Preconceptions and Memory

“Our memory is made up of our individual memories and our collective memories. The two are intimately linked. And history is our collective memory. If our collective memory is taken from us – is rewritten – we lose the ability to sustain our true selves.”

– Haruki Murakami, IQ84

My memories prior to pursuing a career as a teacher librarian, of the role, are all by now somewhat rewritten by my current engagement with the profession, however, remembering the moments of interaction where my path as teacher would intersect with that of the teacher librarian has helped me to confront and reflect upon my earliest understandings of the role, from a position proximal but not entirely connected to the collective experience of the profession.

In the first year of my service, the college was undertaking a change of campus entailing a massive transfer of resources. At this point if one would have asked me the function of a teacher librarian, I may have found myself surprisingly focused on the process of deselecting. Watching the new teacher librarian take on the task of archiving decades of collective memory was at the same time shocking yet somehow compelling in its importance.

Once settled into this new campus, I must admit my early interactions with our resident teacher librarian were puzzling. Just when I thought I had prepared my class for a research assignment and marched them successfully down to the library,  I would be inundated with charts and scaffolds and grids, all readily prepared by the dedicated teacher librarian. It was an eye-opening experience as a teacher in my early years to see this meta-cognitive dimension of learning and it made me reflect on the movement from presentation to process in education and the way learners relate to information beyond simply remembering.

Mid-career, I had the good fortune to work with a colleague who provided an exemplar of what a teacher librarian could cultivate in the spectrum of well-being within a school community. Although her time at the college was limited, the impact this colleague had on the lives and perspectives of the young people she shared with was no doubt immeasurable. The inspiring aspect of her work was the craft of storytelling and sharing, which to some, may seem folksy or out of place in the current digital information landscape, but in practice had the effect to establish a sense of cultural understanding and safety that was felt immediately by students and only grew over time.

Reflecting  while writing this post, it is this dimension of the role of teacher librarianship that seems to me the most extraordinary; that with the right policies and advocacy, there exists a vocation, within the larger mechanisms of a school, where one can still have the opportunity to guide and shape the sharing of story and memory through curriculum design, developing dialogue whilst conserving  and promoting the construction of culture in an increasingly diverse global community.

It is my belief that skilled with a knowledge of emerging technologies and greater understanding of digital landscapes in education, that role of the teacher librarian can be engaged in the opportunity for connecting learners to existing cultural memory in new ways, allowing the sharing story and information to help to generate meaningful and sustainable relationships both,  locally and globally.