Reading module two (2020) has been interesting for me. As a teacher who is wanting to enter the school library and become a Teacher Librarian this module has spoken very clearly to me as it has outlined the importance of ensuring small details do not get in the way of the bigger picture which is providing services to its users (organisation theory, 2020). This is something that I will ensure I take with me and remember as it can be so easy at times to become overwhelmed and deal with the smaller issues first, it is so important to remember what a Teacher Librarian’s goal and focus should be.  Obviously different schools have different objectives for their Teacher Librarians so it would be important to initially find out what these are, I am sure that in most circumstances the number one objective school libraries would be to provide a service to its users.

Sir Ken Robinson’s talk, ‘changing education paradigms’ (RSA Animate, 2010) is a great example outlining education systems and how they function, their faults and their impact upon student learning and creativity. This brought me to thinking about the different schools I have worked in and schools that colleagues have worked in and how the leadership models can be quite different. Some schools enable Teacher Librarians to engage with their students in a more creative way to meet learning outcomes in the Australian Curriculum and some simply want to reach outcomes disregarding children’s different learning needs or different styles of learning.

Teacher Librarians as leaders therefore have this opportunity in many ways to ‘help’ students, staff and school communities to create an environment to collaboratively work together to inspire their students to not only learn but also work and engage in a variety of ways. Jane Viner the recipient of the 2017 Australian Teacher Librarian of the Year stated “’C’ is key: create, connect, collaborate, communicate, care and change with your community’ (Hill, 2017, p. 29). I just love this quote, as a Teacher Librarian as leader can take these words and these steps to create an energetic, exciting and informative environment to engage students, teachers and leaders of the school to improve learning outcomes whilst providing an outstanding service at the same time.

(2020). Organisation Theory [Study notes]. ETL504 Teacher Librarian as Leader. Interact 2.

https://interact2.csu.edu.au

Hill, A. (2017). Australian teacher librarian of the year 2017: Reaffirming and celebrating the pivotal role of teacher librarians in our schools. Access, 31(3), 198-214.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=7dd9ba89-1858-48ef-91e7-e43ec4c09d92%40sdc-v-sessmgr03

Robinson, K. [RSA Animate]. (2010, October 14). Changing education paradigms [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

I began this subject feeling quite tentative about my ability to participate as I am not currently teaching and I am on maternity leave. However, I have been pleasantly surprised by my ability to positively participate as the modules are extremely informative and the case studies and forums are presented in such a great way which enables one to not only contribute one’s own knowledge but to learn also.  I have really enjoyed reading through the case study responses as I feel I have learnt so much already and I really love reading different approaches to situations from different participants.

Case study one outlined the week of an extremely busy Director of Information Services and the task was to determine how to make her week less stressful yet still remain productive. Immediately, I believed the best way to do this was to consider her external and internal demands and collaborate with others to determine what should stay and go.  I also believed that delegation would have been an effective tool but I did not go into detail about this in this forum.

It was really interesting looking at others’ responses. I particularly enjoyed reading the comments on power and control, they were quite similar as most contributors wrote that it seemed strange to have such a large team yet not utilise all of them adequately. Obviously, delegation is key to overcoming this and trusting others. Within the comments on ‘control’ it was really interesting to read about peoples’ knowledge of using Google Docs to share information, Katrina Dawson (July 17, 2020) also spoke about One Note which I have not used before but this sounded like a fantastic tool also which would be very useful throughout this scenario.

Through reading a significant amount on delegation in these posts I decided to look into a journal article about this topic myself. I found one about distributed leadership theory which was quite interesting.  One point that stood out to me significantly was that an individual’s ability to achieve something is far outweighed when a group brings together their ideas and strengths in order to work achieve the same outcome (Johnston, 2015, p. 39). This is exactly what many participants in the case study one forum were outlining also.

References

Dawson, K. (2020, July 17). Case study 1, module 1, thread: Control. [Online discussion comment]. Interact 2. https://interact2.csu.edu.au

Johnston, M.P. Distributed leadership theory for investigating teacher librarian leadership. School Libraries Worldwide, 21(2), 39-58.

http://web.a.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=1&sid=a750c93a-9292-4112-a82a-1fa48e0aa45d%40sdc-v-sessmgr01