Deborah's reflections

My journey to becoming a K-6 TL.

7.1 A library story: Write your opinion on the coverage of the role of the TL as presented by Valenza, and the importance of lobbying activities such as this one.

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Joyce Valenza presents a powerful and dramatic overview of the role of the TL in modern school libraries. However I don’t consider the school library to be a place where funding is cut and libraries are closing. Funding is increasing for my own school library, we have a library assistant for a day and major plans for an update of furniture/technology/shelving and physical resources. Last week our assistant collected dozens of fiction titles not borrowed for over 3 years and we have created a display to encourage students to borrow them. We will promote these books during all our lessons to years 1-6 over the next 2 weeks to get some back into circulation. The leftovers will be weeded.

Todd (2015) describes the educational landscape for the TL as moving towards a data-driven, measurable, accountable, evidence based system to prove the worth of school libraries. The TL needs to, “move beyond the intelligent guesswork and clever hunches, to a sound basis of practice.” (Todd.2015.p.63) Todd describes how we need to lobby for our space in funding and accountability in the future through evidence.

Valenza in her list of what we will lose, also reveals what we can gain from continuing to properly fund and support school libraries.

 

 

Todd, R.J., (2015) Evidence-based practice and school libraries. Knowledge Quest, 43/3, 8-15. Retrieved from CSU Course Notes: https://doms.csu.edu.au/csu/file/b84e4d87-0e09-4bd5-9dcb-023fe550270a/1/todd-r.pdf

Valenza,J.(2013). Retrieved (2019,May,25). https://vimeo.com/82208025

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3.3 The Principal and the TL. Share your ideas about the ways in which Principals can enable the role of the TL, and how TLs might enable the role of the Principal.

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“The reality is that influence comes when you solve someone else’s problem or help them achieve their goals, not yours. Therefore, in order for the SLP to be in a position of strength
and importance, the principal, as the key decision maker, must
perceive the SLP as critical to the mission of the school and
capable of helping to achieve the principal’s goals.” (Debra Kachel. 2017)

This is a striking quote to consider by Kachel. She goes on to encourage TL to develop a plan for increased influence for school  administrators to ensure your role is assured. These are factors that I usually associate with the cooperate world, not the world of education where we are all working towards the same broad goals of improving student outcomes. TL need to position themselves as enablers of the Principal’s shared vision of the school and align themselves with key staffing and funding administrators in the school.

Mandy Upton (2016) in her research found that Principal’s valued the contributions of TL in a myriad of ways including awareness of resourcing the curriculum and developing the curriculum, collaborative planning and teaching and more recently ICT resourcing and training. Personal qualities such as collaboration, team work and a sense of leading from the middle was valued. TL has a broad perspective of what is happening around the school in curriculum and pedagogy and Upton describes the TL as ‘the canary in the mine’ of a school. I found this a very pertinent point and as a TL in a primary school in my second year it somewhat rings true in my experience.

References

Kachel, D. (2017). The Principal and the Librarian: Positioning the School Library Program. Teacher Librarian45(1), 50–52. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=126080411&site=ehost-live

 

Retrieved from https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/blackboard/content/contentWrapper.jsp?content_id=_2633960_1&displayName=Linked+File&navItem=content&attachment=true&course_id=_42380_1&tab_group=courses&href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.iasl-online.org%2Fresources%2FDocuments%2F05luptonfinalformatted49-61.pdf

 

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