Korean Gate within our school.
Besides our more formal assignment reflections, we have been encouraged to record our musings at any point in our blog. I have taught in Indonesia, Singapore, Germany and now South Korea. I doubt it will end there and we’ll move on as a family to new countries and adventures. In our role as educators, we have come across many different approaches to education informed by the dominant culture. It has been really interesting, often challenging and always thought-provoking.
While writing Assignment #1_Part B, a few questions popped up for me. I obviously held little regard to TLs in my early years of teaching. The onus is probably on me but it did make me wonder. I have compared my experiences against the roles of a librarian identified by the Australian Schools Librarian Association (which is a new document for me at the start of this new course). I wonder what roles have been identified in the countries I have worked in – for Teacher Librarians? In what ways are the same and in what ways do they differ from the ASLA roles? How does culture and in particular educational culture, inform TLs in other countries? What about the role of a TL in the international school setting? How do they ‘marry’ their own expectations of their role with the expectation of the school? What do students of different cultures expect from their TL?
I’m hoping that I’ll have time to do a deeper dive into TLs and culture throughout my course. Could I use this as a possible research project in INF447?