Before enrolling on this subject Teacher Librarian as leader my perception about a Teacher librarian (TL) was very limited. Even though I learned the roles of a TL in ETL 401, I realized the depth, significance and influence of that role in a school after diving deep into each module. As I wrote on my think space blog’ leadership ‘the qualities of an effective leader is, paramount when thinking about the role of TL in a school. Unfortunately, I don’t get the chance to communicate with a TL in any of the schools which I worked as a relief teacher for a year as most of the schools was run by a teacher aide librarian. Most of the school libraries reminded me of the importance of a TL and decided that I will be a strong advocate for requiring a qualified TL in every school as I got deep knowledge of a TL and their role to equip learners with 21-st century skills.
I think I won’t believe that TL is a leader unless I did this subject and realised the role and function of the school library as an information centre to meet the needs of the school community. As I don’t have any library experience nor full-time teaching experience my contribution to the subject discussion was very less. But I learned a lot from comments of subject discussions about change, change fatigue, teacher’s resistance to technology and moreover the challenges the teachers faced during Covid-19 (Hahn, 2021), (Templeton, 2021) & (Wiggins, 2021)and how they overcome such challenges. These comments conveyed the change and challenge their school faced during the pandemic situation and most of the comments emphasized the need for a TL who has sound knowledge in technology, pedagogy and curriculum.
The leadership style that would fit the TL as a leader is transformational leadership and distributed leadership. As a transformational leader TL focus on strategies, collaboration, team building, ICT skills and motivates team members to reach the highest level. Transformational TL is a strategic planner (combes, 2008) and communicates to the principal about the importance of their role and the value of the library in the school. Through distributed leadership, TL brings their expertise to bring more opportunities for change. TL’s distributed leadership brings interdependent interaction (Harris, 2014) and practice than independent actions. In a distributed leadership role TL creates opportunities for others to lead which demand a clear perception of the expertise of other group members. It is a fact that while leading others there should be trust and accountability of team members. The subject module points out the challenges that a TL can expect and how to communicate and deal with conflict and be an efficient leader.
After completing all the modules I realized that the role of TL is very important in a school. By making changes in teaching and learning TL create changes in the culture of a school. The school librarian has to act as a catalyst for change within the school and the library (Oberg, 2011). All the learning modules emphasized the value of collaboration and I learned that it is a prominent skill TL has to acquire. TL’s collaboration with teachers results in deeper learning (Mcnee & Radmer, 2017) and it helps teachers to integrate technology into their lesson plans and develop 21st-century skills in their learners.
To prepare the students successful, engaged and contributing members of society, they need to be equipped with 21st-century skills. Hence the TL should create a library that inspires learners to construct new knowledge and meaning around them( Nichols, 2019).
References
Combes, B. (2016). Digital literacy: A new flavour of literacy or something different? Synergy, 14(1). https://www.slav.vic.edu.au/index.php/Synergy/article/view/v14120163
Hahn, S. (2021, March 21). Re: Forum 3.1 Technology integration [ Forum post]. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?conf_id=_110083_1&forum_id=_227669_1&course_id=_55151_1&action=list_messages&nav=discussion_board_entry&message_id=_3
Harris, A. (2014, September 29). Distributed leadership. Teacher Magazine, ACER. https://www.teachermagazine.com.au/article/distributed-leadership
Mcnee, D. & Radmer, E. (2017). Librarians and learning: The impact of collaboration, (40). 6-9
Nichols, J. R. (2019). 4 essential rules of 21st-century learning. https://www.teachthought.com/learning/4-essential-rules-of-21st-century-learning/
Oberg, D. (2011). Teacher librarians as cultural change agents. SCIS Connections, (79). https://www.scisdata.com/media/1353/connections-79.pdf
Siju, S. (2021, March 22). Leadership. (Blog). https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/smigi/2021/03/22/leadership/https://thinkspace.csu.edu.au/smigi/2021/03/22/leadership/
Templeton, T. (2021, March 14). Re: Forum 3.1 Technology integration [ Forum post]. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?conf_id=_110083_1&forum_id=_227669_1&course_id=_55151_1&action=list_messages&nav=discussion_board_entry&message_id=_3483028_1
Wiggins, E. (2021, March 24). Re: Forum 3.1 Technology integration [Forum post]. https://interact2.csu.edu.au/webapps/discussionboard/do/message?conf_id=_110083_1&forum_id=_227669_1&course_id=_55151_1&action=list_messages&nav=discussion_board_entry&message_id=_3483028_1
