As I began to read the course materials for my first two Master’s Degree in Teacher Librarianship courses I started to realize the extent of my ignorance in the areas of knowledge encompassed by the Teacher Librarianship field. This in turn reminded me of the four levels of competence in learning something new.

 

 

Photo credit: By Kokcharov [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

This will be my 20th year of teaching and I am still learning. It is an impossible profession to “master” but I have learned a lot and I do work very hard at doing the best I can for my students and in supporting my peers. In some areas of elementary teaching I would put my level of learning at the highest level: skilled and unaware; and in other areas, skilled and aware. I would stretch to say that there are but a few areas in which I would identify myself as aware but unskilled. I could try to claim that I have no “blind spots” (unskilled and unaware areas) when it comes to elementary teaching expertise but for obvious reasons nobody can accurately make this claim.

Before beginning this degree I was excited to learn about new things, and I was aware that I would be learning new things. Thus to describe my beginning state of knowledge I would say “unskilled and aware that I am unaware.”

In just six weeks with the number of new things I was previously unaware of is revealing itself to me, I realize I must still be unaware of quite a few more things. So I would add that I am now “unskilled and even more aware that I am unaware.” I can also firmly identify with the “unskilled and aware” descriptor. From my present feeling and from previous experience I know this is the most uncomfortable place to be, but it is necessary to propel one into further learning.

In short, starting my Masters Degree in Teacher Librarianship has been a very humbling experience.