After viewing the Karen Bonanno talk on the Teacher Librarian role and its current and future role in schools, I have gained a much deeper understanding of how to ensure the role does not become an endangered species.

The most important part of Bonanno’s talk for me was the ‘glass half full’ rhetoric and how our profession will not survive if we allow this to happen. We must remain optimistic in our outlook of the profession and turn our perceived disadvantages into our advantages for example government initiatives (Bonanno, 2011). I believe that in order to ensure our profession does not fade into irrelevancy, we must continuously adapt our practice to ensure relevancy. We can achieve this by adhering to Bonanno’s intriguing five steps to successful teacher librarians which are proving your worth to a school, ensuring and persevering until you achieve your goal, be confident in your profession, building and maintaining relationships with various school bodies and resonating with your audience (Bonanno, 2011).

References:

Bonanno, K. (2011). A profession at a tipping point: Time to change the game plan

. Retrieved from https://vimeo.com/31003940