Growing up, it seemed that my grandmother’s favourite witticism was, “Well, Catherine, you’ve just given yourself a tremendous opportunity to learn something” before exacting an unwelcome consequence. This could have been very welcomed advice if it hadn’t been given immediately after I’d done something naughty. If only Richard Branson had been around in these formative years! I could have straightened my back and bravely retorted with his statement, Grandma, you don’t learn to walk by following the rules. You learn by doing and falling over.” I expect my grandmother would have had a quick reply…and perhaps applied the hand of correction to the seat of learning.
Branson makes a good point though, particularly in regards to professional development.
We learn by doing. As library and information service professionals, it is imperative that we not only develop our own skills, but also commit to the professional development of our peers. Leadership, information and digital landscapes shift rapidly, and in order to be of any use, we need to keep up and be proactive in sharing what we learn. If we are to remain an essential presence in education reform and practice at any level, we must continue to build, challenge and share our thinking.
There are, of course, great opportunities and many challenges in this endeavour. As we are being encouraged to think strategically about our libraries and their scope and purpose, it has caused me to consider what professional development I need to engage in to help me develop and present a strategic direction for my library. By way of context, I work in a P-12 independent Christian co-educational school. I work under the Director of Information Services (TL) and with a team of 2.5 library technicians. We have 1300 students across both schools, on a single campus. Most significantly, we have a new Head of College , and Executive Principal commencing in 2023.
This change of leadership provides us with an excellent opportunity to develop and present a proposal to reintroduce formal inquiry learning from Grades 3-10. The current curriculum reform, particularly for Stage 6, is an important stimulus for this proposal. During this semester, I have committed to a range of PD activities outside of those provided by the school (mostly PBIS introduction). I have:
- undertaken several sessions run by the School Library Association of NSW on implementation of the Information Fluency Framework,
- completed a full day online, interactive webinar on Copyright for Educators – which was excellent and far exceeded my expectations, and
- am registered to attend the AISNSW Education Research Symposium 2022: Leading Evidence Informed Practice.
I have intentionally chosen these activities as I feel they will provide me with information and skills to generate, present and (hopefully) implement significant change in the pedagogy at my school.
However, it is important to acknowledge that the change in leadership that can be an opportunity, can also create challenges. What if nothing changes? What happens if the withdrawal of inquiry learning from our slate of pedagogies continues? How do we advocate for our information service faculty to remain an essential voice about how and what students learn in the 21st century? How do we communicate the complexities of our faculty and the broad scope of our expertise and service? How do we get opportunity to engage in conducting staff professional development in an already full schedule? How do we get our Executive to really listen?
Thank you, Grandma…I’m giving myself an opportunity to learn. And thank you, Richard Branson…I’ll commit to getting back up each time a plan falls over.
Cath
References:
Green, J. [Jesse Green] (2017, July 24). Richard Branson’s top 10 tips for a successful business. Savvy Dentist. https://savvydentist.com/richard-branson-tips-successful-business/
MOOCS and Webinars: October Professional Development Round Up. (2020). [Professional Development]. https://comosaconnect.org/moocs-and-webinars-october-professional-development-round-up/
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