Re: GEN: From the classroom into the library

["Medley, Kelly" <medleyk@GUILFORD.K12.NC.US>]

My question for this group:
Why should anything keep "media folks and teachers apart"?

This is a troubling issue for me and one that I tend to get a bit passionate
about.  Please view my posting as one straight from my heart, without
pointing a finger, only wishing for teamwork.

I am a former classroom teacher working as a library-media specialist while
I get my masters.  (In N.C. you have to have teacher certification and a
masters in Library-Information Studies.)  My experiences in the classroom,
in the media center, and in grad school have led me to understand one
thing--good library-media specialists are good teachers.  In one class I
recently completed, we even decided that most of us prefer Ken Haycock's
label of "teacher-librarian" to most other labels.  Whether your teaching
talent comes from within, classes, or specific experience, a good media
specialist in today's educational environment is a good teacher.

My state is has been focused on increasing student achievement, largely
through a testing/accountability program.  I believe we are all responsible
for student performance.  I have curriculum goals and if I don't teach
information skills who will?  The times of "territories" are through.  I
hope to develop a program where I am viewed as a "team member" on each grade
level and work collaboratively with teachers to present integrated units.
This takes time and effort, but I am willing to go the distance for our
children.

I have been around teachers who view themselves as the "elite".  I have also
seen media specialists who look down their noses at classroom teachers.
Either way the focus is not on the children.  The discussions of why people
leave classrooms are as irrelevant as why they enter them.  We all do our
jobs (in whatever location or venue) because we love them and choose them.
Otherwise, why would we?  We are all not paid enough and we all work hard
(differently, but equally hard).  Hopefully, we can find ways to work
together with respect for the talents we individually bring to our students.
I believe that every adult in our school is a teacher...all vital to our
students' success.

Kelly Payne Medley
 Library - Media Specialist          "Even if you are on the RIGHT TRACK,
 Sedalia Elementary School     you'll get run over if you just SIT THERE."
    Phone #:  449-5748                               - Will Rogers


> ----------
> From:         T. K. Cassidy[SMTP:tkcassidy@YAHOO.COM]
> Reply To:     tkc@storylady.com
> Sent:         Thursday, July 12, 2001 9:57 AM
> To:   LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
> Subject:      Re: GEN: From the classroom into the library
>
> > If you've never been in a
> > classroom, you don't know
> > what it is like.  If you have, you do.
>
> I humbly beg to differ. This is precisely the
> attitude that keeps media folks and teachers
> apart. Some of us may not have "been there" but
> we have covered for classes, we have experienced
> a broader range of curriculum and we have a
> better knowledge of the overall picture of a
> school than most teachers do simply because we
> deal with all grades rather than focus on one
> single one.
>
> I admire and appreciate anyone who can stay in a
> small room with the same 26 to 30 kids every day,
> day after day. Just because I personally love to
> teach but also love a wide variety and cannot
> imagine staying with the same group of kids all
> year, do NOT mean I don't understand and
> empathize with what teachers have to deal with or
> that I am an inferior teacher.
>
>
> =====
> T. Kaye Cassidy, MLIS   tkc@storylady.com - http://storylady.com
> On the road again to ....... ??????
>
> "Pessimism is for the faint of heart; the doers, the leaders will
> always be the optimists." - Martin Short
>
> "Live your imagination, not your history!" - Stephen R. Covey
>
> __________________________________________________
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