Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for college
A new professional experience
This afternoon I had the opportunity to speak with a class at Heartland Community College. I had been invited by the instructors to come in as a guest speaker. The class is co-taught by an English teacher and a librarian, and the title of the class is “Banned and Burned Books”. They wanted to get the perspective of a school librarian, particularly a high school level librarian, so Anita at ISU gave them my name. I was very honored.
It was a big tough to work out logistically, but the administration at West agreed to let me go as long as I could fit the talk into one class period. So, I contacted the instructors and told them that this would have to be the arrangement, and they were fine with it. When I first walked in there were just a few students sitting around and the were actually talking about books! Well, ok, technically they were talking about the Harry Potter movies, but there was a lot of reference to the books. It was a nice conversation; one that I don’t get to have often because of time restraints. Once the teachers were there we technically started class, but it was not much different from before. The only difference between the time I was having my book discussion with the students and class time was that the teachers were sitting in there, too. Other than that, you’d have never known those kids were in the classroom.
I sat down in a chair at a desk and really talked with the kids. They had interesting questions, and they brought up points that I hadn’t thought about before about censorship and book challenging. The college instructors had a lot of questions, too, since teaching at the jr. college level is so different from teaching at the high school level. The hour I was with them was awesome; I loved it. It made me want to consider teaching at the college level a little more. After all, undergraduate studies is the only level of school I haven’t taught yet. Hmm…
Geeky girls time
My great friends Carrie and Amy did not have school because of Veteran’s Day today, so they dumped their kids on their spouses and drove down to Blo-No for a little mini get-away. They had lunch here, went for pedicures, and then did some shopping. All of this happened while I was in school, which I thought to be completely unfair, but I think they had a lot of fun bumming around. Finally after school was out they came to see our new house. I gave them the deluxe tour, getting their opinions about the improvements we’ve made or hope to make in just about every room. I had worked hard on getting the house looking good, and was excited to show it off to them.
After a lengthy discussion on where we should go for dinner (I’m horrible at making decisions like that) we finally headed out. We went to Destihl, where there was quite a long wait, but it was all good because it just gave us longer to catch up. Dinner was great…we always like to get a few appetizers and share them all. Plus that allowed us to save some room for ice cream afterwards.
We didn’t do anything big, but it was a really fantastic day. We simply got to talk and talk and talk, which seems rare these days. Amy was joking with a friend about what we’d do when we got together, and she was calling this our Geeky Girls Time. There could not be a better description of it, and I would not like it any other way!!
Illinois Loyalty
Yesterday was an all-around awesome day. The Swartzies and Dave & I had separately gotten tickets for the Illini football game, which was a night game vs. Arizona State. We decided that we really wanted to get there to tailgate early, so they arrived at Aunt Theresa’s house about 11:30 to pick us up to head to Champaign. We first hit Ryan’s apartment to pick him up and get a couple of small grills. Then we headed to the parking lot to set up our tailgating camp.
Rod had found a parking pass to purchase, and it was in a great lot; directly behind the Assembly Hall. There was shade, there was grass, and truly, it would have been difficult to find a better spot.
We unloaded all the food and drinks, got the grills all set up, and the kids started playing football. After a short time, several of Ryan’s friends came to tailgate with us, too. It was such beautiful weather and so much fun to be around some really great current Illini while eating, drinking, and generally being merry. It took me back to my college days in many ways.
Once we finally headed to the stadium, we had to stop by to see the Red Grange statue. Brett had brought a friend who had never been to an Illini football game before, so it was basically a rite of passage for him. I never get tired of visiting Red. It really is a very cool memorial.
We didn’t have seats with the Swartzies, so once we went into the stadium we were on our own. Our seats were great except that there were two season ticket holders with the bolted on seats sitting next to us. Those are a nice feature, but they don’t leave you a lot of room if your bottoms are bigger than the small area allocated to each seat number. But I tried to get over that as much as possible, because we got to watch a great game. There is nothing quite like a night game…it just seems to be a whole different level of excitement in the air. Add to that the fact that we were playing a big-time opponent like ASU who happened to be ranked, and the stadium was nuts. The game was so good and we held the sun devils off. It went to the very last drive, but we did it, which is not something that happens every day with the Illini!!
I think the best part of the day was spending some time alone with Dave. We haven’t had a lot of time together lately, and we’ve both been missing that. It was nice to have nothing to worry about other than having some fun and winning a football game!
Professionalism
This morning I had a meeting with Anita, the director of the ISU School Library Program. I’ve taught in the program since its inception, and I’m really excited that everyone involved with it is looking for the program to grow. That impetus has led to the creation of an advisory board, which met in March. During that meeting new class proposals were discussed, and the top priority to everyone involved was an introduction level class. I’ve been suggesting this type of class for about three years, but until there wasn’t a director in place that was never going to happen. Now that Anita has taken over the position the time for planning has come.
Since I’ve been talking about this class proposal for years, Anita wanted to meet with me to talk about ideas. We brainstormed topics, units of study, format for the class, assignment possibilities and looked at the state learning standards to make sure we were aligning our plan with them. It was awesome. I absolutely love working at this level of professionalism. Don’t get me wrong…I do feel like a professional in my job, but there is a difference between working within a public school system and within a university setting. Sure, there’s still a LOT of red tape and bureaucracy, but there’s also a lot of autonomy. I really felt like the discussions we had and the plans we made may actually result in a class starting up from nothing. And that’s pretty cool.
I’m proud to be a school librarian (and since the ALA has ditched ‘media specialist’ and has adopted ’school librarian’ as our official title again, I’ve pretty much gotten over the stigma of the L word) and I’m even prouder to help so many teachers become school librarians, too. Since I’ve been struggling through one of the most challenging years of my career, it’s really rewarding to feel important and valued. Although it may not be happening in my day-to-day life, the big picture is keeping me fulfilled professionally.
Mommy’s classes
In education, the best way to get decent raises it to “move over” on the salary schedule. What that means is getting more hours past the highest degree you’ve earned. There are columns in the salary schedule, and once you’ve earned a certain number of credit hours, you move on to the next column, which means you get a bump in salary beyond any standard raise that everyone else gets. I started in the M+0 column in Unit 5, which meant that I had my Master’s Degree with no hours beyond that. I had randomly taken a class here and there, and was finally able to move over to M+16 in August of 2010. I liked the feeling and the bump in the paycheck, so I started taking classes left and right to try to move again. I got to the M+32 column in February of 2011, and I will be able to get to M+48 (the highest column there is) in August of 2011.
I’m not going to lie and say that I’ve worked hard to get these classes done, but it has been time-consuming. These are short two-week classes through a company called Connecting Link. They vary in topic…some of them really relevant in and interesting, and some of them not so much of either. But the bottom line is that I’ve put in the time and I’m almost done. Tonight I’m starting yet another one. Thankfully there are several people from my school taking them, too, so we have a fun group and it’s not torture to be there. But it’s hard to be away from the kids and Dave two Wednesday nights per month. I am grateful that he thinks this is as valuable as I do, because without his cooperation I could never have gotten to the last column so quickly.
After this class I’ll be at M+41 hours. Only 2 more classes to go this spring and then I have to take 1 hour this summer. I can’t wait to be done…after this summer I won’t have to hear, “Oh, you have class again tonight?” in that disappointed tone ever again!!
A nice welcome home
After finally making our decision to stay one extra day, we pulled into the garage around 11:30 or so this afternoon. It was really great to be home. After unloading everything from the van, it again looked like a tornado had flown through our house. But it didn’t take too long to get most of our stuff upstairs and unpacked. Dave and I both desperately wanted to take showers, anyway. After a couple of hours of relaxation, the Swartzies came. They had to take Ryan back to U of I for the end of his spring break, so it was a perfect chance for us to catch up with them.
I know that Nance was concerned about them bombing in just after we got home, but it was a really great day. Not only did we get to share Florida stories and hear just as many about Ryan’s trip to Gulf Shores, but we had instant entertainment for the kids, as well. When Nance and Rod left with Ryan, Curtis and Brett stayed here. They played a whole bunch of Wii with the kids, and it was a very nice chance for Dave and I to relax a bit before we completely collapsed.
When bath time came, we had absolutely no arguments or resistance at all. The kids took a nice, long, relaxing bath and fell into bed by 7:00. I’m pretty sure that Dave and I are headed there very soon ourselves. Tomorrow it’s back to the grind for all of us, so it was really nice to spend today having fun with our family.
Euchre mania
I participate in a Euchre tournament that has been going on for over twenty years. You can read about it here if you want the full background about this tournament, because I wrote about it when we played last summer. But today we got together and played again, and as always, it was a super fun day.
It’s so funny how much these tourney days have changed. We used to have Euchre weekends, where we would eat massive amounts of junk food and play cards until all hours of the night. Sometimes we would barely leave the house…usually just to go out for a meal so we could get some fresh air. Sometimes, though, we’ve ordered in just so we could keep playing. But now we’ve all aged 20+ years and none of us are too interested in those kinds of crazy events anymore. We’ve tamed it down to a one day marathon…usually about six hours or so…with much less junk food and an actual meal involved during our play.
We had a great time catching up, listening to 80s music, and playing cards. Just for the record, my partner Jeannine and I won seven games in a row, which I think has to be some kind of record. We’re still WAY behind in the megapoint category, but maybe someday we’ll catch up. We have plenty of time.
Spring break?
This week is ISU’s spring break. Unfortunately, though, I still had to “go” to class tonight. If you miss a class, our teacher requires that you listen to that class and write a paper summarizing it. Since I left for Florida last Thursday night, I missed that class. So, I spent my spring break week in class anyway. It worked out well as far as time goes, but it was a bummer that I couldn’t enjoy more time with the kids tonight. Thankfully the weekend is not far away!
The other side of the coin
Tonight I had my first class. But this semester, instead of teaching the class, I’m a student. You see, to get any kind of decent raise in my profession, you have to move over on the salary schedule as well as up. Each year you automatically get a raise because you’re there one year longer. You start at 0 your first year, and just start moving up. But there are also columns for each level of education and some steps in between. Bachelors + 8 hours, B+16, Masters, M+16, M+32, M+48, and then Doctoral. I believe I’m on step 14 this year, and I’m trying to get to the M+16 level by fall. I need 8 more hours to do that, so I’m taking a class this spring and this summer, and trying to pick up 2 extra hours somewhere along the way.
I decided to take one of the library classes that ISU offers…a class in the program in which I teach. It’s very weird being a student again. There are even students who were in my class last semester in the class with me! But the class, called ”Selection and use of Materials in the Secondary School Library”, should be pretty interesting. At the very east, I’m going to get a lot of reading done, which is always a good thing to do in my current position. Let’s hope I can keep up with all the coursework, and that I don’t end up stressing out about it too much. I haven’t taken a grad school class in a long time, but I’m hoping it’s like riding a bike.
Wish me luck!
You’re killin’ me, Illini!
Holy cow, this is a rough season. Last night, the Illini played Penn State, and we barely beat them. Not that any game in the Big Ten is a given this year, but we should be better than we are playing, and it’s very hard to watch. the team has a ton of talent, yet they just can’t seem to get it all together at the same time. Every game someone is off, and someone else has to attempt to pick up the slack. It’s so frustrating!! Typically this season, we’ve been going into halftime down by at least half a dozen points, and then had to fight back in order to barely win in the end. Last night’s game was a nail-biter, but thankfully the right team came out on top. I can’t say I think that’s going to happen every time.
