Lead story

Winds of change

One of the often overlooked connections you need to make is with your administrator.

Like your principal, you should be taking not only a building-wide view of education but reaching out to spot trends and new ideas that could have a positive impact on student learning. Take time over summer vacation to read professional literature that goes beyond the library media center, and then, before school restarts, make an appointment to discuss and share what you have discovered. Two books that will inevitably be the basis for an ongoing dialogue are A Whole New Mind: Why Right-Brainers Will Rule the Future (Riverhead Books, 2006, 275 p. 1-59448-171-7 paperback) by Daniel H. Pink and Transforming Schools: Creating a Culture of Continuous Improvement (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 2004, 195 p. 0-87120-845-8 paperback) by Allison Zmuda, Robert Kuklis, and Everett Kline. Daniel H. Pink was the Opening General Session speaker at the AASL National Conference in Reno this past October, while Allison Zmuda was the final speaker at AASL's Fall Forum, "Assessing Student Learning in the School Library Media Center," held in October 2006.

'In Your Right Mind'

Although the subtitle suggests you use only your right brain which is "nonlinear, intuitive, and holistic," Pink strongly supports the need to meld both hemispheres for success in the 21st century. The book is an excellent follow up to Thomas L. Friedman's The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century (Farrar, 2005, 488 p. 0-374-29288-4.

According to Pink, abundance, Asia, and automation (very alliterative) have made the sequential, logical, analytical left-brainers less able to compete. Because of abundance (lots of choices in everything), products now need to be aesthetically pleasing, unique, and meaningful.

Asia, of course, refers to the rise of competitive talent. Wide-spread automation (and outsourcing) of routine tasks means if that is part of your job, you won't be having one much longer.

Pink then describes the 6 new senses needed for success: design, story, symphony, empathy, play, and meaning. For example, he shows that in a world of information, we need story to truly be able to communicate and persuade, and, while analysis served us well in the past, for today's world the important skill is symphony, or the ability to synthesize--putting together pieces from disparate sources to create a new whole.

You can read the book rapidly, but you will continually be putting it down as you wonder how to integrate these new senses into the current curriculum. The ensuing conversation with your administrator will help both of you see your role as educators in a new light.

'It Takes a Village'

In "Transforming Schools," the three authors tell the story of hard working, conscientious educators who unwittingly prevent school-wide improvements from occurring. The cast of characters includes a school principal trying to help her staff improve but not getting the results she seeks, an assistant superintendent whose ideas on the "interconnectedness of district and building innovations" are perceived by staff as getting in the way of letting them do their jobs, and 3 teachers at different stages in their careers who excel individually but do not see any need to work with others. As the authors see it, unless the culture changes, improvements will never stick.

The discussion among the teachers during staff development on the opening day of school will be very familiar to those who have attended one.

The shifts between the explanatory text and the complementary fictional narrative aid in making sense of "Operating Principles" such as "A shared vision articulates a coherent picture of what the school will look like when the core beliefs have been put into practice." The 15 "Operating Principles" are listed in Appendix A. Changing a school culture doesn't happen overnight. The authors show that it takes concerted effort and a clear plan. Appendix B gives the "Design Tool Used to Develop an Action Plan" with the problem being the "gap between desired results and current performance." It's time to face reality and recognize all the staff development days in the world will never make a difference unless everyone buys into them.

Previous issues Spring 2008
Design a bird

Bird songs fill the morning air, and they can be seen flying everywhere -- a sure sign of spring and a classic topic for a Gr. 3-6 report. But you don't want them doing the pseudo-research of choosing one and listing its characteristics. Those deadly-dull assignments from which students remember little but plagiarize a lot should be barred -- as David V. Loertscher, Carol Koechlin, and Sandi Zwaan recommended in their Ban Those Bird Units (Hi Willow Research and Publishing, 2004, 0-931510-06-9). Instead, present a unit that engages their imagination while promoting information literacy and critical thinking skills.

Introducing the project

Focus students on the topic by discussing birds with which they are familiar. Some will mention baseball teams that have bird names. Others might think of robins as they are a sign of spring or name pets such as parakeets.

Whichever approach you choose, encourage them to explain how they can tell one bird from another. Before long, you will have a list of characteristics. Add any important ones that they miss. Tell them they are going to have a chance to explore these differences and find out why they exist in order to create a made-up bird.

Delving into research

Divide the class into groups of four and hand out the Information Sheet (below). Ask students how they plan to begin, directing them to print and online resources you have available, including field guides. An excellent website to get them thinking is this Enchanted Learning site. Once groups have selected their habitat, members should each choose a bird to answer questions 2 and 3.

Require each group to have a recorder who keeps track of which sources have been used (citing them correctly). Before moving onto the design phase, group members should share key information they discovered about the bird they researched. Have them categorize their findings so diet information along with related facts such as beak shape is all together on one page while nesting and reproduction data are on another.

Design and display

Before going on to the next step, have groups determine if they are missing any information. They may even get started with their creation before learning they have gaps. Let them know that discovering the need for additional investigation is typical when doing research.

Allow students to decide the best way to represent their bird. They may choose to make a drawing, create a three-dimensional view, or put together a collage. Starting with an existing bird and making changes to it is also acceptable. Arrange all their work in an "aviary" and have groups act as guides explaining their design and why their bird is perfectly adapted to its environment while still being unique.

Information Sheet

1. Select a habitat such as woodlands, shore, backyards, etc.
2. Find birds that live in that location and identify their major characteristics such as diet, number of eggs produced, size, coloring, nests, etc.
3. Learn what adaptations help them, such as the shape of their beaks, what their talons are like, etc.
4. Based on your research, design a bird that can successfully live in the habitat you have chosen.
5. Be sure to include all necessary characteristics and adaptations.
6. Explain how your bird's design helps it to eat and survive.
7. What else is important or special about your bird? You might discuss its "song" and what it is used for, any enemies it has, or whether the male and female look different.
8. Make a large representation of your bird in its habitat. Be sure to give it a name perhaps basing this on what it sounds like or how it looks.

Previous issues

Winter 2008: It's easy being green

While some are into the "wearing of the green" for St. Patrick's Day, use the color idea to get a head start on Earth Day and promote green activities to save the planet. This topic engages student interest and is adaptable for Gr. 3 -12. Those of you on a flexible schedule should be able to find willing partners; otherwise you can teach it on your own.

Whatever the grade level, you want students to identify a specific problem, explain its probable cause, and present a solution. While learning and polishing their information literacy skills, they are engaged in authentic learning. The idea is for them to see that they can make a difference by discovering how they can prevent many (or possibly all) the potentially disastrous consequences of abusing the earth.

Picture this

As Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary An Inconvenient Truth showed, pictures send powerful messages. Have students locate illustrations of ecological problems. National Geographic offers nine on its website. Clicking on any of these, whether it is of polar bears or coral reefs, brings up a short paragraph on the problem with additional hyperlinked information as well as related stories on global warming. Depending on grade level, let students choose a topic from a list you provide or find the one that personally interests them. You can also direct them to the BBC website for six paired pictures showing effects of climate change.

Once settled on the environmental aspect they are investigating, have students look for additional images which they will use either in a PowerPoint, on posters, or whatever other presentation method is appropriate to their grade and available technology. As they find illustrations, remind them to also be researching the problem's cause.

Finding solutions

The most complex portion of this project is to find a solution to the problem. Have them look at the cause and then see if they can locate ideas that can remove or alter the problem. For example, much of global warming is attributed to greenhouse gases. Numerous articles explore a range of solutions for dealing with automobile fuel consumption and wind farms as a non-fossil fuel energy source. Let them choose one or more of these and suggest ways that kids can promote this planet-friendly alternative.

Older students can be challenged to design a machine or other device that can combat the specific crisis or create an action campaign, possibly including petitions or organized letter writing to deal with it. Whether their ideas can be fully realized is less important than the thinking process required for presenting a solution. One of the critical areas for college success that students lack is the ability to solve complex problems with no obvious answer.

Plan a culminating activity for Earth Day on Tuesday, April 22. You might call it "A Day (or an evening) with Inconvenient Youth." Invite parents and the media to see how students are planning to save their future by caring for the planet.

Previous issues

New Year's 2008: Web 2.0

The Internet has evolved once again at its usual frenetic pace, and social networking--also called Web 2.0--is becoming a dominant way of connecting online. In schools the emphasis has been on prevention, as worry about the most well-known sites such as Myspace.com and Facebook.com (see Tech Talk p, 1, Fall 2006) has resulted in those sites being blocked. In some places blogs and wikis are also not allowed. While this is particularly unfortunate as it keeps teachers and students from becoming proficient in new workplace skills, you need to focus on what you can do within your district's constraints.

In your role as Information Specialist, you can introduce your students and staff to two new resources. The first from the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), offers sensible tips for teens on how to play on the popular social networking sites without getting in trouble. The second is a customized search engine, and, in true Web 2.0 fashion, you can help expand it.

Staying safe

The pamphlet from YALSA entitled "Social Networking: A Guide for Teens" is designed for adolescents, but be sure to make copies available for teachers and administrators. There is much to learn here. After defining the term "ocial networking"to young adults--who don't use the phrase--it goes on to explain why adults get so upset, pointing out that grownups d on't always understand all its aspects.

Other sections of this brief guide discuss the safety and privacy issues related to sites such as Myspace.com, how to talk to adults about the value of social networking, and steps teens can take to prevent these sites from being taken away from them. The final column lets them know who they can talk to and where to get more information, giving several helpful websites. Also consult YALSA's "Social Networking in School & Public Libraries: A Toolkit for Librarians & Library Workers."

Safe searching

Google has recently offered everyone the ability to create their own customized search engines. Lucy Gray who teaches middle school computer science at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, has used this new tool to create several designed to meet school needs. Her "Mrs. Gray's Research Site for Kids", (or just put the title of the site in the Google search box) gets results from 17 different sites including nytimes.com and sciencedaily.com. You are invited to become a contributor.

Although the sites are "safe" because of the sources, topics cover a wide range. S tudents will find information on "hot topics" such as suicide, gangs, drugs, etc., as well as typical curriculum units including westward expansion and systems of the human body. Be aware that controversial subjects including homosexuality and abortion are also available.

Mrs. Gray has several other customized search engines. The one she did on geography brings results from Flickr, (so students will find pictures), worldatlas.com, and geography.about.com/library, which has blank outline maps. After viewing what she has done, you may be tempted to create your own search engine. Don't forget to invite contributors, so you, too, can begin social networking.

Fall 2007: Election central

Voter apathy is a concern as even presidential elections get slightly more than half the eligible population participating. By starting relatively early in the campaign, you can raise student awareness at all grade levels and prepare them for their responsibilities as citizens in a democracy. Their interest might spark discussions at home and cause their parents to become voters.

Setting up the display

Set up one corner of your media center as "election central" expanding it over the next months. Decorate it with red, white, and blue crepe paper streamers. Collect posters, bumper stickers, buttons, and campaign literature from local party headquarters, being careful that you maintain a balance between the two parties. (You might also have material from third party candidates as well.) The local League of Women Voters chapter is another source. Their literature is informative and non-biased.

Remind your Internet-focused students that the print media should not be overlooked. Display books on elections from your collection. For middle and high school, clip articles from newspapers, highlight key ideas (modeling that information literacy skill) and attach them to a nearby bulletin board or staple them to a large piece of poster board. Change them frequently to keep students’ attention. Photocopy relevant articles from news magazines. (Perhaps they will begin reading them.)

Knowing the words

Begin building your students' election vocabulary. Post starter terminology (see list) on red and blue construction paper. Give the definitions for elementary grades and then encourage them to find those words in their readings on the elections. Those in middle and high school can be challenged to find definitions and put them in their own words. The websites given will speed their efforts.

Encourage everyone at all levels to identify more terms as they discover them. When you have several new ones turned in, redo the glossary. Use a different color (red or blue) or font to indicate the words they submitted. (At the lower grades include the name of the person who supplied it.)

Words and Pictures

As you expand your Election Central for middle and high school students, create a space for the positive and negative terms used. This will heighten your students' awareness of the efforts made by candidates to manipulate how the opposition is perceived and cast themselves in the best possible light. Post two each of donkey and elephant silhouettes, placing a plus on one and a minus on the other. As these words are used on blogs, websites and in print, add them to the appropriate donkey or elephant.

Political cartoons are even more powerful than editorials in influencing opinion because they are usually humorous even as they seek to put an issue or candidate into a particular focus. Photocopy examples from local newspapers or go to John Cagle's Professional Cartoonists Index.

Suggest to interested teachers that students create their own cartoons (which you can post) to demonstrate their understanding of the election process.

Vocabulary

• bandwagon
• campaign
• *caucus
• *coalition
• coat tails
• convention
• dark horse
• election district
• electoral college
• *gerrymander
• GOP
• grassroots
• hard money/soft money
• *hustings
• inauguration
• lame duck
• left wing
• mandate
• *PAC
• plank
• platform
• plurality vs. majority
• polling place
• *president-elect
• *president-designate
• primaries
• projected winner
• public opinion polls
• rank and file
• right wing
• secret ballot
• straight ticket
• straw poll
• Super Tuesday
• third party
• voting bloc

*These terms are for middle and high school students

Websites

PBS -- By the People Election Terminology 2004

Time for Kids Online: Election Connection

ExxonMobil Citizen Action Team: Campaign and Election Terminology
Sites were last viewed on May 30, 2007 and still reflect the last presidential or midterm elections so they may be updated by the time this issue is published.

Editors' Note: This first appeared in the September and October 1980 issues (the first year of the SCHOOL LIBRARIAN'S WORKSHOP) The donkeys and elephants suggestion (November 1996) and the political cartoon idea (November 1984) are developed much further in the issues in which they appeared.

School begins 2007: Who's in charge

All new teachers worry about classroom management. They talk to more experienced colleagues and get advice, and worry about getting all the steps correct. The goal is to reach the point where it becomes so natural, they don?t even think about how to get students to behave.

The challenge

As a library media specialist, you rarely have a colleague in the building to help you. Even if you have years of classroom experience, you must deal with challenges far greater than those facing a new teacher. At the elementary level where you are likely to have a fixed schedule, you see students once a week at best -- when their teacher drops them at the library door and picks them up 45 minutes later. Some of them may feel you -- or any of their other specialists -- are not "real" teachers. You are their break, their escape from class.

If you are at a middle or high school you have to deal with teachers who may be physically present but use the time for personal tasks, completely ignoring their students' behaviors. Some have a very laid-back style and see no problem when noise levels rise, which in turn aggravates another teacher who adheres to a far stricter approach and blames you for the media center being "out of control." Meanwhile, students are coming in from class or study halls and you need to supervise them as well.

When there is a substitute, the situation becomes even more difficult. At the elementary level, students come in all wound up before you can begin your lesson. Higher grades also act out in class under those circumstances, and, if scheduled for a project in the media center, use the more open environment to avoid anything resembling work.

Elementary solutions

Routines and understanding are two key tactics to manage the elementary environment. Early in the school year, have students generate a list of unacceptable behavior. Be sure that reasons are given and there is consensus. You can assign a different student each week as the "reminder person." Do it on a rotating basis so everyone gets a chance rather than making it a reward for good behavior. You will be amazed at how well one of your "itchy" boys acts when it is his turn. Someone else can be responsible for collecting the books to be returned and may even be allowed to help check them in while everyone else gets started finding new ones. Jobs work in the classroom and in the media center.

Keep in mind that young children, boys in particular, need time to be physical. If you are seeing them just before lunch or the last period of the day, they are tired of sitting still and behaving. Quietly listening to a story may be beyond their ability. Instead of yelling or punishing them for acting up, tell them they will have a chance to act out their favorite part. That will keep them focused until they have the outlet you are allowing them.

Their class, my room

Manage noisy classes at middle and high school by asking teachers whether they want to speak with their students or if they prefer that you handle it. Don't give them a choice as to whether to bring the group under control -- just who is to do it. When a substitute brings them in, move quickly. If you know the assignment, immediately direct students as to how to begin; otherwise ask what they are supposed to be doing and tell them how to get started. If you are to give a lesson, get to it and remind students that you (as well as the sub) will be making a report to the teacher and this will affect their class participation grade. (You should set up this procedure with teachers in advance.)

Speak individually with students who come from class without a teacher. Keep it light and don?t engage in a discussion. For example, if they respond to your request to lower their voices by saying they are not the only ones talking, smile, and repeat your statement. No matter how many arguments they make, just repeat the request for them to talk more quietly. If your patience wears thin, ask in a non-hostile tone if they would like to return to class.

The personal touch

Even if a problem is widespread in the building, don't get up in a faculty meeting and tell teachers how you expect their students to behave. You will only alienate them. Discuss the situation one-on-one, suggesting solutions and getting their input. Remember when dealing with students to treat them with the same respect you give to a colleague--no matter how frustrated you feel.

Give yourself a break. If you mess up one day, chalk it up to experience. Apologize if it is necessary. When you feel calmer, consider what you could have done differently. Eventually, it will all become so natural, you won?t give classroom management another thought.