More than just a pretty face....

and other observations on school libraries and teacher-librarianship

School Libraries in Canada, v.19(2) 1999 pg 28

Valuing the skills


As I survey the ruins of our once prospering (and well respected) specialty, I wonder if we really understand the depths to which we have descended. We really must face up to the realities of our world. It is very hard to speak with much assurance about the glories of the school library and its incredible program when literary hundreds of schools and thousands of students do not enjoy this (apparent) luxury. How can we extol the many virtues of this profession when we are (still) falling like flies? Could we have been wrong about the value of this thing? Could we have been entirely foolish to think that we were really making a difference when it appears that all we were doing was spending money that would eventually become scarce and disappear. Is our whole value system simply based on what we can afford? Are teacher-librarians and school libraries frills in a system that can no longer find room for what it considers fringe or ancillary?

So we come to one of the mainstays of our "profession" - the teaching, or better, the stimulation of conditions that would warrant that teachers would ensure that their charges become proficient in "information skills" and in using a wide range of resources and so enhance the quality of their learning and thinking as they become consumers of information. There are other mainstays including the provision and animation of a wide range of reading materials towards the creation of a literate individual capable of finding in imaginative and expository discourse the values of our culture. But it is the teaching of skills - information, research, media, library and computer - that the "profession" has long held as being primary to our real role. (That many teacher-librarians" failed to make the necessary connections to do this teaching is another topic that should be addressed). It is in the teaching of these skills that we discovered the necessity of relating that instruction to the content and process of the classroom.

Why is it that schools that have never had a school library program (read "teacher-librarian") believe that the library in their schools is fine, or useful or valuable for their students? These are spaces in schools (usually small and frequently rural) that are maintained by parents or low paid clerical help and boast small collections of often very old books. Yet those libraries have a place in those schools that is valued as a repository of reading materials and as a space for library activities. I recently listened to principal in Alberta (who previously was a teacher-librarian) describe his adventures in his 5 teacher rural school library. How he threw out over half of the books and found funds for new ones. How he discovered a book on space travel that was published before the landings. How he managed to get new tables making the old space more attractive for PTA and Board meetings. His library was important and valued. It had no mechanisms for providing a larger "instructional" program. That school is mirrored across the country - perhaps representing the real world far more than our pontifications would allow. There are more children in Canada without a proper school library program than those who have one! Are we really failing all those children? Can we be so presumptuous to assume that the information, research, media, library and computer skills are not being taught to most of those children by competent, concerned teachers in context with quality curriculum objectives!

It is still a huge mystery to me that we seem to believe that we can change the educational system to accommodate us. We seem to be imbued with a missionary zeal to convince others of our truth. But we have a very strange church. Most missionaries reach out, constantly seeking those who could be changed. We like to preach to ourselves. We seldom present our values in subject conferences. A recent Middle school conference in BC drew over 900 teachers; there was one school library session.

Here's a fairly safe declaration: "Private schools have better school library programs than the public system". I can assure you that the impetus for that condition came, not from the teacher-librarian, but from the mission and objectives of the school and those who planned its program. The school library is seen to be part of the process - a process that requires students to engage the library with its attendant skill sets, as one of the mechanisms for success. We should use the same model.

We must all come to recognize that the school library is first and foremost a device for consolidating the learning resources of a school in an organized manner that facilitates access by all its users. We must acknowledge that the school library must be the stage for a meaningful learning program if it is to be effective and useful. On the other hand, we must recognize that our place in these endeavors is not assured or required until the conditions allow the system to respect our values.


Donald Hamilton