the teaching staff, spending my afternoon and evening at school the same as they are.  Good library PR.  A couple of them refer parents to me, or include me in a discussion.  The principal knows I choose to attend; a couple of times he's brought parents to meet me who may have asked about or been appreciative of the library.  As I said, good library PR.  I also have home-made muffins and make a cuppa for the teachers in the faculty to which I belong - they're deep in interview after interview, and I can escape for a few minutes to make a cuppa and bring it to them at their desks.

I've had some teacher librarian colleagues rubbish the idea of attending parent-teacher night, for various reasons.  Me, I know it's my time, I know I probably don't HAVE to be there, but I choose to be there and am happy to demonstrate my professional commitment.  I've had a couple of colleagues ask, bewildered, why are you here?  But they know I am, and will be.  It's my choice, as a teacher.

Years ago I got one of the best bits of advice about parent-teacher night from an English teacher (who I now can recognise was one of my most important mentors in teaching): the parents want to hear something positive about their kids - whoever their kid may be.  It works for me.  It doesn't mean you can't get down to brass tacks when there are problems that need addressing, but it's a useful mindset for a productive, appreciated discussion.

Darcy Moore's excellent blog has a brilliant entry on ten questions he wishes parents would ask him:

How would your child’s teachers fare if asked these questions:


1. What is your educational philosophy?

2. How are you assisting our child to become a self-directed learner?

3. What professional reading are you undertaking at the moment?

4. What are you reading for fun?


5. How do you use technology as a tool to leverage learning in the classroom?

6. What online resources have you created for your class?

7. How do you assist students to learn about digital citizenship?

8. What professional networks and associations are you involved with regularly?


9. What observations can you offer about our child’s happiness at school?

10. What reflections can you make about our child’s growth as a learner and citizen this year?

Useful for one's own reflection/professional development.  Do read the full blog entry and comments (it's a blog worth following, as are his Tweets).
 
Cheers
 
Ruth

Top 10 customer service skills for library staff

From this terrific blog entry at The Learning Round Table, A Collaborative Learning Experiment: Top Ten Customer Service Skills for Library Staff:

1. Greet every customer
2. Be aware of non-verbal clues
3. Listen
4. Restate the problem or question
5. Be empathetic
6. Provide alternatives to “No”
7. Reserve judgment
8. Get (back) to them as soon as possible
9. Follow your gut instinct
10. Thank them for using the library

Trust me.  Go and read the entire article.  Then (as I did) pat yourself on the back for what you do; and work out what you can do better, or start doing.  One to share with all library staff.  From a customer's point of view, that list is the service you'd like to get, isn't it?

And is this customer service replaced by the internet?

I think not.

Cheers

Ruth

Life Matters on the national inquiry into school libraries

The Radio National program Life Matters had an eleven minute segment on the national inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians, including an interview with Karen Bonnano.  Listen here.

Cheers

Ruth

Found via Twitter.

Fascinating reading: govt inquiry into Australian school libraries

If you're interested in school libraries and teacher librarianship, now and into the future, find a comfy seat, make yourself a cuppa and set aside some serious reading time to spend with the transcripts of the hearings associated with the Australian Government inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians in Australian schools.  For example, the Sydney hearings on 28 April.

For the inquiry's home page, where you can find more links to hearings transcripts and submissions, click here.

Cheers

Ruth

Libraries and librarians as sponsors of literacy

An excellent slideshow presentation from Buffy J. Hamilton.

Libraries and Librarians As Sponsors of Literacy

View more presentations from Buffy Hamilton.

Plenty of food for thought, for teachers as well as teacher librarians.  Found via Twitter.

Cheers

Ruth

Teacher librarians: news reports, govt inquiry

Thought I'd collate a few reports/links here, for your reference and mine.

Recent news reports:

• Faithful few left to keep Dewey alive in a download world by Natalie Craig in the Sunday Age, May 2, 2010.  It begins: Rudd's billions are building thousands of school libraries. But, who will staff them?...More than 90 per cent of teacher-librarians in Australia are believed to be over 40, compared to half of teachers generally. Many teacher-librarians also retire early because of a lack of promotional opportunities.  Meanwhile, there are just four tertiary courses nationally to train them, from a peak of 15, and only about 100 graduates a year.
  
• Teacher librarian numbers in 'death spiral'.  Posted April 30, 2010 13:03:00 on abc.net.au.  It begins:  There is concern over a massive decline in the number of teacher librarians in Tasmanian schools.  A Parliamentary Committee hearing in Hobart has been told there are just 29 qualified teacher librarians across Tasmania's 215 primary and secondary schools.  That figure is down from 109, 15 years ago.

Australian Government inquiry into school libraries and teacher librarians.

• Inquiry home page
• Read some of the 384 submissions - click here
• Anne Weaver's submission (she is the TL at All Hallows' School in Brisbane and her excellent blog is Reading Power). 
• Transcripts of the public hearings will be placed on this page
• After the final report has been tabled in Parliament, you can find it on this page.

Death spiral?  Faithful few?  I started work as a teacher librarian in my twenties, and now find myself in that 90%.  Current research shows over and over again the positive impact on learning that teacher librarians have.  It will be most interesting to see the outcome of the Australian government inquiry.

Cheers

Ruth

Designed for Learning: school libraries

As you may know, I've been doing some presenting at conferences and staff development days on "Re-imagining your school library".  (Will be at MANTLE in May).

This 27 minute video (can't embed it, so click here to watch it) is from CILIP in the UK, and is all about the design and functions of 21st century libraries - showing spaces and possibilities, how students and library users find these, what they want, how library staff and teachers find these, what they want.... full of ideas, and SO positive about the IMPORTANCE of school libraries now and into the future as learning spaces.

Watch it.  Definitely.

I'm going to have to watch it more than once, to unpack the ideas and think about how to use them.

Cheers

Ruth

Found via Twitter @sandynay

What do teacher librarians do?

I've been working on my submission to the Australian government's inquiry into teacher librarians and school libraries.  Sometimes it's interesting to see your thoughts in a more graphic form, so I did some playing with Wordle and the above image (click to see it larger) was one result.

I went through several versions, with the same text each time.  Interesting to see what conjunctions the Randomize button produced.  Tweaked colours, fonts - that Randomize button is evilly addictive!

Submissions to the inquiry close this week.

Cheers

Ruth

PS Blogger's playing sillies with images, so it's a tad smaller than I wanted to show you here.    But you can go bigger here.

PPS No, I'm not saying it's definitive.  But one view.  Not planning to include this graphic in my submission, but I thought it would be fun to share.

Sometimes (interruption)

Mostly
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I know that
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my work as a
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teacher librarian
interruption
is rarely uninterrupted
interruption
or has long periods of time
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when I can predict
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what might happen
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or even direct, as you might
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be able to do
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in a single classroom
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with a single
interruption
class.
But sometimes
interruption
when it seems
interruption
as though you barely
interruption
get focused
interruption
on one thing that
interruption
needs to be
interruption
done before
interruption
you're
interruption
asked for help
interruption
needed to fix
interruption
a computer problem
interruption
lending
interruption
a book
interruption
fixing
interruption
a photocopier
interruption
finding a
interruption
website link
interruption
fixing
interruption
a beady eye
interruption
answering
interruption
the phone
interruption
chasing
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a missing order
interruption
finding a lost
interruption
book
interruption
locating
interruption
a particular item
interruption
helping a
interruption
colleague find a
interruption
plan B research approach
interruption
organising
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work
interruption
writing merit
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certificates for good
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students
interruption
checking the
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senior study
interruption
lending b-
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-ooks
interruption
recommending good
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reading
interruption
advising a senior student
interruption
on a misadventure submission
interruption
putting out more
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fiction for the next
interruption
class coming in
interruption
repairing a broken
interruption
chair
interruption
cleaning off a
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graffiti tag
interruption
finding the holiday
interruption
borrowing display items
interruption
printing
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for students
interruption
lending out our fairylights [true]
interruption
to an art student
interruption
wondering
interruption
if
interruption
I
interruption
will
interruption
get
interruption
enough
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time
interruption
today
interruption
to
interruption
focus
interruption
on
interruption
anything
interruption
at
interruption
all
interruption
or
interruption
if
interruption
this
interruption
is
interruption
just
interruption
the
interruption
way
interruption
it's
interruption
going
interruption
to
interruption
be
interruption
today.

And I know they're work too, all those things, and needed, and important too, to the people needing that help.  But sheesh and begorrah, sometimes I'd like to get enough time to focus on one thing, just one, for more than a couple of minutes....  Most days I manage it all perfectly well, but some days it frays you 'round the edges, just a tad...

The happy (interrupted) life of teacher librarians.

Cheers

Ruth

PS. And inevitably when you do find five consecutive minutes, you have no sooner lifted that Diet Coke/coffee to your mouth than a colleague comes in, remarks on the peace and quiet and says that they'd like to have a bit of time in their day...  and then there's nothing to do but cheerfully agree (as the alternative is probably braining them, which would have health consequences for them and legal and employment-related consequences for you).

Read this. Very important.

If you are a teacher librarian in Australia, read this.

And send a submission before 16 April 2010.

Thanks to Audrey Nay for the heads-up on her blog here.

Cheers

Ruth

International Women's Day 2010

One of the advantages of banners and bookmarks and signs is that, when Annual Occasions roll around (eg. International Women's Day) you can do Same Song, Next Verse.

So we have our purple/green banners and bookmarks back in action, with women/girls able to sign the banners on Friday lunchtime.  This year's Year 7 students have been reading them over, and students here last year who signed them then have had fun finding their names again.

The signs (love that cornucopia of language about women) are back on the noticeboard.  I meant to do put up some ribbonry or some such, but you know, time has got away.

Our ever-useful bookcase has books about famous/heroic/achieving women, with some pictures of fine Australian women across the top.  This is one of the times when we do one face-out book per 'box' rather than lots for browsing.  Always good to change things around, make them look different, encourage a second look.

For more resources, try the International Women's Day site.

Cheers

Ruth

TGIF.  Gosh I'm tired.  Must be the mad pace of this term so far, the heat and humidity, the way it's felt a tad relentless...some days it feels like you're trying to run in glue, and the goal you're after keeps receding as you scoot from task to task to question to find to help to question to task to phone call to....  So many kids are so terrific - when they tell you about a book they've enjoyed, or you help them understand something that puzzled them, or tell you a story about their life that makes you chuckle, or like yesterday when one boy quite out of the blue got four strikes in a row at sport/tenpin and it was fabulous to see his achievement.  I've got so many great colleagues.  Plenty to be grateful for.  But right now, this morning, it's exhausting rather than invigorating.  TGIF! (Thank goodness it's Friday).