Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for librarians
We’re going retro
This morning when I came into the IMC I thought I may have stepped back in time, because this is what I saw:
You see, we have to clean out two of our back rooms in the library because they are going to be used for a new tutoring center next year. So our assistant Sean and my colleague Caroline found a bunch of these old READ posters and thought it would be great fun to put them all over the IMC. Ugh. I’ve never been a fan of the READ poster for this exact reason. While I love the idea of celebrities promoting pleasure reading, they get outdated so quickly that they become silly after a very short time. I mean, really, Tim Allen? Tim Robbins?? And Nicholas Cage looking like he’s 30? It was a bit fun to hear the students’ reactions, though. Many of them didn’t even know who a lot of these people are!
But, I guess I can live with them for a while. After all, I enjoyed the 80s and 90s a lot. Maybe reliving them could be fun.
They can do it when they wanna
Because I am the high school Curriculum Chair there are sometimes responsibilities outside of the normal school day. The elementary and jr. high chairs and I were desperately trying to schedule an after school meeting. It wasn’t going so well…mainly because I don’t have a lot of options for after school daycare. So I threw out the idea of me bringing my kids to the meeting. I knew we would be meeting in an elementary IMC, so there would be a lot there to entertain the kids. Both of my colleagues agreed that it would be fine to have the kids there, so we set it for this afternoon.
I was definitely nervous about taking them. For one thing, they really like to go straight home after school to decompress a bit before doing anything else. Secondly, their behavior is always a crap shoot. Sometimes when I really need to be doing something else they absolutely cannot let me do it. But, we headed to the elementary school with me explaining how important it was for them to be good.
I cannot even tell you how proud I was of their behavior. The elementary librarian set them up on a computer each, and Ben was so sweet showing Emma how to work a program that he uses all the time during tech time. Then she went over to the carpet and played with her Barbies. She did come ask me to put a dress on a Barbie for her, but she was quiet and polite, and I could easily do it while still talking to my co-workers. When it was time to go, the elementary librarian commented on how good they had been, and she asked Ben if he wanted this little Lego guy that had come with some book. ”I was waiting for the perfect person to give this to, and after your behavior today, I think that’s you,” she said. He (and I) was thrilled.
As we were driving home I praised and praised them and made sure to tell Dave all about it at dinner while the kids were at the table, too. I hope that this is a glimpse of what’s to come when they get a little more maturity. It was awesome.
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!!
Testing, testing 1-2-3
So the wisdom that is the Unit 5 Administration decided that the 9th graders should all take the MAP test this year. This test has been given to the 1st – 8th graders for the last few years. It is a standardized test taken on a computer that measures the students’ level in math, reading, and language. Then they take the test again in the spring to measure how much they’ve improved. It all may sound great, but what it means for us is that we have to get 535 students logged on to a computer three times in a week’s time. And of course each test takes at least 50 minutes to complete, but can take much longer because the better the kids do the longer it takes. All of this equals logistical nightmare at the HS level. What it also means that I have been proctoring computerized tests for the last two days and will continue to do so for the next four days. It’s not difficult work per se, but it’s not really very fun, either. Let’s hope I can handle whispering for six days in a row…that may be some kind of record for me!
First day ’11 – ’12
Well, the inevitable happened, and I found myself setting the old alarm clock last night. Today was my first day of school. Today and tomorrow are institute days, which means that I will be sitting in meetings for most of them. But the great thing about these days is that all of us get to catch up with our work friends. We all share stories from the summer, and look forward to new things happening this year.
I have to admit that I was ready for school to start. Last year was so ridiculous that I can’t even explain how demoralizing it was for me. This year has already started off better because of my new co-worker at West. Tera has replaced the librarian who was at West from its opening 16 years ago, and she is very excited about making the transition to the library. Even better for me, she is excited to work with me and appreciates my experience and knowledge in the job. She asks me a million questions, appreciates my input, and truly wants to work together as co-workers. It’s such a refreshing difference than being ignored, set up for failure, or put down last year.
Although I’m still not thrilled with traveling between two buildings, I know that it will be much, MUCH better than it was last year. It’s amazing how much simply being treated like a human being helps even the crappiest of situations.
One year later
Today marks the one year anniversary of finding out that the high school libraries would be affected by the dwindling school budget and one full-time position would be cut. It’s been a difficult year for me, which I’ve referenced many times here, I know. After getting the news last spring I tried hard to fully comprehend the position cut itself, to endorse the fact that someone less experienced than me got to keep the full-time job at NCHS, and to think positively about this coming school year. I know I wasn’t always successful at it, but I did try. But then I overheard people I thought were my friends badmouth me at school, was indirectly told that my feelings were irrelevant compared to others with whom I work, and was put down and bullied in my first planning meeting for the new year. May 2010 was a roller coaster, to say the least.
This school year has been tough, I’m not going to lie. There have been so many frustrations, difficulties and insults that I can hardly even begin to describe them. When I look back at the last year, there are many, many things about my job I wish would have been different. But sadly most of those things were completely out of my control. The good news, though, is that I’m finally in a place where I’m not upset about most of those things anymore. I have gotten closer to a different group of people at NCHS and I’ve recently started opening up to people again. That’s so much more enjoyable than being guarded and shut down like I was after feeling so betrayed last spring. Yes, next year I will still be traveling between the high schools, but I will be working with a new colleague at West, and I’m optimistic that things will be very different there. I will actually be a contributing part of the Library team, and we plan to collaborate and work together as an entire high school library team, as well. I think it’s going to be a really good relationship, and I’m so looking forward to having some input and respect there. I’m really hopeful that I will start to build some relationships with the staff there, as well, because I think there’s a lot of amazing people in that building.
So I guess the moral of this story is that time does truly heal all wounds. Sometimes it’s a small amount of time, and sometimes is a large amount of time, but things do always have a way of working themselves out. This time it took much longer than usual for me to get to a contented and positive place, but I’m finally here again, and I’m liking it.
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.
Another blow
Last spring, one of the four high school librarian positions was cut, leaving one full-time librarian at each school and one person to travel between the schools for half a day at each. Because of seniority guidelines within our union, my colleague Caroline got the full-time gig at NCHS and I was low man on the totem pole and had to take the traveling job. One consolation was that Karen, the full-time librarian at West would be retiring at the end of this year, so everyone assumed that I’d be able to get that job and stop traveling.
Well, to make a long story short, I found out today that the full-time West job has been offered to a person who is a teacher at West. She has no library experience, but is completing the ISU program to become endorsed in media. This qualifies her for the librarian job, and because our union contract language allows building transfers to happen first, she was able to apply and get the job before I was even able to apply for it.
Now, both of these scenarios seem kind of hard to understand because two people who do not have as much experience as me are getting jobs in front of me. But, technically, everything is legit and correct. No one has done anything wrong or gone against the contract or anything like that. However, in both cases, the principals have handled it, in my opinion, very poorly. Last spring, I found out that I’d be traveling because our principal told my co-worker about it in public while I was standing less than four feet away. I literally found out because I overheard the conversation. My principal didn’t even look at me. This time, I was trying to be proactive, so when I found out that building transfers were posted I went to talk to the West principal to let him know for sure that I was interested in the position at his school. He told me that he wasn’t going to move on the posting until March, and he assumed I would be interested in applying for the job. Great…he gets it. Except that today I hear that he’s offered the job to someone else. And I hear it through the grapevine, not from him. It was confirmed by the retiring librarian, who said that she had known for two weeks and had been told not to tell, but she knows that everyone on staff already knows about it. Now, clearly he is entitled to hire whomever he wants for the job, but to me it would just be common courtesy to let someone who’s more qualified and interested in the job know that you’re doing it.
Maybe I’m over-reacting, but I literally feel like I’ve been slapped in the face two years in a row. It’s like the administrators don’t even think about how it will feel to overhear that your job is changing or to hear through the grapevine that you won’t even have a chance to apply for the job you are clearly more qualified for.
I’m frustrated. I’ve been in education for 21 years, and I feel, hopefully accurately, that I’m good at my job. I at least know that I am dedicated to it and have worked hard to do the best job I can. So why am I just getting kicked around by my district? It’s difficult, and it’s really disheartening.
Bring it, 2011
Professionally, 2010 was a tough year for me. Well, not all of it…until May 6th things were great. But with budget cuts in my district came the news that I would be traveling between the two high schools daily. It was a blow, to say the least. Since that time, I’ve struggled to figure out exactly what I can do to be happy at work again. This is my biggest goal for 2011. There are several options, but many of them involve big decisions that are completely out of my control. That’s difficult for me. Dave says that “feeling out of control is your kryptonite”, which is so accurate. I hate having no control in the actions that affect me so greatly. But I know I need to do it because being unhappy at work affects every other aspect of your life. So I hope to find some peace with my career, which will lead to more general happiness.
Who knows what 2011 will bring for the Kerbers? We are still tossing around the idea of moving, we are starting to plan a huge Disney trip, and quite possibly the biggest thing for all of us will be Ben starting elementary school in the fall. But no matter what is thrown our way, I know that Dave and I will continue to plow through it all together, dragging Ben and Emma along with us. It’s a wild ride sometimes, but I wouldn’t change most of it for anything.
So bring it, 2011…I’m ready for what you got.
