Re: teacher vs librarian - Tibrarian???

[Joni J Rathbun <jrathbun@OREDNET.ORG>]

On Thu, 5 Apr 2001, Su Epstein wrote:

>         To be specific, it seems that for many when the powers that be
> suggest School Librarians work to be considered Teachers b/c thats a higher
> status, pay, etc. (even with how little we respect teachers in the US!) -
> many, even if they don't want to be "teachers" accept this, as necessary b/c
> an administrator dictated it.  We accept the roles of teachers and let the
> librarian work slide.  We accept jobs with unacceptible pay and we kill
> ourselves to do the work of two or more positions.  I believe this is a more
> complicated problem in schools since my impression has become more school
> librarians are really happier being reading teachers, and administrations do
> not understand libraries, but...
>

I believe that the teaching role many librarians play is important if not
critical. We *need* teacher/librarians in our schools. But we also need
librarian/librarians. You're right when you say many? of us are actually
trying to do the work of two or more positions. I provide 30 classes
in a 6-day rotating schedule. That's all fine and good, but who's left
to manage the library?

Note also the willingness of many districts when strapped for cash to
eliminate the library/media specialist role altogeter and simply put
a classified person in the position to manage the library. That tells
us right there what many think of the library management piece (and the
teaching piece for that matter); that a library is nothing more than a
room with some books (and maybe a few computers) in it... and anyone
with a computer these days is information literate.

My elementary school is moving to a completely flexed schedule for library
services next year. A part of me says to rejoice. Another part of me
still sighs. This is certainly no guarantee that there will be any more
time for management tasks. If done properly, the flexed schedule should
make me busier (in the teaching arena) than ever because I will feel
obligated to prove my worth with all that "free" time as it appears
on the schedule. Tho I work for a fairly enlightened staff and
administration, the rate at which they use up my assistant time tells
me they have their doubts about how important even that job is. Just about
any time someone saw my assistant sitting (she processed books, dealt
with lost books and overdues, so on and so forth), we'd get a note
assigning her extra duty somewhere in the school that day! "We need
you to cover X and Z today please."

*I speak of my assistant in the past tense because she transferred
to a different position. I'm now working with substitute assistants
until the end of the year. Knock on wood, however, I think I've found
a good person willing to work most of this time for me.


==========================================================================
"Obscenity and hate speech alike only become free speech issues when their
foes turn from censure to censorship. When we decided to let a thousand
flowers bloom, we always knew that some of them would be weeds."
                -- Henry Louis Gates Jr., educator, c. 1990
=========================================================================
J. Rathbun, Library Teacher
Lincoln E.S., North Las Vegas
Email: jrathbun@orednet.org



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