You are in your third year as a teacher librarian in a school where you had to work actively to promote the value and services of the library. Classes come to the library either for relief from face-to-face teaching (primary) or supervision for research (secondary) without planned opportunities for collaborative or shared teaching. You have identified your role (in this scenario) as that of a servant, rather than a servant leader. You seem to be reacting to the immediate needs and requirements of teachers and students in regard to providing resources, responding to immediate information and digital literacy needs, supporting recreational reading requirements and providing technology support.

 

Through the lens of servant leadership, identify and share one proactive approach to lead a shift in expectations and responsibilities that will build the capacity of either teachers or students in one of the following:

  • Resourcing the curriculum
  • Information and/or digital literacy
  • Recreational reading
  • Technology

 

To build the capacity of teachers in resourcing the curriculum, I would begin by leading a discussion with the students, and then with the classroom teachers, about the units of work that they have been studying in class.  If the classroom teachers were open to further discussion, I would ask them which unit of work I could best support them with.

Using the many information tools available, I would compile a list of fiction books, non-fiction texts, databases, reference materials and electronic resources that would complement their unit of work.  I would then provide the classroom teacher with the list and invite them to meet with me to further discuss how the listed resources could be used to support their teaching.  I would also suggest that they nominate some of the resources for me to use during the library lessons so that I am best supporting the learning that is taking place in the classroom.

Perhaps if it was nearing the end of a unit of work or the end of term, I would suggest working with the classroom teacher to develop a list of resources to support their teaching of a future unit of work.