Re: Library Media Specialists--Where Do They Come From and Where

[Suby Wallace <swallace@NIC.CRSC.K12.AR.US>]

I've been saving these messages and hoping to find time to read what I knew
would be an interesting topic!  I't so fun to read what you all have to say,
and the varied backgrounds we all have.  Now, I'll add my 3 cents' worth
(you know I can't stop at a few lines!).

After a really horrendous student teaching experience (I still shudder 25
years later), I decided, "Hmmmmm......guess I'd better think of something
else to do!"  I love kids, loved to read from a very early age, do
artsy-craftsy things, am a ham, like to sing and play fundamental guitar.  I
sat in my dorm room one day, almost in a sweat of panic, and thought: what
can I do?? what can I do??  How will I support myself in this world?  I
decided I could be a children's librarian.  I went to Peabody and got my MLS.

I worked in the public library for a long time, quit 4 years while my kids
were babies.  Then, my husband went back to school at age 40 to get a
teaching certificate, we moved to Jonesboro, and after living here a couple
of years, I started working part time at the public library.  I was there
for several years, and one day realized that in the summertime, I was coming
home so exhausted that I'd fall into bed with no communication with my
husband and kids.  I was working with everybody else's kids, and had no
energy for my own.

My mom died that year, and as she was the fourth generation in her family to
be a teacher, she'd always encouraged me to get back into the classroom, for
my sake as well as my kids'.  She wasn't wealthy, but my little inheritance
enabled me to quit working and start subbing.  I got a job in a school
library, and feel that I am now in heaven on earth.

I loved the public library, but I often was frustrated by the fact that I
served the kids whose parents brought them there.  They didn't really need
my help all that much.  I wanted to reach those kids whose parents didn't
care.  As a school librarian, I get every kid in the school, once a week.  i
get a chance to get them excited about learning, about search and
discovery!!, about reading.  And now, I can teach them computers, too.  I
love to tell stories, and often have the secretary run into my room with big
eyes to see if I need to be saved from a wild kid or something, when I'm
standing there (standing is not really what you do when you're telling a
story, but I can't think of what other word to use) telling a story that has
a rooster in it!

I also love serving every kid, and being the person in the building who can
love them no matter what.  Classroom teachers can't always do that, when
they have a problem child day in, day out.  The counselor has to help them
with their problems, the principal has to deal with disciplining them.  But,
I can surely put up with them for 30 minutes each week.  It's a challenge to
me to look up, see that kid who disrupted my class last week, look him in
the eye and smile and say enthusiastically, "Hi, Hercules!  How are you
doing?!", pat him on the shoulder and let him know he's starting with a
clean slate.  I can be the one place where he's (for the most part)
unconditionally accepted.  I'm not a saint, you guys.  My daughter told me
once, "But Mom, isn't that the kid you always talk about that you absolutely
cannot stand?!  How can you be so nice to him?"  I told her that 1) he needs
somebody to like him, and 2) if I let him know how I really feel about him,
I will bring out the worst in him.  Maybe I can look in there and find that
little kernel of goodness that even he's forgotten he has.

For me, the library provides me a place to try to make my life meaningful,
to feel like I'm making the world a better place to be.  And, as someone
said earlier, I get paid to do it!!  It's great to get paid to have fun,
isn't it?





Suby Weston Wallace
Nettleton Intermediate Center  (grades 5-6)
3801 Vera
Jonesboro, AR   72401   swallace@nic.crsc.k12.ar.us
870-932-5650     fax 870-930-3930