And dealing with realities I haven't had to face in quite a while.
I will openly admit that I am fearful about job hunting. I think the primary reason for that is that I'm not as mobile as many of my classmates - I really hope to be able to stay in the general area. So that raises the stakes of any particular job opportunity.
The other factor is that I haven't even started my portfolio. To some extent that's been a consequence of spending so much time on the things that ultimately go into the portfolio...but it doesn't make it any less scary to see my classmates beginning to apply for jobs, and feeling as though I'm unprepared to do the same should an opportunity arise.
I'm also still plagued by the thought that I haven't done as much as I wanted in any area of my life - I always wish that I had been more engaged in my classes, more active at practicum, more effective at work. I'm not great at ever saying that the amount that I've done is enough.
Putting all of that aside, there is a larger fear. Returning to school to finish my bachelor's degree represented a kind of rebirth for me. I was pulling myself out of a rut that I'd fallen into since graduating from OCC. Working toward the goal of finishing college, then getting into graduate school, then doing well there has all energized me and engaged my passions. I am to the point where I will be relieved and excited to finish school, but I'm nervous to no longer have that set of hoops to jump through. I'll have to find an acceptable balance for myself, which historically I have not been good at. Hopefully I've matured some.
Anyway, in practical terms, things are going well. I have three days left at my practicum site. I feel guilty for not staying longer, but due to all of the things mentioned above, I think it's important that I begin preparing for my next step. I've gotten a ton of great experience with kids and with teaching, which is all I ever hoped for from this practicum. I have a to-do list a mile long, but if I'm diligent I think I can position myself pretty well over the next few months.
PS Unconnected from the rest of this post, but occurring to me now, is the fact that Mike and I took a leadership seminar together last week. One of the activities was to draft a vision for 3-5 years into the future. Mine was over a page long - his was two sentences. I may post mine, because it is all stuff that I believe in and that is important to me. But when it comes down to it, particularly where the job hunt is concerned, all I want is a job where I can make a difference and support myself. That's all I ever wanted when I left the frame shop to go back to school, and I suppose it's reassuring that the goal is still essentially the same.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Practicum
The speed of life is the theme of life.
In only five weeks, it feels like a lifetime has passed. I have completed the majority of my second practicum - I have about 40 hours remaining and I should be done on March 8.
I have finally gotten my "trial by fire". The past five weeks have been spent primarily in teaching classes. I've gone from shaky and nervous to...better. Still kind of uncertain about what to do when problems come up, but much less apprehensive about getting in front of a class. I've learned a lot about how much material kids can handle in a class session, which has been a help to me as well. I no longer feel like I need to go crazy memorizing my notes in advance.
The school I'm in is a real challenge. Classes are large, and because of the demographics of the district, it's rare to have a class without at least 3 or 4 difficult students. I'm constantly dealing with bullying, backtalk, tantrums, and unwillingness to participate. It's all good experience, but I don't feel like I'm making a ton of progress with the kids, and I'm not convinced that I'm cut out for a city school.
What's interesting though is that seeing kids in their "natural habitat" (yes I just said that) I don't hate them. In most other contexts, I'm just not a kid person, but being on their turf I seem to be able to relate to them. I'm hoping to set up some shadowing experiences at other kinds of schools so that I can observe a wider variety of students.
It's been a good experience. It's sometimes fun, and often stressful. I find that as an intern, I appreciate the fixed schedule - it makes it easier for me to stay on top of things and plan. I may feel differently when I have my own library, but I feel like the fixed or hybrid schedule at least gets the kids into the library once a week. Perhaps a flexible schedule would allow that, but on individual terms, which I would be in favor of. In any case, the fixed schedule guarantees that I see at least 12 classes a week, which has been the biggest benefit of this practicum.
In only five weeks, it feels like a lifetime has passed. I have completed the majority of my second practicum - I have about 40 hours remaining and I should be done on March 8.
I have finally gotten my "trial by fire". The past five weeks have been spent primarily in teaching classes. I've gone from shaky and nervous to...better. Still kind of uncertain about what to do when problems come up, but much less apprehensive about getting in front of a class. I've learned a lot about how much material kids can handle in a class session, which has been a help to me as well. I no longer feel like I need to go crazy memorizing my notes in advance.
The school I'm in is a real challenge. Classes are large, and because of the demographics of the district, it's rare to have a class without at least 3 or 4 difficult students. I'm constantly dealing with bullying, backtalk, tantrums, and unwillingness to participate. It's all good experience, but I don't feel like I'm making a ton of progress with the kids, and I'm not convinced that I'm cut out for a city school.
What's interesting though is that seeing kids in their "natural habitat" (yes I just said that) I don't hate them. In most other contexts, I'm just not a kid person, but being on their turf I seem to be able to relate to them. I'm hoping to set up some shadowing experiences at other kinds of schools so that I can observe a wider variety of students.
It's been a good experience. It's sometimes fun, and often stressful. I find that as an intern, I appreciate the fixed schedule - it makes it easier for me to stay on top of things and plan. I may feel differently when I have my own library, but I feel like the fixed or hybrid schedule at least gets the kids into the library once a week. Perhaps a flexible schedule would allow that, but on individual terms, which I would be in favor of. In any case, the fixed schedule guarantees that I see at least 12 classes a week, which has been the biggest benefit of this practicum.
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Haha, it's fun to take a look at my last post and use it as a checkpoint. Hard to believe that I never blogged about how the lesson went (tragically) or the Holiday Booty Buster Challenge (forgot all about it after that weekend).
I dragged out my practicum, both because once I had my required hours there were only a few days left in the semester and why quit? and because I liked spending time with my host librarian. She let me do some cataloging and I tied up loose ends (although I'm going in tomorrow to help her with some computer stuff and to work out some bugs that have cropped up in the orientation). So for me, "Christmas break" began on December 22. I've essentially had three weeks off, but all in all it's felt like about two days. There were the holidays, and a very busy week at work between Christmas and New Years. Last Tuesday was the first day I truly relaxed. I had hoped for the same today, but I'm caught in a weird space between trying to wind down from last semester and already winding up for the next. Today I proofread a friend's essays, washed my kitchen floor and polished my kitchen chairs, and read John Green's new book.
I don't know what to make of last year. I feel like as a whole it served as a good illustration of burnout, as I started the year bursting with motivation, then got sick. I met Mike at the midpoint of being sick, so balancing my new life with him (ie any non-school life at all) became a new challenge, and unfortunately, stressor. This past semester I did find some peace by accepting his boundaries - be up front about when I need to do homework instead of just working constantly while we're supposed to be hanging out together. 616 was easy enough that it was little more than a minor annoyance compared to the intensity of my practicum. I expect this semester to require more focus.
I would like to make resolutions for this year, but I don't know what to expect. I will graduate this year. This will be the first time in four years that I haven't had a clear path carved out for me. I've had to make some choices along the way, but I am finally at the end of the preparation phase and will be on to the business of living my life. What I can reasonably ask of myself:
I dragged out my practicum, both because once I had my required hours there were only a few days left in the semester and why quit? and because I liked spending time with my host librarian. She let me do some cataloging and I tied up loose ends (although I'm going in tomorrow to help her with some computer stuff and to work out some bugs that have cropped up in the orientation). So for me, "Christmas break" began on December 22. I've essentially had three weeks off, but all in all it's felt like about two days. There were the holidays, and a very busy week at work between Christmas and New Years. Last Tuesday was the first day I truly relaxed. I had hoped for the same today, but I'm caught in a weird space between trying to wind down from last semester and already winding up for the next. Today I proofread a friend's essays, washed my kitchen floor and polished my kitchen chairs, and read John Green's new book.
I don't know what to make of last year. I feel like as a whole it served as a good illustration of burnout, as I started the year bursting with motivation, then got sick. I met Mike at the midpoint of being sick, so balancing my new life with him (ie any non-school life at all) became a new challenge, and unfortunately, stressor. This past semester I did find some peace by accepting his boundaries - be up front about when I need to do homework instead of just working constantly while we're supposed to be hanging out together. 616 was easy enough that it was little more than a minor annoyance compared to the intensity of my practicum. I expect this semester to require more focus.
I would like to make resolutions for this year, but I don't know what to expect. I will graduate this year. This will be the first time in four years that I haven't had a clear path carved out for me. I've had to make some choices along the way, but I am finally at the end of the preparation phase and will be on to the business of living my life. What I can reasonably ask of myself:
- Commit to taking what I can from my last semester in terms of career prep, networking, and teaching experience
- Explore options for improving the Bookstore
- Meet or exceed expectations for work at circulation and on teen space projects
- Maintain a fitness routine, improve Iron Girl time
- Keep my relationship with Mike in the foreground of my mind, keep working at it and not taking it for granted
- Make my job choice with integrity
Monday, November 21, 2011
Busy Girl!
What a crazy, crazy, crazy week! I was back at practicum for one day this week. I met with my collaborating teacher to plan out our lesson, which is pretty much settled and scheduled. It's a fairly simple project, but it'll give me some face time with a class.
Thursday was work, and Thursday night I helped Mike prep his kitchen floor for laying linoleum. Thursday we mainly just pulled up the old tiles and ripped out the moulding.
Friday I actually had a day off, but ended up being super busy. Since I didn't know when or if I would have another non-holiday weekday off before Christmas, I focused on getting Mike's big present together. While waiting for confirmation for one step of the process, I did work emails, paid bills and typed texts (in short I archive our important conversations and my phone doesn't export :p I think it's part of being a librarian; I can't stand to lose those "writings"). I went to a lovely dinner party and saw one of my favorite librarians.
Saturday was the really intense day. I got out to Auburn around 1 (after coffee with another of my favorite librarians). We got right down to work on the floor. We patched the holes in the subfloor, pulled out the washer and dryer (which involved cleaning and removing the tiles that had been underneath them, and moved the fridge and stove. We went and got food while waiting for the subfloor compound to harden, then came home and sanded. I swept and swept and swept, then went over the entire floor on my hands and knees feeling for any rough spots or bumps.
The next step was creating a template of the floor. We cut craft paper and laid it out along the edges of the room. Good thing, because it turned out that the room was slightly off square - basically parallelogram shaped. We carted the linoleum into the kitchen, taped down the template at the edge of the roll, and started cutting. With such a big roll, there was no place that we could lay out the whole thing, so we had to do a little, roll up the end we had just cut, then do some more.
Unrolling the cut linoleum over the entire floor was the most frustrating part of the process, because we had to work it around cabinets, and it did not want to go. Amazingly though, once it was down, the fit was practically perfect. We glued one side at a time (that was all Mike, as we only bought one trowel) then used a roller to smooth out air bubbles.
Sounds easy, right? Did I mention that the whole process took about 14 hours of work time? 19 hours total (excluding time spent running out for food and supplies). We went to bed at 7am.
On Sunday, we had a family party to go to, but afterward our goal was to put the appliances back in. Mike has a newer washer that had been in the garage, so we brought that upstairs on a dolly. Not as easy as it sounds. We had to disassemble his banister to squeeze it around the top of the stairs. Then we had to bring the old, heavy, gross one down. Once that was done, it was homework time for me!
The Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge started on Saturday (a holiday-themed fitness competition) and I was unable to do an actual "workout" due to all of this. But I think I'm justified in my decision to track 4 hours worth of strength training - I spent at least an hour on the stairs supporting a washer over my head, to say nothing of several hours of rolling the floor or lugging the other appliances.
I had hoped to make it to yoga tonight, since I thought it would be nice to stretch out all my aches and pains, but I got home from work and slept for about 4 hours. I can't complain too much though. Mike has a pretty new floor, and I have major brownie points and a sparkly new bucket. It's fun watching the apartment improving all the time, and it's nice to have a part in it.
Thursday was work, and Thursday night I helped Mike prep his kitchen floor for laying linoleum. Thursday we mainly just pulled up the old tiles and ripped out the moulding.
Friday I actually had a day off, but ended up being super busy. Since I didn't know when or if I would have another non-holiday weekday off before Christmas, I focused on getting Mike's big present together. While waiting for confirmation for one step of the process, I did work emails, paid bills and typed texts (in short I archive our important conversations and my phone doesn't export :p I think it's part of being a librarian; I can't stand to lose those "writings"). I went to a lovely dinner party and saw one of my favorite librarians.
Saturday was the really intense day. I got out to Auburn around 1 (after coffee with another of my favorite librarians). We got right down to work on the floor. We patched the holes in the subfloor, pulled out the washer and dryer (which involved cleaning and removing the tiles that had been underneath them, and moved the fridge and stove. We went and got food while waiting for the subfloor compound to harden, then came home and sanded. I swept and swept and swept, then went over the entire floor on my hands and knees feeling for any rough spots or bumps.
The next step was creating a template of the floor. We cut craft paper and laid it out along the edges of the room. Good thing, because it turned out that the room was slightly off square - basically parallelogram shaped. We carted the linoleum into the kitchen, taped down the template at the edge of the roll, and started cutting. With such a big roll, there was no place that we could lay out the whole thing, so we had to do a little, roll up the end we had just cut, then do some more.
Unrolling the cut linoleum over the entire floor was the most frustrating part of the process, because we had to work it around cabinets, and it did not want to go. Amazingly though, once it was down, the fit was practically perfect. We glued one side at a time (that was all Mike, as we only bought one trowel) then used a roller to smooth out air bubbles.
Sounds easy, right? Did I mention that the whole process took about 14 hours of work time? 19 hours total (excluding time spent running out for food and supplies). We went to bed at 7am.
On Sunday, we had a family party to go to, but afterward our goal was to put the appliances back in. Mike has a newer washer that had been in the garage, so we brought that upstairs on a dolly. Not as easy as it sounds. We had to disassemble his banister to squeeze it around the top of the stairs. Then we had to bring the old, heavy, gross one down. Once that was done, it was homework time for me!
The Holiday Bootie Buster Challenge started on Saturday (a holiday-themed fitness competition) and I was unable to do an actual "workout" due to all of this. But I think I'm justified in my decision to track 4 hours worth of strength training - I spent at least an hour on the stairs supporting a washer over my head, to say nothing of several hours of rolling the floor or lugging the other appliances.
I had hoped to make it to yoga tonight, since I thought it would be nice to stretch out all my aches and pains, but I got home from work and slept for about 4 hours. I can't complain too much though. Mike has a pretty new floor, and I have major brownie points and a sparkly new bucket. It's fun watching the apartment improving all the time, and it's nice to have a part in it.
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Today I got to attend my very first conference, the Fall meeting of the OCM BOCES School Library System. It was a really great day, and gave my overall motivation a bit of a boost. It also gave me some perspective on where I stand in my education.
Going into the day, I wished that I had my e-portfolio prepared. If I had it ready, I would have felt more confident about networking. My goal for the day was to talk to librarians and to make contact with an elementary librarian who might take me on as an intern. To that end, I created a few business cards with my basic information, just to give people something to remember me by.
I attended four sessions: Doug Johnson's keynote, a presentation on creating an e-portfolio lead by the Syracuse City School District's Ed Tech team, Anthony Rotolo's social media session, and Project Enable.
I was excited to hear (and meet!) Doug Johnson, as I discovered his writing while doing my first rapid response for 511 last year, and have followed his blog ever since. He had a lot of great points, but here's what I took away:
The session on e-portfolios was not what I expected, but very helpful. I was thinking it would be more nuts and bolts on how to actually put one together, but what we got was a list of essential components and tools for developing them. I had vaguely thought that I should have a mission statement in my portfolio, but now I know that I need my professional philosophy in there, with measurable goals, evidence of learning, and reflection.
This session made me think hard about this blog. I've long felt that I do want a blog to be a part of my e-portfolio, but would not have given out this one because so many of the entries over the past year have been written to express frustration, disillusionment, and exhaustion. I have far more success than this blog conveys. However, having read Alyssa Vincent's honest account of burnout and having felt immensely comforted by it, I think I would like to maintain this blog, weaknesses and all. I will just strive to make more of an effort to reflect when I'm feeling positive as well.
I also realized, when we talked about goals, that the reason my personal frustrations have crept into my professional blog is that my personal and professional goals are deeply intertwined. Being braver, working harder and being better informed all come into play personally and professionally, and all are affected by my overall energy level and attitude. I think that having measurable professional goals will help me to keep career stresses from feeling like my whole life is struggling.
After this session, we had a break for lunch. I had asked Blythe Bennett for suggestions of good elementary librarians to approach, and found myself sitting next to one of them. When we had both finished eating, I steeled myself and struck up a conversation, which ended up lasting about 20 minutes. She was extremely cool - forward thinking and passionate, and it sounds like she has a great program. I am hopeful that I will be able to do my second practicum with her.
I don't have a lot to say about Rotolo's session - it was a lot of fun, and gave me some context for the way technology and social media are changing the world and should be changing education. Project Enable was eye-opening. The presenters had us work through several simulations to force us to understand what students with disabilities are working with. It emphasized the need for patience, and especially for librarians to be thoroughly informed about the students they are working with. It was a valuable session, particularly given that I know very little about students with disabilities and am now much more aware of the areas in which I need to educate myself.
So, time to move forward. I would like to retool this blog a bit to make it more attractive, and develop my e-portfolio. I'm also debating whether to separate my personal and professional twitter presence. Not so much because I say anything inappropriate as because I wouldn't want to follow a colleague who tweeted as much non-library stuff as I do.
Going into the day, I wished that I had my e-portfolio prepared. If I had it ready, I would have felt more confident about networking. My goal for the day was to talk to librarians and to make contact with an elementary librarian who might take me on as an intern. To that end, I created a few business cards with my basic information, just to give people something to remember me by.
I attended four sessions: Doug Johnson's keynote, a presentation on creating an e-portfolio lead by the Syracuse City School District's Ed Tech team, Anthony Rotolo's social media session, and Project Enable.
I was excited to hear (and meet!) Doug Johnson, as I discovered his writing while doing my first rapid response for 511 last year, and have followed his blog ever since. He had a lot of great points, but here's what I took away:
- The speed of change is our real challenge
- We must distinguish the act of reading from the medium of books
- Technology is moving more and more to a single device that does everything; we have to be concerned about what this means for choice, competition and freedom of information
- Young people trust their peers more than packaged marketing materials; user reviews are a kind of peer review; applies to all sorts of information
- The political leanings of parents might affect how their kids approach information
- "Doomed libraries are all alike; every successful library is successful in its own way."
- Be visible outside of the library
- Advocate for users
- DIVERSIFY; make your physical space compelling enough to draw in users
- No whining!
The session on e-portfolios was not what I expected, but very helpful. I was thinking it would be more nuts and bolts on how to actually put one together, but what we got was a list of essential components and tools for developing them. I had vaguely thought that I should have a mission statement in my portfolio, but now I know that I need my professional philosophy in there, with measurable goals, evidence of learning, and reflection.
This session made me think hard about this blog. I've long felt that I do want a blog to be a part of my e-portfolio, but would not have given out this one because so many of the entries over the past year have been written to express frustration, disillusionment, and exhaustion. I have far more success than this blog conveys. However, having read Alyssa Vincent's honest account of burnout and having felt immensely comforted by it, I think I would like to maintain this blog, weaknesses and all. I will just strive to make more of an effort to reflect when I'm feeling positive as well.
I also realized, when we talked about goals, that the reason my personal frustrations have crept into my professional blog is that my personal and professional goals are deeply intertwined. Being braver, working harder and being better informed all come into play personally and professionally, and all are affected by my overall energy level and attitude. I think that having measurable professional goals will help me to keep career stresses from feeling like my whole life is struggling.
After this session, we had a break for lunch. I had asked Blythe Bennett for suggestions of good elementary librarians to approach, and found myself sitting next to one of them. When we had both finished eating, I steeled myself and struck up a conversation, which ended up lasting about 20 minutes. She was extremely cool - forward thinking and passionate, and it sounds like she has a great program. I am hopeful that I will be able to do my second practicum with her.
I don't have a lot to say about Rotolo's session - it was a lot of fun, and gave me some context for the way technology and social media are changing the world and should be changing education. Project Enable was eye-opening. The presenters had us work through several simulations to force us to understand what students with disabilities are working with. It emphasized the need for patience, and especially for librarians to be thoroughly informed about the students they are working with. It was a valuable session, particularly given that I know very little about students with disabilities and am now much more aware of the areas in which I need to educate myself.
So, time to move forward. I would like to retool this blog a bit to make it more attractive, and develop my e-portfolio. I'm also debating whether to separate my personal and professional twitter presence. Not so much because I say anything inappropriate as because I wouldn't want to follow a colleague who tweeted as much non-library stuff as I do.
Friday, October 21, 2011
On Balance
I had a really stupid revelation today.
I frequently feel like I've used up my stores of energy, and all I want is permission to just stop, because living the rest of my life just sounds exhausting.
I've lived my life in cycles of intense motivation and total hibernation. I'm happier in the motivated periods, but they only last until I get ill and depressed, and have nothing left in the tank to heal myself.
It finally occurred to me, today, that if I exist in these cycles, it is possible for my health and energy levels to replenish themselves, but that I drive myself so far into the ground that it takes weeks/months to recover.
So...if I just make a point of taking care of myself all along...will I recharge as I go?
This seems like a really obvious, simple concept, but I've always been an all or nothing person. If I'm not working my ass off, I feel like a failure.
I'm trying something new. At this point, I'm so tired and worn down that I'm not even excited about school or my future career anymore. This is not okay. So I have no choice but to change, and I think the answer is to actually prioritize my Self. Instead of sacrificing myself to do everything I think I should, and everything everyone else thinks I should (even though it doesn't feel like enough) I need to make sure I have time for the basics: sleeping, eating real food, switching my brain off for a book or a puzzle occasionally, and exercising. This requires significantly more free time than I've had, but my hope is that once my life is more in balance, the time I do spend working will be more efficient.
I hope that this will not lower my level of achievement. But even if it does, if it allows me to be sustainably happy and to enjoy my life's work (which is the point of putting myself through this in the first place, to have work that I will love) then I will learn to be okay with it.
I frequently feel like I've used up my stores of energy, and all I want is permission to just stop, because living the rest of my life just sounds exhausting.
I've lived my life in cycles of intense motivation and total hibernation. I'm happier in the motivated periods, but they only last until I get ill and depressed, and have nothing left in the tank to heal myself.
It finally occurred to me, today, that if I exist in these cycles, it is possible for my health and energy levels to replenish themselves, but that I drive myself so far into the ground that it takes weeks/months to recover.
So...if I just make a point of taking care of myself all along...will I recharge as I go?
This seems like a really obvious, simple concept, but I've always been an all or nothing person. If I'm not working my ass off, I feel like a failure.
I'm trying something new. At this point, I'm so tired and worn down that I'm not even excited about school or my future career anymore. This is not okay. So I have no choice but to change, and I think the answer is to actually prioritize my Self. Instead of sacrificing myself to do everything I think I should, and everything everyone else thinks I should (even though it doesn't feel like enough) I need to make sure I have time for the basics: sleeping, eating real food, switching my brain off for a book or a puzzle occasionally, and exercising. This requires significantly more free time than I've had, but my hope is that once my life is more in balance, the time I do spend working will be more efficient.
I hope that this will not lower my level of achievement. But even if it does, if it allows me to be sustainably happy and to enjoy my life's work (which is the point of putting myself through this in the first place, to have work that I will love) then I will learn to be okay with it.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Doubts 'n stuff
When I arrived at SU I was the most hardcore school librarian type you could find. Even among my school media classmates I was among the most committed to actually working in a school. I wasn't cynical about it, I just wanted to do a good job. I'm well into my fourth semester of grad school and am sort of wondering how I got here.
I still think school libraries are important and may be the only hope there is for modern education, but I'm infuriated at the number of ridiculous requirements intended to boost teacher performance that in reality result in kids getting cheated out of real learning - discovery, critical thought, and freedom to pursue interests.
I also don't think there's enough time or room in the curriculum to let kids struggle. Part of really learning something inside and out is wrestling with it, and that isn't happening any more. Teachers do things for students rather than forcing them to figure it out, because there's just not time. Students ask me for help in the library, for things that they could easily figure out if they actually looked at the shelf or explored a few drop down menus on the computer. That was how I learned best. I had a task to complete, so I figured it out. Even now- I'm writing an HTML website for my practicum...I don't know HTML. I don't know a damn thing. Iwas lucky enough to have a tech savvy friend give me a crash course over about 2 hours, and I've been flying solo. I don't think students now realize that A. The answers are out there if you think about how to look and B. That they are 100% competent to figure things out on their own.
I keep looking at how things are done and imagining a different model for education. It's scary enough that I can imagine why people homeschool, although I don't think that's a great option either. It seems to me that schools are a leftover from a time when work was far more routine and required less creativity. Schools are buildings crammed with kids, staffed with authority figures charged with keeping them disciplined enough that learning is not disrupted. It's not an atmosphere that encouraged individuality, rebellion, learning for its own sake, thinking outside the box etc., yet that's what the "real world" values. Of course that's not universal, but it's becoming more and more true.
I'm sure I'll continue to ruminate on the state and future of education, but in short, I'm trying to understand whether my frustrations are an obstacle or an opportunity. Will I be hopelessly frustrated and unhappy as a school librarian, or will I attack it and bring passion to it? I remind myself that when that time comes, it will have my full attention, not the crazy 5 way split my life has been in for years.
The other wild card is that my public library job has been increasingly complex, interesting and rewarding of late. I guess it's good to know that there is a happy place for me in one or the other of these worlds.
I still think school libraries are important and may be the only hope there is for modern education, but I'm infuriated at the number of ridiculous requirements intended to boost teacher performance that in reality result in kids getting cheated out of real learning - discovery, critical thought, and freedom to pursue interests.
I also don't think there's enough time or room in the curriculum to let kids struggle. Part of really learning something inside and out is wrestling with it, and that isn't happening any more. Teachers do things for students rather than forcing them to figure it out, because there's just not time. Students ask me for help in the library, for things that they could easily figure out if they actually looked at the shelf or explored a few drop down menus on the computer. That was how I learned best. I had a task to complete, so I figured it out. Even now- I'm writing an HTML website for my practicum...I don't know HTML. I don't know a damn thing. Iwas lucky enough to have a tech savvy friend give me a crash course over about 2 hours, and I've been flying solo. I don't think students now realize that A. The answers are out there if you think about how to look and B. That they are 100% competent to figure things out on their own.
I keep looking at how things are done and imagining a different model for education. It's scary enough that I can imagine why people homeschool, although I don't think that's a great option either. It seems to me that schools are a leftover from a time when work was far more routine and required less creativity. Schools are buildings crammed with kids, staffed with authority figures charged with keeping them disciplined enough that learning is not disrupted. It's not an atmosphere that encouraged individuality, rebellion, learning for its own sake, thinking outside the box etc., yet that's what the "real world" values. Of course that's not universal, but it's becoming more and more true.
I'm sure I'll continue to ruminate on the state and future of education, but in short, I'm trying to understand whether my frustrations are an obstacle or an opportunity. Will I be hopelessly frustrated and unhappy as a school librarian, or will I attack it and bring passion to it? I remind myself that when that time comes, it will have my full attention, not the crazy 5 way split my life has been in for years.
The other wild card is that my public library job has been increasingly complex, interesting and rewarding of late. I guess it's good to know that there is a happy place for me in one or the other of these worlds.
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