I'm a Librarian... What's Your Superpower???

by Wayne Cherry, Librarian, St. Pius X High School, Houston

I love superheroes.  My desktop wallpaper cycles through artwork featuring the greatest heroes of the Golden and Silver Ages of comics.  My son’s room is still dedicated to the Dark Knight and the Man of Steel. When he was a baby (and even now at nearly two), he went to sleep almost immediately when he heard John Williams’ amazing score from the very first Superman film.  Superheroes have become for us what the Olympians were to the Greeks for they are a vital part of our cultural ethos.  So what does that have to do with libraries?

I’ve seen the phrase from the image below so much that I felt it had become a cliché.  It’s all over Etsy, Pinterest, and ten thousand custom t-shirt sites.  But in the current age of information overload, the 24-hour news cycle, and the rise of fake news, I think that this phrase may be truer than it ever has been.

As a librarian, you are a superhero.  Some of you have the power to make any book sound like the most amazing thing ever printed.  Some of you can bring a story to life so that the characters leap from the page and inhabit your library.  Some of you are quirky enough that dressing up as a favorite character is second nature to you.  Some have the innate ability to match the right book to the right child every time.  Some of you even have the power to make a cup, a marker, and a dollar store toothbrush motor into an artistically inclined robot.

Regardless of what your superpower is, we all have the power to change lives.  In the ten years I have been a librarian, I have watched transformations occur in my libraries.  I’ve seen children who hate books become voracious readers.  I’ve seen the student struggling to cope find peace in the pages of a book.  I’ve even seen students stop hating school for no other reason than they got to come to the library once a week.

It may be that most school librarians don’t wear fancy costumes, hide out in underground lairs, retreat to fortresses of solitude, or charge green rings of power; despite this, we do have the ability to make the world a better place.  We have a fortress of learning and safety within our library’s walls.  We are counselors, advisers, guardians, advocates and definitely teachers, as well as many more things besides.  We have endless power on our shelves and servers as we fight against intellectual dishonesty and information illiteracy.

I am a librarian…what’s your superpower?

Image credit: https://www.etsy.com/listing/263871862/glass-popper-snap-charm-im-a-librarian?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_us_e-craft_supplies_and_tools-jewelry_and_beading_supplies-charms&utm_custom1=281af9e4-aba9-462e-b67d-33682f89210c&gclid=CL_w17OO6tECFYQ8gQodeZcKCA

Take the Bull by the Horns

By Dorcas Hand, Editor of TASLTalks

School librarians stand in front of groups of students every day, all day, working our magic to lead them to stronger love of reading and understanding of information, research methods and writing. We are not always our own best advocates, but I’m here to suggest a slogan for 2017: Take the Bull by the Horns. Can’t get much more Texan – think of really LONG horns, and how important it is to stand firm when the bull tries to run us over. 

Thanks to http://www.sourpussclothing.com/taxidermy-wall-hook-longhorn-bull-blk.html for the image.

Now we could be talking about the animal – but I’m trying for a metaphorical bull. It could be the administrator who says librarians don’t contribute to student achievement; the one who says librarians should be test coordinators because they aren’t doing anything else; the teacher who says a classroom library is better than a campus library – or any of a hundred others. A herd of possible longhorns trying to push us into a corner, a corner we don’t want to be in.

Thanks to http://www.commandersplacelonghorns.com/Default.aspx?id=9608&Title=OurHerd for this TX image.

So, let’s figure out how to take the bull by the horns, one bull at a time. Here is a story – a hypothetical situation for your consideration. Imagine that a district administrator issued a letter saying that librarians are important to student achievement; that they should spend the majority of their time on direct services to students and staff; and therefore likely don’t have time to be test coordinators. This letter is a suggestion rather than a new rule, but still a recognition at the district leadership level that librarians are important – essential, even – to student progress. The letter went to principals and librarians. What would you do, if that happened in your district?

You could wait to hear from your principal that you would no longer be assigned test duties. Or you could take this bull by the horns by going to the principal with the letter in hand to say that you expect to be able to honor the district’s intent, that you intend to be working with students all year long rather than managing the test schedule and oversight.

This is only one example of how you might take the bull by the horns: stand up to be counted as a strong force in behalf of student achievement in collaboration with teachers, stand up to represent library best practices. Your personal challenge as you look to the rest of the 2016-17 school year is to set yourself at least one Take the Bull by the Horns Opportunity on your campus. We will all stand up to the bull together, pushing back against and educating our campus and district administrators who don’t yet understand how important our work is in support of student progress to love of learning and reading and life.

Teacher Day @ TLA: Powerful PD for All Educators

By Jessica Robbins who currently serves as the Director of Curriculum and Special Programs for Aransas County ISD in Rockport, TX.

About eight years ago, I was approached by my campus librarian who had something very sneaky up her sleeve. She was baiting me into a love affair with the Texas Library Association annual conference.  Maybe “sneaky” and “baiting” is a little overdramatic. The truth is, when you offer a young high school English teacher a 4-day trip to free books and rooms full of authors, you can expect hero status.  I had no idea as I responded with an emphatic “YES!” just what a gift she was offering me.

Most high school English teachers do not struggle with a love for reading.  They often chose the profession because literature lured them into a degree that has limited career options.  English majors share an appreciation for the canon and envision themselves sharing the passion for the greats with a classroom full of eager teenagers.  It isn’t until your first round with To Kill a Mockingbird or Beowulf that you discover that somehow you missed something in college.  

I was one of those English majors who entered the field of teaching not JUST because I loved American Lit.  I wanted desperately to inspire kids.  So when I was presented with an unconventional approach to reading something besides the classics with the possibility of reaching more students with more books, I ran quickly toward the door. I knew my librarian sprinkled some kind of fairy dust on kids who walked into the library, but I didn’t realize until after TLA that it wasn’t magic; it was young adult literature. She was keeping up with the latest releases on books that were written FOR my reluctant readers and my passionate readers.  She had her finger on the pulse of YA and this gave her most of what she needed to crack the door open to a world of reading.  My students needed this, and I didn’t realize how badly.

My immersion into this world changed my life.  I spent my week participating in sessions where authors sat at tables and talked about the experience of writing for my kids, I was exposed to the most recently released works from a wide variety of publishers, and I learned about digital applications for the classroom at a rapid rate. I realized how many opportunities my students were missing when I allowed the unknowns of technology to intimidate me to the point of avoidance.

At the end of each day, I returned with my treasures and met up with the team of professionals who traveled with me.  Our district had received some additional grant money that year to provide this opportunity to administrators, instructional technologists and teachers.  We debriefed each day, and I realized that I was not the only person experiencing this new level of enlightenment.   As we talked about our sessions, we wanted to take a piece of TLA home with us, and at the end of one of our final days, we committed to a K-12 collaborative team that I am still proudly a part of today.  

I now work at the district level in curriculum and instruction. As director over our K-12 ELAR program and several special programs, I take every chance I get to budget for and send teachers from our district to TLA. There are very few forms of professional development that have had such a powerful impact on my career, and I continue to hear the same from attendees who return in April.  TLA can inspire new teachers, veteran teachers, and tired teachers. It has immediate results. Teachers come home fueled and empowered to lead students toward a love for reading, and administrators come home equipped to lead their staff in powerful reading opportunities, cutting edge media and technology.

I know budgets are tight, but if you have any control over professional development in your district, the Texas Library Conference will be pennies well spent.  Texas teachers need this, and as difficult as it is for educators to break away from campus, the gains will be well worth the sacrifice.  I still shamelessly thank my librarian for paving my way to TLA and repay the favor as often as possible.  I signed my first administrator up for the April 2017 conference yesterday, as a matter of fact!   

Join Us! On Friday, April 21, 2017, 100 classroom teachers will have the opportunity to experience a one day special event during the TLA conference, comprised of speakers, activities, and pricing designed just for them. Planning has begun for a fun, interactive day for the classroom teachers who attend, as well as the librarians who sponsor them. Participants are welcome to stay for the full conference. The focus of this program is for classroom teachers to return to their districts after experiencing TLA as library advocates and collaborators.  Details about Teacher Day at TLA and the application for teachers to participate can be accessed at http://www.txla.org/teacher-day.

TLA CONFERENCE REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN!