Understanding the role of a teacher librarian in schools.

Teaching has been an exciting career for me, filled with challenges and rewards. I have spent many years as a lower primary teacher, during which embedding literacy and numeracy skills in young children was a crucial part of my teaching pedagogy. Particularly, texts formed “the basis for study across the three modes of Reading and Viewing, Writing and Speaking and Listening” as stipulated in the Victorian English Curriculum (2015).  Inevitably, a strong grasp of Children’s literature and making connections with texts formed a vital part of my classroom teaching. The library served as a major source of reference point for aplenty of my lesson designs.

After two decades of classroom teaching, I was inevitably motivated to take on the specialised role of a teacher -librarian that perfectly suited my desire to add on to my teaching repertoire and my passion for reading. Within just six months into the job, I realize the tremendous responsibility a teacher-librarian has in the school community. Considering my school context, where 90% of its students are non-native English speakers and coming from a highly disadvantaged community, to accomplish the school’s library mission statement of developing a love for reading and inspiring a whole-school reading culture appeared as an uphill but a task that got me excited.

The stereotypical image of school librarians as ‘caretakers of the book collection’ has changed. Presently, the multi-faceted responsibilities of teacher-librarians have become closely interrelated to economic, employment, technological and instructional trends of 21^st century learning. So, what are the roles of a teacher-librarian in the face of these trends?

Scheirer’s (2000) listing of key roles of a teacher-librarian encapsulates the demands of a 21^st century learning environment:

1.The collaborative and curriculum leadership role.

• building a community of learners with colleagues through collaborative programme planning and teaching.

2. The instructional role.

• becoming instructional consultants involved with all grades and all subjects to bring a unique perspective to curriculum development.

3. The instructional technologist role,

• possessing a broad knowledge of resources, hardware, networks and trends

4. The library-management role.

• ensuring a balanced collection and accessibility of learning resources in all formats to meet needs of the school population

5. The information specialist role.

• facilitating and sharing of appropriate print, non-print and human resources

6. The advocate role.

• championing various advocacy programmes to promote the library and resources

7. The information-literacy role.

• working closely with students to devise, implement and revise research skills, leading to critical thinking, effective problem solving and decision-making

Considering the above-mentioned roles, the teacher-librarian forms an integral part of the learning and teaching community that makes up the school. Herring (2007) shrewdly advises that if teacher-librarians are adaptable to developments in a rapidly evolving information and knowledge environment, student learning will increase.

‘To learn, unlearn and relearn…’ is an adage I strongly believe in my exciting journey as a teacher. I am enthusiastic to pursue this course to value-add to my professional learning and improve my students’ learning outcomes.

(499 words)

References:

1. Herring, J. (2007). Chapter 2, Teacher librarians and the school library. In Libraries in the Twenty-First Century: Charting Directions in Information Services (pp.27-42). doi: 10.1016/B978-1-876938-43-7.50002-8

2.    Scheirer, B. (2000). The Changing Role of the Teacher-Librarian in the Twenty-first Century. Retrieved

from https://etad.usask.ca/802papers/scheirer/scheirer.htm

3. Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority [VCAA]. (2015). The Victorian  Curriculum Foundation-10. Retrieved from https://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/english/english/introduction/learning-in-english