Reflections on Chapters 1 and 2 of The School Library Media Manager by Blanche Woolls

By Lori Jane Perdew

LIS Media Administration

            I loved what author Blanche Woolls says about our American education system—“American education has been, is, and always will be in a state of change. New theories are developed, refined, implemented—usually before they are tested adequately—then discarded in a cycle that finds educators reinventing wheels.” (Woolls, 1) From what I’ve read about the history of education from copying down words, to rote memorization and, today, trying to create life long, problem-solving, critical thinkers, I believe that she is right and wrong. It does change all the time, and while I feel that standardized testing like the MAP program have definitely hindered our progress, just the fact that we’ve moved from rote memorization to at the very least, an educational system that is attempting to get children to learn to problem-solve for themselves is a step in the right direction. If you look at the DESE and MO Step standards, you can see the progress our educational system has made, in at least setting goals and standards. Unfortunately, we don’t seem to be any better yet at actually attaining those goals and standards.

The standards set are very good and lofty, and in the opinion of many of the teachers I work with at the two middle schools, not attainable right now because of the MAP testing. I have heard them say over and over again, how they would like to incorporate more character building lessons into the curriculum, or they’d like to try something new, but they can’t because of the limits set by the MAP test curriculum. I have never taught, so I can’t say one way or another from personal experience how the MAP testing affects teaching, but I’ve sure heard enough negative comments from teachers about it.

The part about alternatives to traditional education struck home with me because my younger sister, who was a teacher for a number of years, is going to homeschool my two nieces this coming school year. She’s been frustrated with the education her girls are receiving in Texas. Both of my nieces have done very well in school in reading, writing, math and science until this last year. She has seen a decline in my older niece’s reading ability and she has seen my younger niece become increasingly frustrated with the lack of learning that appears to be going on in the classroom. Katie is going into fourth grade and she complains to my sister that the teacher spends more time trying to get the children to pay attention, than in teaching. Katie has a real thirst for knowledge. She wants to know how things work and why they are the way they are and her thirst for knowledge is not being satisfied in the traditional school system. If things improve, my sister may homeschool them until at least high school.

While the teachers in both my niece’s school and in my two schools do use some technology in the classroom, none of them really use the library for anything more than a place to send students to find books or to do the occasional research on computer. Many of the teachers in my schools will send students to the library without telling me and have them use Google as their research database. I’ve watched students look things up on Google and not cite sources or copy and paste pictures without checking to see if they legally can be used. The students don’t check to see if the sources they are quoting are reliable. I’ve spoken to both the teachers and the administration about this oversight and the principals are finally starting to listen. It’s hard because I’m just the library aide and the head librarian, while using technology herself, doesn’t feel the need to encourage the teachers to really embrace technology in the classroom. The added frustration of filters on Web sites that filter out the good with the bad just compounds the problem. And with the limited time and resources teachers have to actually teach their students, it can be an overwhelmingly frustrating venture.

I know that it’s up to me to make sure that the library is a vital part of the learning environment and I am trying my best to not only encourage the students to learn and use more technology and in the proper way, but I am also attempting to excite the students about reading more for fun. Next year I will be starting a book club and, hopefully, we will be using Kindles for it. I also have been told that I can have the children create book reviews on Animoto and post them to the school’s Web site. I am excited about the opportunity to not only teach children about new technology but hopefully, to inspire them to want to read more.

I am also in the process of creating a list of reliable online databases for the children to access for research purposes next year. Now that the teachers have had time to get to know me, I am hoping that this coming school year, they will be more willing to communicate with me and let me help them teach the students how to research properly and to cite properly. It’s one of my main goals for next year.

Unfortunately, neither of my schools has any real relationship with the public libraries in the area. The Pacific branch which is in the same town as the two schools is a very small library and frankly, some of the librarians aren’t very friendly or willing to be helpful. I’ve not seen or heard of any interaction with the other branches in the area except for the occasional flyer about homework help being available at the local libraries.

Since I spend half of my working day sitting in the girl’s locker room at the two schools and I spend the other half learning the library systems, I haven’t had enough time yet to fully implement a lot of what I have learned so far about the role of the library media specialist, I feel at a slight disadvantage, but I know that I must make sure that the library is seen as more than a place to store books. It must be the epicenter of 21^st century learning—the place where new technology is not only embraced, but incorporated into the learning environment.