This e-mail is written regarding the topic of reading on the job and how this is
perceived by others in the building, especially co-workers and supervisors.?
Although we (school library media specialists) realize the value and importance of
doing this, others may perceive this to be "slacking off on the job."? Therefore, I
chose to do a quick review of newspapers and periodicals (i.e. - 'current event
topics") each morning in the media center before it opened so that I could share
current, cutting edge information with faculty members that day, thus bringing
real-time information to the attention of others on topics of relevance to their
profession or curriculum, especially if this was a topic that was being taught or
researched that week.? If there was a longer article that needed to be read in
entirety, I tried to make a point of taking the magazine home with me after
school.?
As far as reading books during the school day, it was necessary, on occasion, to do
"power reads" quickly in order to make up a test over a book that did not have a
Scholastic Bookshelf/Reading Counts test in the computer.? It seemed inevitable
that there was always a situation that arose each month when a student had selected
a book and read it, but no test existed for the book once the student needed to
take the test, thus turning into an emergency-type situation for both students and
teachers.? So, I would jump in and help to "save the day" by doing a power read
during the day or, more often, after school and typing a test into the computer so
that the student could meet the necessary deadline.
Depending upon whatever else I had to do or the length of the book, it wasn't
always possible to do this, but I was able to meet this need around 90% of the
time.? And, I could justify doing this because it helped to meet a curriculum need,
and the book was more likely to be checked out if there was a computerized test
available.?
Whenever another staff member or administrator noted what I was doing (reading
during the day) and made a comment like the ones previously reported, I always told
them what I was doing and why, especially emphasizing the part about helping out
the student.? The comments very quickly changed from "Wish I could do that", or
"Wow, I'd like to get paid for reading on the job" to "That's amazing!? I could
never read a book in a day" or "That's wonderful that you're willing to do this for
students.? Good job!"?
A negative perception was turned into a positive one.?
Deborah Maehs, ret. SLMS (2007)
P.O. Box 341
Kingfisher, OK? 73750
maehsville@aol.com
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