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Wow! What an outpouring of responses! I'm going to post a hit now, while I have them all organized by question and by grade level. I hope this strikes some chords for some of you (it sure did for me!) Watch for a follow-up question about Administrative advocacy! Thanks, Toni HOW DOES SCHEDULING AFFECT HOW YOU COLLABORATE (TEAM-PLAN, TEAM-TEACH, TEAM-ASSESS) WITH YOUR TEACHERS? HS: I'm in a HS and we are flexibly scheduled. Teachers can come on their prep or before and after school to work with me. I have planned with teachers and taught with them but, I have never been part of the assessment process. Collaboration has a long way to go in my school. We are only on the very first level and do not truly collaborate. *** MS: Our teams are interdisciplinary, but our collaboration approach is strictly by discipline. All department meetings are held after school, and they all occur on the same day at the same time. I can't attend all four core content meetings at the same time, and because of this, I am rarely on any of the agendas for these meetings unless there is a department-wide project already in the planning process with a department chairperson. *** EL: I am the media specialist for 3 K-5 bldgs. I am assigned to one on Tues., one on Wed. and another on Thurs. Mondays and Fridays are not assigned and I rotate through the three. The infrequency and the rigidity of the schedule leaves me no real collaboration. I am teaching reference skills ans research while some teachers have already covered the material and others won't get to it for weeks. I only see each class 12 times all year in 2 bldgs. and only 9 times a year in one bldg. I don't see some classes until after Thanksgiving. *** EL: We would love to collaborate more in our District, but the Library time is also a planning period for teachers, and they are reticent to surrender this valuable time. Most librarians in the District are able to at least teach with the 4th and 5th grade teachers in the library; in my school, this has never been the case, and they will not give up a chance to work independently for the possibility of making Library Class more relevant to the students.Since "Special" times are associated with planning periods, and since the teachers meet within grade levels during Library classes, the librarians are effectively eliminated from grade-level plannings. We try desperately to collaborate by writing curriculum that aligns with the curriculum maps, (on our owm time, I might add) but day to day collaboration is just a dream for us!! We have to ask every week about the unit that is being taught in class, since teachers can skip or repeat a unit. Just last week I "caught" a teacher teaching the same skill that I had slated for the following week! If only she had asked! With my student teacher (who starts tomorrow), I am ready to petition the upper-grade teachers for a flexible schedule for the last marking period of the year. This will be a trial, and will hopefully show them the benefit of working together towards a common goal!!! *** My teachers have one day designated afterschool for team planning. My only problem is that I can't get to each grade level in the same day. No one wants to add another meeting with anyone (especially the librarian), so most of my planning is done via email.... *** EL: I think the scheduling is the major roadblock. If there is no time to meet together how can you plan and work together. At the school I am currently at we have a lot of programs and clubs afterschool again hindering time to plan together. I am not so sure about administrative support. My administrator is very supportive of me and my program and this does not really help because of the time problems I already listed. *** EL: In my entire district, LMS time is scheduled to cover teacher prep, so all of the 2nd grade teachers, for example, have prep at the same time, and can do common planning. However, that makes it impossible for me to take part. WE do have monthly grade level planning meetings that I have been invited to, but ALL grades meet at the same time--which one do I choose to attend? And is it proper for me to get a sub so I can meet with the 3rd grade teachers for several hours? *** EL: Collaboration is next to impossible in my school. I am on a fixed schedule as I am prep time coverage. My prep time is the final period of the day, when all the classroom teachers are teaching. My lunch period is during the first grade lunch, and we don't talk shop during lunch. We have grade level meetings but the special area teachers are not included. We don't even have our own special area meetings. The spanish teacher went to a workshop that all the classroom teachers attended about ESL kids. She was supposed to have time to share the information with the rest of the special teachers, but it has been put off. When I mention helping during a one on one conversation most of the time the teacher tells me they are so overwhelmed with our brand new reading series, and the on-line grade book program that is new this year, too, and they are dreading new year when we start a new math program. Nerves are frazzled. It's easy to collaborate with science and social studies but the Rigby reading series incorporates the science and social studies in with the stories. They say they don't need anything extra. However - we have student teachers from the local university. They have to interview me as an assignment. I told them I could help them with just about everything they have to do. They told me about a project they want to work on together: making a wax museum of famous Americans. We talked about our biographies and a few other ideas and I think it's going to be great. Someone posted an idea about making bookmarks with quotes of famous Black Americans. We are going to do that as a "handout" for each was figure. We talked about making a powerpoint of each character to post on our school web site, and making a book to keep in the library. *** HOW DOES SCHOOL CULTURE ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR ABILITY TO COLLABORATE WITH YOUR TEACHERS? HS: This is my 4th year here and when I got here there was already a very entrenched negative feeling about the library staff (I work with another librarian) on the part of the history and English dept chairs. Despite the feeling of the English dept chair, they still use us quite a bit. The history dept however, does not and these should be the 2 depts that use us the most. I think the teachers don't know how much we can help them or they don't want to deviate from their comfort level. I have approached some teachers multiple times without a change in their attitude. Part of me thinks that the teachers just don't care. They want to get in and out of the library and they are not very concerned with the quality of the information that their students are using. I don't think it's pervasive (the negative culture) to the same degree with the other depts. The history chair is a graduate of the school and has been there for over 20 years. I think he formed his opinion a long time ago and is not going to change it. The English chair has also been at the school for over 20yrs. She seems to look down on a lot of people. Last year she was behind me in the hallway and she needed to ask me a question and I heard her say "excuse me" a couple of times. I turned around because I wasn't sure if she was talking to me. So I asked her if she was calling me and she said yes. I probably could have phrased this better but, I was pretty taken aback so I said to her "Do you not know my name?" and she said "No, I'm sorry. I don't." That was my 3rd year at the school and I am one of 2 librarians. The other librarian and I put out multiple memos to the teachers during the year and I publish a newsletter every month that goes out to the staff and they always contain our names but still she did not know my name. She knew I was the librarian because she asked me a question about the library. Maybe that will give you some idea of what she's like. The way we work around them is to approach individual teachers from the dept. As I said, a few of the English teachers are regular users of the library but, we have not had a lot of luck with the History dept. They seem to be receptive when I speak to them but, then they don't come back. It's very frustrating. We don't focus on other depts but, we do provide the best resources and information that we can to the other depts. My co-librarian is a former Science teacher but, the Science dept rarely uses us. *** HS: In my new position, school culture is probably the biggest roadblock to collaboration for a variety of reasons. More specifically, past library culture. The perception for many years is that the librarians do nothing but follow their own interests and advice/service/collaboration were actively discouraged. I replaced someone who was certified as a school librarian but not ever a classroom teacher (nor did he possess a teaching degree). The media center formerly had 2 1/2 media specialist positions. There are now two of us and my cohort has an endorsement (not a degree in library science and we have very different approaches to the job); she is the head librarian. The person I replaced is still on staff in the capacity of technology specialist. He told me that his job was cataloging, the second person was in charge of periodicals and that consumed most of her time, the 1/2 time person was in charge of putting the newspapers on the stick and spent most of her day working with the drama department. All three agreed that the library should not even have had any fiction books--it should be solely a research library. One media specialist was writing a book on the Civil War so those titles abound. The others concentrated on adding to the 800s. We have 3 or 4 copies of many titles of literary criticism, very few of which have ever been checked out. With the exception of a few books purchased in the last 2 years by the new head librarian, fiction titles are pretty much what the opening day collection was in 1979 and what got dumped there when the high schools in the county were consolidated. Teachers have spent many years getting no cooperation from the librarians and students formerly detested entering. The head librarian is concentrating on upgrading the physical appearance of the library, which does need to be done. I am concentrating on getting in books (primarily fiction at this point) that the kids actually want to read. I send a lot of emails to teachers or put things in their mailboxes when I find something that they can use, ask for copies of assignments when they do come to the library and offer up resources, and visit classrooms if the occasion arises. The tv production teacher is coming tomorrow to film students book talking. The art teacher is happily planning an altered books project (I only wish he would take more of the darn things! If you want four copies of the biography of Zane Gray, I will be starting to weed biographies this week.), banned books lessons were exceedingly popular among students and teachers, and we are beginning to make progress. Circulation is up 158% over this same time last year. I have not been invited to any department or leadership meetings but am hoping that will come with time and familiarity. If only we could get the teachers to actually check out the videos when they come in instead of just taking them..... *** MS/HS 7-12: Too much testing time. Our middle school has more days that have some kind of testing than the length of a quarterly class. They also tell the LMC they don't have time and the admin says yea they don't have time. For ANYTHING, including book selection. But I'm the bad guy when I want limits 50-60 middle school kids (this is reduced from the past) who come to the LMC during club period to socialize and read People. HS is a little better. If I could only get them to require the use of books and bibliographies...I'm making a lot of headway banning wikipedia though! *** MS: We were recently audited by a team from a consulting firm, and when the principal brought the team to the library (conveniently after my last class of the day had finished), they asked me questions about collaboration and how that works with the library program. I was honest, and said that it was very difficult, and often happened "on the fly." I said that fortunately, I had a good reputation with my teachers for developing projects and activities that were academically rigorous, appropriate for the students, and tied to curriculum guides and state standards. They asked to see some of my lesson plans, and asked my principal "How can you get the teachers in your building who aren't doing what she is doing to emulate her strategies and techniques?" I know that what I am doing is of value. I hope that this visit from an outside group can help my administrative team see, really see what it is I can contribute. I especially want them to know that I can't contribute if I don't have the time to meet with people and share what we can do together. *** EL: The teachers see me as someone to relieve them of their classes. They really don't seem to care WHAT I do. I am NOT covering their planning time BUT they see it as free time. One principal requires they remain in the library during the time their class is there but all but one just hide in a corner and grade papers. *** EL: In our school about half of the teachers realize that the librarian actually tries to support the classroom learning, and reinforce skills taught there. The other half treat Library Class as a planning time, separate from anything else that happens in the school. Any programs initiated by the Librarian are met with resistance from half of the teachers, and supported by the other half; resources that are shared by the librarian are used by a few, but only seen as valuable to most if they are recommended by a "real" teacher . *** EL: School culture may also be a roadblock. If the teachers do not see you as a teacher then it is hard to work with them. I have one grade level who feels all "Specials" are nothing more than planning time babysitters. Another grade level feels they are above everyone else in the school and would never want to work "with us". They would be happy to "Tell" us what to do, but to collaborate and work together, never. *** EL: In my particular school, the teacher with the LEAST seniority has been here 13 years. Most teachers here are 5 or so years away from retirement. Many barely tolerate technology, few embrace it. Most are not interested in changing the way they do things. Over the years, they've come up with lessons and units that work for them, and they are not very receptive to suggestions of change. In addition, due to budget cuts, for two years before I came here, the LMS was only half-time (I'm .8), so teachers have gotten used to NOT asking for help from the Media Center, since there isn't always someone here. *** EL: Now that is a good question, school culture, that is. If I could write a novel (without using too many details of our particular school culture of 32 years), I would use school culture in the plot! I have found that it pays to go to the faculty room for lunch because one gets to know one's colleagues there. That helps with the teacher/student relationship when teachers drop their kids off in the library. Having the approval of the key teachers is a positive thing (and I had three schools in the beginning so I know how hard that is to establish.) Our art teacher would be a lot happier if he spent that 30 minutes in the faculty room so that he could relax and become part of our school culture. But I can't talk him into it and with two schools and two art rooms to keep up, he has a hard time. Another facet of school culture is when it is school culture also small town culture. I work in a small town. A former colleague and I used to discuss all the time. He left to go to a school closer to his home town, but he reports that the faculty is more diverse and there is not the taking sides found in a small town atmosphere. Our school has become more diverse (both in faculty and student population), but at one time we had a mother-in-law/daughter-in-law, sisters, cousins-in-law, another set of cousins-in-law and two sets of mother/daughter combinations. I don't think that we have any close relations at this point other than our new VP is the daughter of our part-time phys ed teacher (most seniority in the bldg and then I am next) and our school culture (atmosphere?) is much better for this change. I do not attend team meetings, except quarterly when we change reading groups, because the usual team meeting is during library media time. I work with the Read Naturally program (reading intervention) in grades 3, 4, 5, on a three day a week basis. A school IA takes care of the groups on the other days, but I do the educational decision-making. I also work with grade 2 in a program called Voyager on a two day a week basis. When it is time to use our DIBELS scores to change the makeup of the groups, my schedule is changed so that I can attend the team meetings. I am in a small school with an enrollment of 267 so my motto is do what you gotta do. And I have learned so much about student reading success from working with students in these programs for the past three years. These students see me differently to, which has been a great help in other ways. This nine weeks I will work with a teacher in grade 2 enrichment instead of Voyager, so that will help me when it is time to select students for grade 3 G/T program. *** HOW DOES LACK OF ADMINISTRATIVE SUPPORT ADVERSELY AFFECT YOUR ABILITY TO COLLABORATE WITH YOUR TEACHERS? HS: I'm in a school with a staff of about 140 teachers and 1600 students. Our principal has very little to do with us. Our direct supervisor is a housemaster (like an asst principal) He says he wants to support us but, in truth he is overwhelmed (this is his first year). Our previous housemaster was there for 3 yrs and we were last on her list of priorities as well. We suffer from benign neglect. We don't have support. If we did, I think that teachers would use us more if they were made to by administrative fiat, so to speak. In a former position, I had a great asst supt who was the immediate supervisor of the libraries. She was great and a real advocate for the library. She really tried to impress upon the teachers how important it was to work with the librarians and that was immeasurably helpful. I think a good administrator is very important but, alas, I don't see that at all here. *** MS/HS 7-12: We proposed a course to teach basic research skills and it was accepted into the 9th grade quarterly rotation. We were so frustrated with the dropping of projects in other courses since the kids acted like they never saw a research project before every time they were assigned one. We go to block next year which means a 45 day class is now 20 so we had to cut a lot of out of class time material but hopefully we can get the kids to think about research, big 6, internet safety, copyright/plagiarism, etc. *** MS: Until December, I had an instructional assistant. In December, he was reassigned in our building to assist a special education teacher. Although he had never worked in a library before, I spent a great deal of time training him, and developing training modules for him to use when he did not have other tasks to attend to. His presence allowed me to concentrate on the classes coming to the library (he ran the circulation desk and supervised students coming to the library independently). His presence also allowed me to attend the weekly team collaboration meetings (held by each team on Mondays). I would stagger my attendance, so that I rotated among our five teams. Each team saw me at their meetings once every five weeks. Now that I do not have this assistance, the library closes to all patrons when I am not available (at a district meeting, teaching a class, fixing the copier across the hall, taking my lunch break). *** EL: Administrative support only affects my ability to collaborate in that they do not support hiring more librarians. One principal refuses to understand my need to have access to computers (lab next door has someone else teaching technology at the same times I have library classes) I feel I work very hard but not effectively which really gets me down at times. *** EL: The principal sees the Library as a central, integral part of the school's curriculum, but even he will rely on classroom teachers to instruct other teachers about technology and available resources. We have asked repeatedly for uniform Library periods (most are 30 minutes long, one school has library classes that are 40 minutes in length for ALL grades) and for more collaboration, and for the opportunity to try flexible scheduling at the elementary level. Most prinsiplals are reticent to take away planning periods from the teachers, or to ask for flexible times, which will "mess up" the Specials schedule. I must add that the Library is the only Special that does not assign grades on the report card in our District. I found that we had more input in another District in which Library was a graded course. Toni Buzzeo, MA, MLIS <mailto:tonibuzzeo@tonibuzzeo.com> Maine Library Media Specialist of the Year Emerita Maine Association of School Libraries Board Member Buxton, ME 04093 http://www.tonibuzzeo.com Collaborating to Meet Standards: Teacher/Librarian Partnerships for K-6 Second Edition (Linworth 2007) BRAND NEW! -------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note: All LM_NET postings are protected by copyright law. You can prevent most e-mail filters from deleting LM_NET postings by adding LM_NET@LISTSERV.SYR.EDU to your e-mail address book. 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