Existential Crisis, update!

Two days ago, I wrote this email to my senior management team:

...I was wondering what you saw as the function of the library and the librarian.  I know what I believe it should be but I was wondering about how the senior management saw it. I'm not asking for a quick reply but would appreciate you giving it some thought over Christmas and getting back to me in the new year.  I am going to ask the rest of the upper school staff to think about it as well.  I am sure that I will get the usual responses but what I would like to know is how you would like to see the library and the librarian function within the school. Perhaps after the feedback we could arrange to meet and discuss your thoughts and mine.

The reply I received was:

It may be worth posing some questions in a googleform for all of the SLT and possibly HoDs if you are asking the same question of them?

I am waiting to see if this is the only reply I receive from them.  If it is, it speaks volumes!

An existential crisis or a new way forward

I woke up in the middle of the night about a week ago and the voice in my head told me that I really needed to get rid of the majority of our periodical collection.  I told it to shut up and that everything would seem better in the morning.  Then I tried to go back to sleep.

A short while later, the voice said that I should also get rid of most of my fiction collection since hardly anyone was reading.  "Be quiet," I said.  I wanted to yell that but I didn't want to wake up the whole house.  Instead, I turned over and tried to think of something else.  "And then there's the non-fiction collection!"  I didn't have to listen to anymore.  I was now awake.

I might have asked myself where this was all coming from but I didn't need to.  It is something that has been bothering me for quite some time.   I told people the next day that I was suffering an overly long existential moment but that moment has turned into a week.  So, the question became this:  what is the point of the upper school librarian and the library at ACS Egham International School.

I hear the voices of fellow librarians and of course, I know that there is a point and I am fairly certain that I can elucidate it.  However, I don't know if anyone else can.  I might ask my colleagues what they see as the role of the library and librarian and I would get back the usual platitudes.  I have educated them well.  However, their actions don't confirm this.  The English department has stopped bringing their classes for book talks and book selection, claiming they can't afford the time.  The science and humanities departments don't come for research lessons as often as they did, giving the same reason.

Was it something that I did or didn't do?  I have spent a lot of time thinking about this.  I surveyed, I increased my book displays and bulletin boards, I have given mini workshops at staff meetings and gone to department meetings to peddle my wares.  Finally, yesterday I came to the realisation that it wasn't something I did or didn't do, that it is simply the way my school is going.

To meet the requirements of the MYP e-assessments, a lot of time given in the past to research has been cut.  I have even had someone say to me that it didn't matter to them what sources the students used and how good (or bad) they were.  Students would now only be given a short period of time in class to ask about the essay topic and then it would be due a week and a half later.  No time to come to the library, no time for me to share good resources, no time for me to assist with the development of their research skills.  And as for referencing, well who knows how that is going!  Encouraging students to use the excellent book resources we have was always a challenge.  Now, I might as well pack them up and send them off to Better World Books.

I don't want you to think that I am feeling sorry for myself or heaven forbid, wallowing in self-pity. Quite the contrary (though that might have happened for a short while), I am feeling liberated by the realisation that the needs of the school have changed and that the library and the librarian are going to have to change as well.

You may not be reading the situation right, you might say.  And that is true.  Thus, though I have decided that I will probably reduce my book stock by up to 50% (notice I'm not being totally radical), and stop subscribing to most of my periodicals, I do recognise that I could be wrong.

I wrote the following email to my senior management team:

Please excuse my existential crisis but......I was wondering what you saw as the function of the library and the librarian.  I know what I believe it should be but I was wondering about how the senior management saw it. I'm not asking for a quick reply but would appreciate you giving it some thought over Christmas and getting back to me in the new year.  I am going to ask the rest of the upper school staff to think about it as well.  I am sure that I will get the usual responses but what I would like to know is how you would like to see the library and the librarian function within the school.  Perhaps after the feedback, we could arrange to meet and discuss your thoughts and mine.

More to come!

EE Inspiration Session

 I thought I would share with you one of the activities I did today with the grade 11s during our EE Inspiration session.  Before we introduce the ins and outs of the extended essay in late January, I wanted to try and inspire students to think about topics which excite them for their essays.  In the past, students have decided on a teacher they want to work with or a subject they want to do their essay in and then presented themselves to their supervisor with no real idea of what they wanted to do.  We usually ask students to come up with three subject areas they might like to do their essay in because we can't guarantee that they will get their first choice.  On occasion they will flesh out their first choice but rarely ever their second or third.  This year they will be asked to make 3 proposals and we will read through the proposals and decide which one they should proceed with.

I was inspired by the visit we made to a monastery in Crete during an EE Coordinator's workshop with Philpot Education in June.  Our homework coming out of the visit was to develop a research question.  To test out what I planned I came up with a 'big idea' (the equivalent of the monastery), and tried it out on our teachers.  They were given the Big Idea: Brexit / US 2016 US Presidential Election.  They were also given a number of subject areas and asked to develop topics through the lenses of those subject areas.  Below is an amalgamation of their work.  

When I presented this activity to the grade 11s I removed the subjects and only put in 4 empty boxes, with their big idea at the centre.  

Their big ideas were money, change, ballet, space exploration and shipping. They were encouraged to come up with their own subject areas.  I was somewhat concerned about how well the activity would work after the session with the teachers, who struggled a bit with it.  I shouldn't have worried.  The students were fantastic!  In some cases, they just put down simple ideas on the sheets.  However, when they spoke to the rest of the groups about their big idea they detailed their ideas for research and they were so impressive!

I have scanned the sheets and turned them in to A-2 posters.  I am going to put together an inspiration wall in our IB Centre to encourage them to keep thinking and exploring ideas for their essays.  I suppose the proof will be in the pudding, but at the moment I am hopeful that they will generate some thoughtful research questions.

Example of one of the Big Idea sheets:

Grade 9 Human Library Project

As some of you may know I have been struggling with the mess which is our approach to ATLs.  A few years ago a course was introduced in grades 9 and 10 to help solve the problem created by the non-teaching of ATLs in the previous 3 years of MYP.  I really don't like this idea and as the new ATL co-ordinator want to eventually phase out this course.  One of my approaches was to introduce a project into the grade 9 study skills class, through which we would approach some of the ATLs.  Here is what I have so far.  Feedback is greatly appreciated!

Overview

Through their preparation for a Human Library presentation, students will research and present (as a human book) a subject about which they are particularly passionate.  The Human Library concept is about offering people as ‘human’ books which are lent out to readers.  Books typically have titles that aim to represent a stigmatised or stereotyped group of people in the community.  However, in our case, our titles will reflect the vast array of interests of our grade 9 students.  

Our student ‘books’ will be borrowed by 3 people at a time for 15 to 20 minutes, during which time, the books will tell their ‘readers’ about their topic and share pictures or activities with them and then answer questions.  ‘Readers’, who will come from various parts of the ACS Egham community, will be given a ‘catalogue’ in advance from which to choose the book they are most interested in. Having done so, they will then sign it out.  The reader will also be provided with the protocols for their role in the Human library at the time of reserving their book. To assist our ‘books’ in improving for their next ‘edition’, readers will be asked to write a short ‘book review’, which will be shared with the ‘books’.

Through the preparation stage of our project, students will develop or refine their skills in time management, communications and research.  In particular, these will include but are not restricted to: organising time allocation for each stage of the process; preparing and delivering an oral presentation; negotiating a library online catalogue, databases and search engines to find information; using search tools such as keywords, boolean operators, and advanced search tools; developing various skills for academic writing such as: note taking, paraphrasing, summary and referencing; collaborating with other students as 'study buddies' or as peer reviewers; and self assessment.