Hi everyone,
I keep meaning to post something good to share but I can't think of anything earth shattering. But I do have a question for you guys, especially those of you who have worked or student taught in high schools.....what do you think of being a high school librarian?
I've been thinking maybe I would be better off in a high school library here becuase there's less craziness (I think) or at least a diffferent kind of craziness. I love the little kids but I'm on a half fixed schedule that has me seeing them for 30 minutes at a time which barely leaves enough time to get them books and do a decent lesson. The reason I'm thinking high school is because I think I'd get a chance to go out and try to colloaborate with teachers rather than running a mill of in and out checkouts on a fixed schedule. I kind of feel like I'm getting swamped with bus duties, extra elementary events and not getting a chance to really teach the kids as much as I'd like.....maybe it's just the schedule but I haven't figured out a way to move to a completely flexible schedule or a longer library time here....
So basically what are your thoughts on being a high school librarian? (What are the best and worst parts of HS libraries?)
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5 comments:
hmm interesting! i haven't spent much time in hs libraries but i did really like middle school...i don't know why, but high school kind of intimidates me! at the middle school level, i really enjoyed collaborating with teachers, but it was also an uphill battle to get a lot of them to be willing to do that. it was frustrating to have ideas with no one to use them on,and it was also easy to just relax and say, "well i'm only here temporarily and it's almost the end of the year, so i'll just take it easy." i think that especially after you've been librarianing for a while, this would be an issue for anyone. but middle school was fun because you still had a combination of the fun kid-like stuff and the more mature student...then again, you had a lot of attitude!
i have been surprised at my school because the kids choose their books soooo quickly...i am used to trying to jam everything into a half-hour, but a lot of the classes go so fast that i have extra time that i didn't anticipate! haha. but in terms of speeding things up, here are my successes so far:
-using baskets to collect books in the morning saves a few minutes trying to figure out who can check out and who can't
-to hurry the younger kids along, i take the books that they just returned and literally dump them on tables -- they like checking out what their friends took and it's usually all the high-interest stuff. with older kids, kind of the same thing -- i encourage them to check the return cart to look for the best stuff.
-sometimes switching around your order can help -- having checkout at the beginning if you usually have it at the end, or vice versa.
oh, also. our 4th and 5th grades have 40-min library and everyone else has 30. it's a great set-up. and at my practicum, library was 30 mins but then checkout was 10 mins at the end when the teachers came to help their students choose books. it worked well too.
I definitly can sympathize with your frustration at getting any teaching in at the elementary level. One thing that has help for us is following the Linda Herward method of checkout every other week (it gets us at least a few periods of lessons). Plus, I try to always end every period with a read-a-loud.
With the older kids, they all have "library cards" (name tags with barcodes) and one or two 3rd and 4th graders check the others out. It also helps to look up at the class and know that only the kids still wearing name tags need to find books.
So I have to say I feel stupid now because I totally missed the little "Comment" link below my entry. Ha so much for that blog lesson we did in that intro to tech class.
Liz, I liked the point about being frustrated trying to get teachers to work with you. Also I have been doing checkout at the begining because I everything would get backed up and we'd never switch on time.
Karin,
I do like the idea of one week lesson one week checkout but the way the county has the sytem set up picture books are due back every week so those kids would be getting over due notices. Some days I think "wouldn't it be nice to just be back in Falk" Only somedays though :-)
Thanks for the thoughts girls!
Hi guys,
I student taught 30 days in a high school and 30 in an elementary school and in my opinion, it really depends on the school district. I can tell you that at North Hills High School, students thought the library was a joke and never really took library instruction seriously. Likewise, I don't know if any of you saw it, but students at Pine-Richland High School actually took the time to create a myspace page for their librarian "who recently retired". Although I heard that the librarian wasn't really a nice person to begin with, the students were brutal on the myspace page, which has been taken down since the time I first saw it. Many students posted comments on the page and it was quite evident that the students at Pine-Richland also take the library as a joke. Many of the comments pretty much made fun of the librarian for trying to teach the students how to use resources other than wikipedia. It made me feel really discouraged to hear these comments. With that said, I really enjoyed working at the high school level and for every kid that thought it was a joke, there was one that enjoyed coming to the library and actually listened during instruction. I think all levels have their good and bad points! HIgh school can be frustrating because students think they know everything but it can also be cool because the students are a bit older and more on a level that an intellectual conversation can occur :)
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