Is This Normal?
The chaos that is the KerbersArchive for librarians
Scariest conference ever
This afternoon my co-worker Caroline and I attended a professional workshop about Internet safety. Truly, this could have been one of the most worrisome workshops I’ve ever attended. The woman who presented to us was from the state’s attorney’s office in Springfield. Her job is to work on Internet safety prevention in school and with young people. The information she had for us, and even more so the statistics she had to share, were staggering. Cyberbullying is growing at such an astonishing rate that it’s now reported that 1 in 4 teens have been harassed, embarrassed, teased, and/or bullied in some digital format, and only 20% of these teens report the abuse. Cyberbullying has grown so much because it can all be anonymously, and the bully never has to see the actual reaction of the victim, which is often the only thing that makes bullies stop.
It’s so hard to be a teenager these days. One of the points our speaker made really hit home with me. When we were teenagers, there was a built-in filter for many forms of communication that just don’t exist today. For example, we had to get to know our friends’ parents, because when we called their house, the parents answered. Also, we wouldn’t ever take pictures of anything really incriminating, because we knew that those pictures had to be developed in a store, and strangers would see them. Currently, kids have complete peer-to-peer contact at all times. The natural filters are just gone.
Hearing the information presented in this workshop was important, but kind of depressing for me. I hope that we can pass the information along to our staff in a way that will convey the true danger of all of this instant communication. It’s really an important issue in education today.
The “last” class
Tuesday nights are y ISU class nights. Typically at this point of the semester, I am ready to be done with my class. You know how it is…no matter how great the semester has gone, there’s always that point when you’re just ready to be done with it all. Right now, I think a big part of that feeling is because I got way behind in my grading, so I had to spend a lot of time last weekend catching up on that. Not fun. I was looking forward to this class for one reason and one reason only; technically, this is my last class of the semester. We really have three more weeks, but two of them will be filled with student presentations, and the third will be the take-home final exam.
Tonight, though, really turned out to be an exceptional class. The newly hired ISU Library Program Supervisor sat in on class, and it seemed like she really enjoyed it. She was making all kinds of positive comments to me, and she added a lot to the class discussion. Afterwards she told me that she loved my teaching style and said that she could tell that I had a lot of expertise in the field. What a great thing to hear from someone in that position! I know that at this point in my career I should know that I’m a good teacher, but it’s always so wonderful to have that reinforced by someone completely unbiased.
It always surprises me to see how much I get out of teaching this class. I hope that the opportunity to teach more of them does come, because I really do love it.
We have a contract!
This afternoon our teacher’s union finally ratified a contract. Yes, we’ve been in school for something like 11 weeks now, but we’ve been working without a contract this whole time. Finally, our negotiating team and the school board resolved many of their issues, and a tentative agreement was reached. With this afternoon’s vote, the TA was approved, and I will finally get a raise!
The new contract isn’t offering much of a raise, but it is only a two-year agreement, which is huge. Hopefully the economy will be better in two years, so we’ll be able to ask for more than a 2% increase at that time. The other really beneficial thing for me in the new contract is that a curriculum chair will be created for the IMCs. There will be one representative from the high school level, and there is a good chance that representative will be me. The only person with more seniority than me is retiring in a year and a half, so her salary was locked in three years before her retirement date. I’m excited for this new challenge. We’ve been asking for district level representation for years, so this is a really great advancement.
It’s amazing how rejuvenated I am at work this year. The change in IMC personnel has made a huge difference in my excitement and enjoyment with my job. That makes me very happy…I sure hope it lasts! 
Off to ISLMA
As I type this, the car is packed and I’m ready to head to Springfield for the annual Illinois School Library Media Association (ISLMA) conference. While I’ve attended the conference several years in the past, this year is different. For the first time, I’m presenting at ISLMA. Friday and Saturday are filled with what we call concurrent sessions. That means there are like 7 or 8 different sessions going on at once, and conference attendees can choose whichever one he or she feels will be the most interesting and beneficial. My colleague Ellen (who is one of the media specialists at West, the other high school in our district) and I are presenting together, and it’s the very first session of the conference. We’re anxious and very excited to see how many people we get for ours.
As always, there is some guilt attached to leaving the kids and Dave for a couple of days. But this time it seems like I’m handling it a little better than usual. Maybe that’s because I’m actually going to be working while I’m gone instead of just playing with my friends. I’m looking forward to seeing some old friends there, but it’s so much m ore about networking and getting some fresh ideas for the IMC.
Wish me luck with this new professional endeavor. Maybe this will become something I do every fall…like teaching the ISU class did.
Parent/teacher conferences
Today was parent/teacher conference day at school. The kids got to sleep in while many of the teachers worked harder than they normally do.
While this is easily one of the most dreaded days of the year for most teachers, we librarians absolutely love it! Conference day is one that we get to work absolutely uninterrupted, and it’s so nice to actually get some projects done. We did have to go to a morning meeting, but it wasn’t too long and it was a small group of other librarians, so it was not bad at all.
Believe me; I remember having conferences all day very well. It wasn’t all that long ago that I sat at one of those tables trying to convince parents that their students were either doing really well, or needed to do a lot more to be successful. Neither scenario is really all that great. So these days, I try hard not to rub it in that we get the day to work on our own without dealing with parents much at all. Some teachers appreciate our situation, and others just whine about it to us. I always say the same thing, “Hey, they’re offering classes at ISU to become a librarian…you’re free to take them and then get hired somewhere so you can have this one beneficial day!” That usually shuts them right up.
IMC book club
I did make it to school today, thankfully, and although I wasn’t feeling great all day, one thing helped make the day better. We had our first meetng of our new IMC book club today after school, and it was really great.
My co-worker Caroline and I decided to have our book club meet once per month. We both wanted to be a part of the fun, so we plan to close the IMC the third Monday of each month, and dedicate that time to book club. The students who were interested came to the first meeting, and they had the idea for us to choose a category each month, and have everyone read a different book from that category. Today’s category was Halloween, or scary books. We had a great variety of selections, and it was a really fun meeting. Even though the numbers were quite small this first month, I’m sure that interest will grow as word of mouth takes off.
As a side note, I read a Stephen King book called The Girl Who Loved Tom Gordon for this month’s meeting. That book scared the crap out of me!! I even had nightmares one night when I read before going to sleep. I used to love all King books when I was in high school and college, but I am definitely more of a chicken these days. I don’t think I’ll be revisiting him anytime soon.
Next month we’re reading books from the 2010 nominees for the Abraham Lincoln Award. I’m looking forward to another great book discussion with some really awesome young adults.
I love video editing!
Tonight I got together with one of my counterparts at the other high school in our district, Normal West, to work. Ellen started at West two years after I started at Community, and we’ve gotten along really well ever since she began. So last spring I asked her if she wanted to present at the Illinois School Library Media Association (ISLMA) annual conference together. She did, we submitted a proposal, and it got accepted. Since the conference is at the end of this month, we have periodically been working on the presentation together.
We’re starting our presentation with a short video entitled “Perceptions of a Librarian…by students and staff”. We both taped a bunch of different students and adults from around our district, and I’m putting them all together into one video clip. I totally forgot how much I love editing videos. It took me back to the summer I took 555…my very favorite class in grad school. I think the title of the class was “Media Design: Multi-Media” and I spent all summer obsessing over every little detail of my projects. Oh, to have the time to do that again.
We bought video software not long ago with the intention of editing and consolidating all of our videos and getting them onto DVDs. Yeah…I’ll let you know when that happens…but don’t hold your breath!
Woo hoo…U2!
U2 opened the U.S. leg of their 360° tour in Chicago last night, and my dear friend Amy Mad. and I were there! It was a warm Spring Break night in Florida when I got the text from Amy saying, “I just got us tix for U2 at Soldier Field on Sept. 12!” That seems like such a long time ago now, but the concert was definitely worth the wait.
The evening started with an early dinner of stuffed pizza (something I truly miss the most about the suburbs) with two more great friends Carrie and Rachel. The four of us used to get together all the time before we all had kids and crazy, busy lives. Now our time together is much more rare, but still really great.
After dinner Amy and I headed into the city. The drive was awesome because we atually had a chance to talk without heaing, “Mommy!” constantly. Then we hit the traffic. Ugh…we were still a long way out when the interstate became a parking lot. But, we kept our spirits up…this was going to be great! Then we tried to find parking. Man, the traffic in the city was twice as bad as it was on the interstate!!
We ended up parking in the garage of the building of a friend of Amy’s after a short little drive on the sidewalk, thank you very much. No, I’m serious. There was so much traffic on the street that we just drove on the sidewalk at one point to get from one driveway to another that was only about 50 feet away. It was great.
Anyway, we then set off on foot to Soldier Field. I was a tiny bit stressed because at this point it was already after 7:00, which was the concert starting time. I knew that U2 wouldn’t go on until much, much later, but still…I always get a little stressed if I think I’m going to be late. We were parked about a mile from Soldier Field I think, and there was a huge crowd all walking that way. There was a definite excitement in the air, and Amy and I were stoked.
We entered the stadium, and were awestruck. The stage was so unbelievably cool. I had seen pictures of it in the Trib that morning, but nothing prepared me to see it in real life. We started up the steps to our seats…fully aware that we were in the nosebleed section, but truly having no idea of the workout we’d endure getting there. 102 steps later we hit row 34…four rows from the top. 
Seriously, I got a little queasy every time I turned around going up. Those seats were way up in the air. Once the show started, though, it just didn’t matter. Bono, the Edge, Adam and my beloved Larry were outstanding, as usual. The sad thing was our seats were so high that we were above the speakers. The sound was not as good as it could be, but that didn’t diminish my enjoyment too much. The light show was unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The stage changed constantly, and each time it got more visually interesting than it was before.
The band played most of the classics that everyone wanted to hear. Of course they got political, dedicating a song to the president of Burma who has been under house arrest ever since she was elected several years ago. But they were so entertaining. I truly think I would never get tired of seeing that band. Let’s hope they never get tired of recording and touring!
Another first day
Tonight was the first night for my ISU class. This is the fourth fall that I’ve taught C&I 442–Organization & Access of Information in the School Library. The class is for certified teachers who are looking to get certified as school librarians. Each year it changes and evolves a little bit, but I seem to enjoy it more and more each time I teach it. This fall, for the second year, the class takes place completely online. I teach from our office upstairs, which is a bit surreal, but really awesome, too. We use software that puts all of the class members into a virtual “room” where we can all talk to each other, we can type comments to each other, and I can present my information to the class using a PowerPoint just like I would if we were all actually sitting in a room. Last year, my first using this software, was a little bit rough trying to alter my plans and presentations to make them ’online class’ ready. But I waded through and the class and I learned together. It was pretty great. As a huge plus, I get to take our break right at bedtime and still kiss the kids goodnight. It’s really the best part.
I’m so glad that I have gotten this opportunity to teach other teachers wanting to become librarians. It’s truly a fulfilling experience for me.
Glad it’s over
The first week back after break is always brutal. Not only do you have to get up early again, you jump back into your routine with very little transition time. But this year seems to be even worse. Since we had a snow day on the last day of finals, Tuesday, our first day back with kids, was another finals day. It was bizarre because usually when you come back from break you get to start fresh…new classes, a new schedule, and a brand new start. Instead we had to finish up where we left off. It just didn’t seem right. So the new semester started Wednesday. For us media specialists, the end of the semester and the beginning of a new one mean the same thing…textbook distribution. It’s been four long days of slugging textbooks around and trying to get kids to bring back things that are overdue. On Tuesday we had 1358 students who had something overdue. We’re now down to 657. It’s still not a great number, but at least it’s better! Needless to say I’ve been exhausted in the evenings, and that’s why I haven’t been posting much this week. I’m thinking that things will get back to normal quickly next week, so hopefully I can get back into my routine of posting, too.
I do really love my job, but there are definitely parts of it that are better than others. I don’t really remember them talking about textbooks much when I was getting library certified. Who knew it would be such a big part of my job.
Let’s just say I’m very glad this week is over.
