It might be that jumping from one organisation to another is an advantage for ETL504 (Teacher Librarian as Leader).
As I begin to understand aspects of organisational theory and leadership styles, I find myself comparing School A of yore to School B of now.
One key area which has come up in conversations with coworkers is in regard to staff involvement in after school clubs. At School A, teachers were encouraged to run an after school club. As the TL, I saw this as a great opportunity to make various connections to students and the parent community. At various times through the year the library hosted a makerspace, a coding club, a stop motion club, Pokemon Go parties, and a Lego Robotics club. These were all self initiated, directed, and led with some financial support for supplies by the school (or from the library budget).
As a TL, this was not motivated by an financial reward nor was one on offer. These were library goals which were driven by a strong culture of servitude at the school modeled by many in the senior leadership, including the head of primary. They did so we (many of us) did. If put into transactional terms, there was some hope that these extra works would be noticed by executive leadership and generate good will for a future date when favours might be called in. Often, these initiative were not noticed and, often, too, the good will points were not awarded.
At School B there is a strong reliance on after school clubs as part of the school’s attraction to families with two working professsional parents. This is a major draw for professional parents. As such, clubs are paid at $50 for each hour of club led or supervised. Families pay for students to attend these clubs. Enrollments are done based on student interest and parent payment. In this current format, I find myself reluctant to run a club from the library (though I do). The transactional nature of it is not appealing to me. The trade off, a nominal fee for my time against a lack of control over enrollment and the loss of good will generated in serving my community, is not motivational.
Clubs fall under a particular leadership and management somewhat separate from the school’s leadership structure. It is owned by the school- a piece of the same organisation- but approached differently as an ‘after school’ enterprise. The goals are more directed at keeping students occupied and safe while waiting for parents to get away from work.
So am I, the main primary TL, doing nothing? Of course not! Instead, I run “Special Interest Groups” which have various forms. One is a Dungeons and Dragons group for Year 6 which is entirely led by the students and supported by ‘the library.’ Another is a comic book book club for Year 3 students identified as candidates by classroom teachers based on some goals outlined in the SIG description. I also host and volunteer for certain clubs which have natural library links like the debate club, journalism club and creative writing club. Others run the clubs, but a library assistant and myself are around to help out with resourcing etc..
In a way, the goal setting for these after school projects come from two different leadership models. The School B goals for clubs are transactional in nature while the SIGs arise from goals in the organisation’s distributed leadership model. One will pay me 50 bucks while the other fulfills my professional role and the school’s vision for its library for which I was hired to pursue.
