help--job woes (long)

[Mary Ziller <cdslibrary@XOOMMAIL.COM>]

This turned out to be a long e-mail, but please help me--I need your widom
and feedback.

 I was a first year school librarian, and I lost my job.  I still want to
be a librarian, so I am trying to analyze what went wrong, what I could
have done differently, and next time will do differently, so I can keep my
job.   I loved student teaching and feel I have a lot to offer, so instead
of thinking of a career change, I would like to ask the members of this
listserv what they think of my situation and what I should have done
differently.

I have found this listserv to be very knowledgeable and helpful, so I turn
to you.

Is it usual for a first year librarian to be required to teach computer
classes in addition to automating the library?

Also what are the job boundaries between the librarian and the computer
teacher when the school has no computers in the library, so the electronic
resources are available only in the computer lab?  My feeling is that the
computer teacher should teach
    1. software applications such as MS Office (Excel, Word, Power
Point,    Access), Pagemaker, Hyperstudio, Photoshop, Browsers,   etc.  and
    2. how to do tasks as FTP, telnet, e-mail, formatting disks, scanning
disks for viruses, scanning photos, making webpages, and using the
internet, etc.

I feel the librarian should be the teacher of information literacy, and the
librarian should be the one who guides the students' research--not the
computer teacher.

There seems to be some overlap between the roles of the computer teacher
and the librarian.  The librarian needs to be computer literate to manage
information, and she should help students with computer skills (using Excel
to sort data or cut and paste their results into a word document to print
from online databases).  But I feel these skills should be taught by the
librarian on an as needed basis within the context of doing research.

The school where I was working had not had a librarian for four years.
Prior to that there had been volunteers running the library, and the school
had never had a degreed librarian. When they received a large donation,
they replaced the library with a computer lab in the library space.  They
moved all of the books to another building without Internet access (prior
to my arrival).  The computer teacher set up a network of computers with an
internet connection in the lab and called it the "Media Center".

When I arrived this September, my first priority was to get electronic
resources for the school to fill the information gap.  (The library
holdings are so out of date that they do not support the curriculum, and
students can not get the information they need for homework or projects).
Because the computer lab was in the building with Internet access, I
assumed that I would be helping the students research in the computer lab.

The computer teacher thought that since she had built the lab, it was her
job to help students in the lab and I should be placed in an office with
Internet access on another floor.  She expected students to come to me one-
on-one if she could not help them.

My idea was that I should be in the lab to be available to help the
students during their research.  I doubt that a student would break off his
search to go to another office to ask for guidance.  There are only 6
computers in the lab, and the student would lose his computer, if he left.
In addition, some students (and the computer teacher) think that using
search engines is sufficient for research.  If I am in the room observing
their research, I can steer them to Electric Library, EBSCO host, etc.
where they will find relevant results.

The school tried to address the overlap in our respective job roles by
offering me the office with an internet connection to pacify the computer
teacher by removing  me from the computer lab. There were other issues,
too, but who is in charge of research was the main one that caused me to
quit my job.  How can I be a librarian, if I do not have access to the
students while they are researching?

One of the other issues--besides who should be in charge of research in the
computer lab in a school with an inadequate library and no internet
connection was teacher collaboration.  The computer teacher wanted to
continue to be the resource person for the teachers (advise them which web
sites would be useful for students--the school had been without a librarian
for years), but I felt that the librarian should be the resource person.
The school administration decided to split the responsibility between the
librarian and the computer teacher.  The librarian would be the resource
person for the humanities and the computer teacher would be responsible for
helping the in the sciences.  However, the science teacher assigned long
term science projects for the 6th and 8th grade students with a required
library research paper.

At this school, I was assigned to teach the computer classes to the 6th ,
8th and 11th grade classes in addition to automating the library.  So, I
used the computer class time to let the students research their science
projects.  Until they had decided upon their project topics, I taught them
Excel, so they could manage their information and make graphs to display
their experiment's results.  The students in the 6th grade did not work
cooperatively at the computers.  There were 20 students and 6 computers, so
they had to share.  It was hard for them to pay attention because they are
a class that is notorious for socializing and being disruptive instead of
applying themselves to learning.  They act that way for all of their
teachers, but I thought it was just me, so I spent my evenings creating an
interesting curriculum, so they would not be bored.  We discussed classroom
behavior and the class resolved to try to be better behaved for me. I split
the class up for an assessment.  6 students did their assessment with me,
and the other students were in another building with the other computer
teacher.  Then another group of 6 came down until everyone had been
assessed.  I was dismayed to find out that only the students who had been
sitting at the computers during instruction had learned Excel.  The others
who had only watched the instruction on the classroom TV and observed the
leader of their group  had to start from square one.  However, I was so
pleased with the students' behavior in the small group, that I suggested to
the principal that we change the schedule to offer computer classes to only
6 students at a time, so they each can have hands on learning. The director
of curriculum was against this because there was no one for coverage of the
extra students and teachers would have to give up their planning periods to
accommodate me. (Later at a grade level meeting, I learned that the 6th
grade is known to be a hard class, and their other teachers also want to
split them up next year into 2 groups.  It wasn't just me).

The principal's solution to the behavior problem was to deny the 6th grade
access to the computer lab until they could learn to behave for me.  We
were put in a room with 21 old computers.  The computers all had different
software on them, so that the class could not all work on the same
assignment, and the computers also had many problems (on some one could not
save work, on others the hard drives were too full to add more software to
make all computers uniform, the software for Excel was lost, there were no
CD-ROM drives so we could not install the software for the required
textbook for the 11th grade computer class.   All of my lesson plans for
the 6th and 8th grades had been focused on researching the science topics,
and teaching Excel and Power Point (the Office97 version).  This lab had
Excel 3.0 on maybe 10 computers, and Power Point 2.0 on two computers, and
Word 2.0 on all of the computers.  When we were removed to the old computer
lab, since it has no internet access, we could not do research.  All of my
lesson plans had to be redone.  The students were confused and frustrated
by having to learn Excel 3.0 because it is different and less functional
than Excel in Office 97.  All we could do was word processing and data
entry.  I had the children write up their goals, and do book reports on
computer books, but they still would not behave.  So we could not return to
the "Media Center. Cut off from the electronic resources in the "Media
Center", we could not do research (the library had virtually no books on
the science topics).  As a librarian without access to resources, I felt
like a piano player whose hands had been cut off.

Still, I researched the science topics from home in the evenings and e-
mailed the results to my students (in addition to replanning new lessons
for an outdated lab with uneven distribution of software on the computers
with serious problems).  I was staying up until 11:00 at night and getting
up at 4:00 in the morning to plan lessons and do the other tasks in the
library.

Parents of the 6th graders (who had been barred from the computer lab with
Internet access) complained that the students needed help doing research
for the science fair projects and they wanted help during school hours
because it was a burden on the parents to have to help with the research at
home or at a local library.   One parent, who was also a library volunteer
helping me with the inventory, confided that the science project was
causing her daughter so much stress that she was having stomach aches, and
had so much homework that she could not go to bed until 11:00 p.m.  To
remedy this, without informing me, the administration decided that the
computer teacher would help the 6th graders in the "Media Center" during
lunch (she has lab duty on Wednesdays).  When I found out, I offered to
help, too (I have library duty at lunch time 3 days per week and offered to
come to the lab instead).  But many students did not come.

The final straw to make me quit my job, was when the teacher who had been
collaborating with me for 7th and 9th grade social studies left me out of
the planning meeting for the next unit and invited the computer teacher
instead, since the computer teacher teaches the 7th and 9th grades.   I
still showed up in the computer lab to help students with research, but I
was not allowed to conduct the reference interview with the students.  The
computer teacher and the social studies teacher felt that they had to do
all of the interviews themselves because they had planned the unit and
wanted to approve topics.  So, the students and I had to wait, wasting
time.  Students could not begin their research until they had had a
reference interview to direct their searches.  They were not allowed to
work with me until the computer teacher approved their topic and advised
them on where to research.  The computer teacher did not suggest the
electronic databases as resources, so the students wasted their time with
huge results of false hits retrieved from search engines when the relevant
documents they needed were readily available in proprietary databases.
Since I also had to conduct a reference interview with the students I
helped (so that I would know what they were looking for), more time was
wasted.

Another issue was automating the library.  I contacted a cable company
about getting an internet connection, so I could conduct research in the
library instead of in the "Media Center"/Computer lab.  The cable company
wanted to work with only one representative from the school, and the
logical choice was the computer teacher, since she had been working with
them regarding cable TV access in the "Media Center".  That was ok with me
until I learned that the computer teacher had scheduled people for a site
visit to her lab for cable TV, but had forgotten to include the library for
Internet access.

The school business manager got a high speed satellite internet connection
for the ten business and administrative offices, but she also left the
library out because it is in another part of the building.

The school administration thought that it would be a sufficient solution
for the librarian to work out of an internet connected office separate from
the library and the Computer lab ("Media Center") until the library got an
internet connection. The librarian would have had to share the computer
with the secretary and Head of the Upper School and a student publishing
club.

Under the circumstances--
*no internet access in the library in the foreseeable future and not being
the contact person to talk to the Internet provider,
*being asked to work in an isolated office instead of in the computer lab
where the students conduct their research,
*and instead of rescheduling the 6th grade computer classes in smaller more
manageable groups, hiring another teacher to teach all of my computer
classes, even the 11th grade information literacy class which had produced
excellent projects,
*excluding me and replacing me with the computer teacher instead of
including me in teacher collaboration
--I did not see how I could continue to work at the school.  When I lost my
computer classes, I also lost the respect of the students.  I did not have
a key to the building with the Computer lab.  I was locked out, but there
were students inside at the Coke machine who saw me.  They said, "Mrs. M---
is at the door", but no one opened the door for me.  They all left for
class and left me standing outside in the cold with all of my bags.

In my job interview, I was promised that if I needed help, mentoring would
be available.  As many first year teachers are, I was not as organized as I
should have liked to be.  Since I was supposed to be in the library and in
the computer lab, I sometimes missed a class because I was doing inventory
and data entry for automation in the library.  When the computer teacher
was on vacation, I misplaced some teachers' forms requesting use of the lab
and the time they needed it, but I solved this problem by posting a
schedule on the computer lab door where the teachers were supposed to sign
up for the computer lab, instead of using the signout forms.   I could know
when I was supposed to be there instead of in the library by consulting the
schedule on the lab door.  This worked well until the computer teacher
required teachers to give her a sign-out form to use the lab again when she
returned.  The teachers were still supposed to sign in on the schedule
posted on the door, but the social studies teacher did not.  So, I only
found out that her students were researching in the lab when half of her
class came to the library with questions that could not be answered with
our outdated print resources, and I went to the computer lab to use the
electronic resources there.  I felt like they had gone behind my back.
Maybe it was not meant that way, but in light of all that had happened,
that is how it felt--like they wanted the computer teacher to be in charge
of research, and no one bothered to tell the librarian that help with
research was needed.  Since I discovered students were having trouble
finding relevant documents, I directed them to Electricc Library etc., but
some students seemed scared of alienating the computer teacher if they
asked me for help instead of her.   Their fear may be justified.  The
computer teacher is a wonderful person, but she comes across as very strict
(punitive) and controlling toward students.  That's her style and the
students respect it, but after she took over my 11th grade computer class,
some of my students begged me to come back to them.  A new computer teacher
was hired to teach my 8th and 6th grade classes, and the senior  computer
teacher gave up her 4th grade class to the new teacher (who was
uncomfortable teaching high schoolers) so she could teach my 11th graders
herself.  This was a big victory for the computer teacher because she had
wanted to teach the 11th grade class, but the principal wanted it taught as
an Information Literacy class, and therefore assigned it to the librarian.
It was also a defeat for the librarian to have the Information Literacy
class taken from her even though her students had performed well.   The
students said that they had learned more from me in two months than they
learned all year last year from the computer teacher.  The reason given
for relieving the librarian of all computer classes was to relieve her of
the stress of creating a curriculum for computer classes in order to allow
the librarian to concentrate on automating the library.  That made sense,
but I still wanted to be involved with the students' research and not left
totally out of the picture.  However, the principal felt that "some people
are given the gift by God to teach and others are not".   So instead of
providing me with the mentoring that was promised in the job interview, so
I could become a good teacher and develop good classroom management skills,
they offered to provide me with my own office with an internet connection
to work with students one-on-one.   But since it would be separate from the
students research area, I felt they had actually taken everything away from
me.

I want to learn from my school experience and respectfully ask the members
of this listserv what they think about the situation at school?  What
should I have done differently?  Would other schools be the same for me or
was this unusual?  I liked student teaching and would like to be a school
librarian.

Please give me some feedback, I look forward to hearing from many of you.
Thank you for taking the time to read and repsond to this lengthy message.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mary Ziller
(unemployed) School Library Media Specialist
34 St. Paul's Rd.
Ardmore, PA 19003
maryziller@yahoo.com






______________________________________________________
Get your free web-based email at http://www.xoom.com
Birthday? Anniversary? Send FREE animated greeting
cards for any occasion at http://greetings.xoom.com

=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-==-=
All postings to LM_NET are protected under copyright law.
To quit LM_NET (or set-reset NOMAIL or DIGEST), send email to:
listserv@listserv.syr.edu   In the message write EITHER:
1) SIGNOFF LM_NET 2) SET LM_NET NOMAIL or 3) SET LM_NET DIGEST
4) SET LM_NET MAIL  * Please allow for confirmation from Listserv.
For LM_NET Help see: http://ericir.syr.edu/lm_net/
Archives: http://askeric.org/Virtual/Listserv_Archives/LM_NET.html
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--=-=-=