Collaboration: Nourishment for the Professional Soul

Like a lot of teachers/librarians who benefit from having "summer's off," I always head back to school earlier than I should.  We don't officially start back until mid-August, but I've spent the last couple of days there trying to shift my brain back into school mode.  Time at school without other teachers and students can be productive because while I still run around like a madwoman on those days, I get to be the sole director of that madness. Truly, as someone who sometimes thinks "rolling with the punches" should be listed at the top of her job description, the idea of working uninterrupted can be absolutely intoxicating.  However, it doesn't take long before the work I do during those days of solitude reveals itself to be tedious and, ultimately, unsatisfying.  Saying it's too quiet may seem like a throw away remark, but really it's hitting the nail on the head, because the noise we make in the library is evidence of the collaborative relationships that make our work so meaningful.

In her AMAZING Ted-style talk at ISTE this year, (I'm still in mourning that I wasn't there), Buffy Hamilton talked about creating enchantment for our patrons through the relationships we build with them.  She rightfully pointed out that one of the problems libraries face in our efforts to rebrand ourselves is the fact that we are so often associated with things (be it books, databases or eReaders) instead of people and relationships.  (I believe we contribute to this problem in a number of ways, but that's a post of a different color).

In my experience, "collaboration" is a term that librarians most often toss around to describe the work we do with classroom teachers.  However, I think we sometimes leave out the other important collaborations we share with students and with each other.  Perhaps we're all so worried about defending our jobs that we tend to focus on the collaborations that can most easily be tied to student achievement.  Or maybe it's because those "other" collaborations are so fulfilling, so nourishing to our professional souls that they seem too luxurious or frivolous to be really valuable. Hmmmm.  Something to chew on, certainly.

Anyway, a few of these other collaborations have recently resulted in some products that I wanted to share.

First, although  I've posted this before, I neglected to point out that one of the presentations I did for the Teaching Fellows Conference was actually the product of a collaboration between me and a former student.  Several of the photographs I used in this presentation are hers - used not only with permission but with discussion before and after about how and why they could be, and ultimately were, impactful. While I'm glad that this provided her with the chance to extend the reach of her work, I am absolutely in love with the notion of today's students helping to shape the practice of tomorrow's teachers.

Bibliotherapy 2.0

Secondly, while I didn't work on this video, I got to see a sneak preview of it at the P21 institute last month.  On the face of it, it's a delightful piece about encouraging kids to collaborate, communicate, think critically and create.  However, what makes it even more special to me is the knowledge that the product itself is the result of a collaboration between some unlikely co-conspirators in the #edreform revolution.  Educators, politicians, business and non profit leaders all teamed up with the folks at FableVision to make this happen. Again, I am smitten by the knowledge that this product couldn't have been created without the very ideals it promotes.  Plus, its one size does NOT fit all message is just lovely.  Also, just as an FYI, there's a downloadable poster that accompanies this video here.

Finally, I was absolutely knocked for a loop last week when so many people asked if they could share the flyer I made about what teachers/administrators should expect from their school librarians.  But my humbled shock morphed into pure inspiration when Donna Baumbach transformed the flyer into this amazing collaborative document using the tool ThingLink.   I am amazed.  Not only are people sharing some amazing resources/work/examples, but now I simply can't wait to put ThingLink to work in my library.



I end this post with the same feeling I have each year when a new school year approaches:  abuzz with ideas.  Ideas that I wouldn't have had, had I not indulged in the frivolity of collaboration. 

Librarians Are Ready, Are You?

Having not been able to shake the "I had no idea librarians could do this!?" reaction I received at last week's Teaching Fellows Conference, I decided to create a flyer that I could share with program administrators at both the K-12 and collegiate levels - something flashy and fun that might, if nothing else, plant the seed that school librarians are more than just book hoarding shushers.

Making these flyers is always fun.  However, the entire time I was putting this one together, I was keenly aware of the fact that I was once a classroom teacher who thought school librarians were irrelevant - until someone proved me wrong. During my ten years in the classroom, I worked with 4 different school librarians at 3 different schools - add those numbers together and it might double the number of times I took my own students to the library during my entire tenure as a classroom teacher. To this day, I have no idea if the librarians at my schools wanted to collaborate with me. While I knew they were all smart, funny and charming people,  I couldn't tell you if they were master teachers, technology innovators or even reading pied pipers.  They may very well have been all of those things too, but if they were, I didn't know it.

Looking back on it now, I can see several possible reasons why I didn't get the message that, as a profession, school librarians were not only capable of working with me, but they also very much wanted to.

1. Teacher Isolation:  As a classroom teacher, I was deeply entrenched in my own world.  I spent so much time worrying about what was happening inside my classroom, I sometimes forgot there was a world spinning outside of it.
2. Teacher Education #Fail:  If my own teacher education program emphasized instructional partnerships of any kind, I forgot to sign up for that class.  Collaborating with other professionals was not a skill that I was taught in teacher school.
3. Librarian #Fail: This message was not being sent by the school librarians I worked with.  Or if it was, not very effectively.

Whatever the reason, however, the bottom line is I had no idea I could and should be working with school librarians - and a result, regardless of how great I was, my students missed out.


Again, it all boils down to this: I was once a classroom teacher who thought school librarians were irrelevant - until someone proved me wrong.  No flyer, regardless of how fabulous it is, will change the minds of those who see us as outdated and ineffective. For me, it wasn't until a dear friend of mine decided to leave the classroom and wander into the library that I started to think about school librarianship differently.  What's more, it wasn't until he started to share with me the things he was doing with teachers/students that I began to see myself in that role.

As much as this graphic is a love letter to new teachers and principals (and anyone one else who might see it), it's also a reminder to those of us who live in libraryland already:  Just about all of us will encounter someone this year who believes, for whatever reason, that school librarians are irrelevent.  Are you and your practice ready to prove them wrong?

I hope so.

View more documents from Jennifer LaGarde


As the attribution information suggests, I took inspiration from Carl Harvey's work in Library Media Connection.  (Without question, there are aspects of what we do that I missed.  However, with limited space and a desire to not overwhelm my target audience with info, I tried to capture the aspects of librarianship that the future teachers I worked with last week seemed the most shocked by.) What's more, I don't think it's possible to be a librarian who creates comic style flyers and not, even subliminally, be inspired by Gwyneth Jones - so, big juicy thank yous to both those folks.

Finally, as always, everything here is licensed under creative commons so please feel free to take, share and make better to your little heart's content.

UPDATE:  

Thank you so much Donna Baumbach who transformed this flyer into a collaborative document using ThingLink!  I am unbelievably humbled and inspired!  PLEASE scoot on over to her newly created wiki and contribute to this fabulous collaborative effort!  #ihavethebestjobever