knitting librarian

Teens’ Knowledge of History, Literature Is Very Poor – 3/3/2008 2:05:00 PM - School Library Journal

This posting made me go and download the 24-page report Still at Risk: What Students Don’t Know, Even Now to read.

One of the comments that struck me was “almost 20% of 1200 respondents to a national telephone survey do not know who our enemy was in World War II”—primarily because of a particularly embarassing situation that happened to me when I was a senior in high school. (Humiliation alert!)

We spent the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day in the Florida Keys. I wanted to work on my tan and stayed at the pool while the rest of my family had a late afternoon nap. I was the only person left poolside. Not long after, a man showed up and was chit-chatting with me. He struck up the conversation by asking if I was on my honeymoon. (I told him no, I was still in high school and implied I was jailbait.)

He went on to complain about our education system—legitimately, as you’ll soon see! He said something along the lines of, “Who won World War II?” and having never taken a history class that went beyond reconstruction but not wanting to look like the cultural illiterate I was, I responded, “Did anyone really win?” (Answer a question with a question, classic avoidance!) Instead of realizing I was a dumb blonde, he jumped all over that, “Exactly!” (I honestly don’t remember much else about that conversation other than thinking he was an easy con.)

The other thing education-related thing I remember from that trip was that I was to memorize Hamlet’s “To be, or not to be” soliloquy for my English class. I’d forgotten my book and needed to go buy one while we were on our vacation. We picked up a copy of Hamlet and a Key Lime pie in the same shopping trip.

When I went to college, as electives I took both a 20th century US and 20th century world history class. At the end of the world history course, I went up to the professor and thanked him and told him that I’d never had a class that went past reconstruction and I appreciated his class. He laughed at me. Even so, those were two of my favorite general education courses and probably influenced my choice to minor in history in college. I had to be sure I wasn’t caught like that again. I also bought E. D. Hirsch’s Dictionary of Cultural Literacy to help ensure that I became a more aware adult than I was teenager.

I hope fewer students graduate from my old high school not knowing the answer to that stranger’s question than did twenty years ago! At the very least, I hope I’ve given them the skills to find the answer if they don’t know it!

My pink and brown swap package arrived yesterday and I managed to get photos taken and posted today. NCBelle_36 did a wonderful job of selecting items that I will use and love! Missing from this photo is a package of Hershey’s Dark Chocolate Sticks so just imagine them in there—I think DH may have commandeered them—this is becoming a bad habit with him and my swap chocolates!

With this cold I’ve developed in the last 48 hours, my lips are desperate for moisture so that lip balm/gloss stuff is going to come in quite handy!

I’m so glad that Heather hostesses (Is that a word? Is that how you spell it?) these swaps. They’re such fun!

Today I added a book list page to the site based on what Nancy does—I am terrible about tracking what I read so hopefully this will make it easier to stay on top of for me. If you’re looking for a list of things to read or not read, this might be the place to look!

I’ll need to dig through the piles on my desk to figure that out! I really hoped I was going to get around to this today but there were too many carts of books to organize and get ready to shelve. They’re an extension of my desk, right? Does that count? I’ll take a before picture soon and then an after picture—when I finally get to it, oh, say about June!

The problem with having such a huge desk that 80-160 of my favorite teens touch every day is that 80-160 kids touch my desk. They move things, they hand me papers, they leave papers un-retrieved in the printer, they mess with my mess!

One of my co-workers went to ALA’s midwinter conference in Philadelphia this past weekend. She kindly entered my name in a drawing and I won a pop-up post-it desk station. She also brought me several ARCs: one by Paul Volponi about a young man in the Superdome in the days following Hurricane Katrina and another by Sarah Dessen. I’d seen a pre-review of the Volponi book a few weeks ago and heard it’s wonderful and awful at the same time. Dessen I always enjoy so I’m looking forward to that as well. I finished Jodi Picoult’s Perfect Match over the weekend and started another of hers Vanishing Acts. Both were generously shared with me by another co-worker. I love co-workers who share book stuff!

Three Steps to Eliminating Teacher Technophobia | 21st Century Connections

This article really got me thinking about what else I can do to help my faculty meet student needs in their classrooms. There was a time when I did collect weblinks and dutifully put them on webpages divided by subject area. Recently I’ve been in the habit of cutting and pasting useful links to the appropriate teachers and discarding my list. Perhaps I need to revise/revisit that thinking.

I’m trying to figure out if there’s a way we can work this into the library grant proposal we’re working on. We missed a meeting last week because of a snow day—but at this point I think it’s a good thing. I’ve been a brainstorming fool since that missed meeting: thinking of all of the things I’d do with that money if I were the king queen of the grant budget!

Some of the things I’ve sent off to be added to the list:

I personally would love to see adoption of and training district-wide on the Big6 problem solving (and research) model. There is a Little3 version for elementary level. Many districts and states have adopted the Big6 and connected it to their information literacy and technology curriculum. (from the Big6 website)
” What is the Big6™?
Developed by educators Mike Eisenberg and Bob Berkowitz, the Big6 is the most widely-known and widely-used approach to teaching information and technology skills in the world. The Big6 is an information and technology literacy model and curriculum, implemented in thousands of schools – K through higher education. Some people call the Big6 an information problem-solving strategy because with the Big6, students are able to handle any problem, assignment, decision or task.”

I’d also like to see an integrated information literacy curriculum and standards adopted by the Board so that teachers are compelled to work with librarians rather than using only the computer lab for research. West Chester School District was recognized by the state recently for their program. There may be other programs closer that are exemplary as well, but this is one I read about this fall.

Reading Renaissance training for any teacher where Accelerated Reader is used would probably be beneficial so that the program is implemented uniformly across the district.

Toni Buzzeo does workshops on Collaborating to Meet Standards and has written books for both primary and secondary level teachers.

For me personally, I’d like more detailed training on how I can assist with assessments and help to identify skills that I can work with teachers and students to ensure that students are meeting assessment anchors and achieving. PSLA (PA School Librarians Association) has developed a multi-year training on assessment and the librarian’s role in assessment. I’ve attended two presentations and I expect this topic will be addressed at the PSLA conference in the spring.

One of our language arts teachers has been requesting that all teachers in our building learn about the various resources in PowerLibrary (already on the list below) so that they know what is available to them to support the curriculum and to their students. In the middle of typing this email, I spent 20 minutes with a student who was having problems finding high-quality photos for a project for music class. We used the AP Multimedia Photo Archive and he was really pleased with the resulting photos. “Man, that is awesome! What was the name of that site again? I’m gonna keep using it.” It’s great when kids realize that the Deep Web is better than the free web!

Those are my thoughts at this point. I’ll keep thinking.

Both AJ and Zoe are so stuffy and raspy and phlegmy that I really need to get them to the doctors. I’ll have to call in the morning and see if I can get them in tomorrow. I ran out about 9:30 tonight to get a few things at the store and when I got home, John said that Zoe fussed most of the time I was gone. He tried to feed her, changed her, etc. etc. etc. but nothing really seemed to fix it. I suggested that maybe she just wanted to be held, but apparently that wasn’t it either.

I ended up feeding her the bottle when I got home and she did take it without much fuss. We saline-sprayed her nose and “boogie-sucker”ed her before putting her in bed for the night. She went out almost immediately.

AJ was still coughing in spite of our trying out the vaporub on the feet thing that was recommended in an email yesterday. He said “it smells good, but it didn’t stop my cough.” So, I gave him some cold and cough meds for the night and he went right back to sleep too.

I just finished in the shower and am ready for bed. I’m going to read Lauren Myracle’s L8r G8r until I collapse. I want it back in circulation by Monday, which shouldn’t be a problem. When I finish it I’ll be on to The Golden Compass. I need to read it in case anyone has a fit that it’s in my library. It’s not my thing, so I just hope I can get through it. I’m not a big fantasy reader.