4.3 Leadership
Candidates are able to articulate the role and relationship of the school library program’s impact on student achievement within the context of current educational initiatives.
Reflection4.3 Leadership
Candidates are able to articulate the role and relationship of the school library program’s impact on student achievement within the context of current educational initiatives. Go ahead – justify your worth. This is a tall order, and yet, it is exactly what we as school library professionals are each being asked – nay commanded – to do in today’s educational climate. We must justify the inherent utilitarianism of our programs and of ourselves as educators. In a world with shrinking budgets and countless initiatives to increase academic rigor, a school librarian must be able to display the value of his/her media center as relates directly to subject area foci. My Tribute and Leadership Project exemplifies the expectations of AASL Standard 4.3, my ability “to articulate the role and relationship of the school library program’s impact on student achievement within the context of current educational initiatives.” My leadership plan focuses on connecting the reading of fictional texts with the curricular content of English and Social Studies courses. In this scenario, the school library collection serves the role of providing resources to supplement the curriculum of core subject area classes. This trend of integrating young adult literature into the more traditional curricular units is a growing initiative in the school library world. Sadly, in recent history, the reading of student-appealing material seems to have been largely excised from secondary school buildings, especially high schools, for its detraction from the ever shortening supply of instructional time. And yet, not all teens connect with dry textbooks and literature which they often deem to be too old to understand. Additionally, school librarians notice increased student achievement in instances where outside reading is incorporated into core academic classes. The issue becomes more complex, however, with the recognition that teenagers often will not read for pleasure. As they balance their busy lives, they are hesitant to do anything even remotely academic if it isn’t directly linked to their grades. And yet, we as educators worry that they are not reading enough, that they are not building their vocabularies, and that they are not viewing models of exemplary writing. (These elements are also essential to the initiatives of the common core curriculum.) In my current teaching assignment, students are to read, study, or complete homework during our Flex mod if they are not actively working with a specific teacher. One of the biggest complaints from teachers concerning the Flex mod initiative is that students arrive with nothing to do. They seem utterly unmotivated to even select reading material to occupy themselves. This leads to disruptive behavior at a time when other students actively seek out additional attention from their teachers. Current fictional texts can be used to supplement curricular materials and further understanding of thematic, historical, and scientific content studied in more traditional classroom texts. The expansion of the types of texts utilized in academic classrooms means more opportunities for the students to truly make connections with their learning. This subject area relevance leading to greater student success is a major hallmark of our school’s mission and improvement goals around which the Flex mod educational initiative is based. Though overall, students seem averse to checking out library materials, our school librarian noticed a spike in the circulation of fiction texts – providing evidence based practice around which to shape my leadership project. This circulation increase was due to the efforts of two teachers in our building (one in the social studies department and one in English) to incorporate outside reading assignments in their classrooms – creating an opportunity for the school library to enhance school improvement efforts. Incorporating young adult texts into the curricular classroom creates a doubly positive relationship between library and classroom in terms of student achievement: (a) it will provide students with an additional learning opportunity to gain valuable reading skills, and (b) it will provide students with consistent, enriching work to complete during Flex mod, even if they are not working directly with a teacher. My leadership project idea was to work collaboratively with teachers from the English and Social Studies departments to develop Reading Guidance Webs for specific curricular texts and topics – ten essential texts and time period (five each for English and Social Studies) covered in the courses required for graduation within each department. These webs would help students to select current fictional reading materials to supplement their classroom learning. This would create an opportunity for students to learn course content in a variety of different formats. A historical fiction novel may be more approachable and interesting than a history textbook. Both would educate the student about a topic like the Civil War, but the latter would allow the student to feel as though he was experiencing the era firsthand. He could more easily immerse himself in a relevant well-written novel than a dry, straightforward textbook, and the novel would reinforce the topics being covered in the history class. This additional opportunity for learning would lead to a positive impact on student achievement. We would also develop a bank of extended assignments to be completed with the independent reading selections that would relate to the curricular objectives of the classes. These resources would be available digitally on the school’s Shared Drive for use by any teacher, and with periodic updating, could be used for years to come. Too often in the educational climate of the past two decades, we have mourned the seeming downward spiral of students’ reading and writing abilities. Our solution of foregoing independent text selection and reading in favor of a perceived increase in course rigor has done nothing but exacerbate the problem. One of the greatest values of the school library is that it provides the school community with an extensive collection of materials which can be used to supplement and enhance course curricula, thereby positively impacting student achievement. In my leadership role as librarian, I hope to foster a collaborative initiative to develop a bank of resources linked to specific curricular topics and texts. I will justify my worth by making it simpler for teachers to positively impact student achievement with enriching activities. |
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