Working in the Library

My job allows me to work with kids and kids are pretty fantastic. I also get to work with books and connecting kids and books is outstanding!
I love talking to kids about stories they have enjoyed.
Last week I had a young woman come in and animatedly say, “You were right. I loved this book!” I like being right but I love that she enjoyed the story. I also had a 2nd grader ask me, “What will we learn today?” as he went to retrieve a book. We talked about Pluto. I am seriously thinking about putting that quote up in the library. What will we learn today? It shares the expectation that we will learn everyday and that is my hope that each and every day I will learn something new.

Diploma Arrived!

Today I received my diploma from the university for my MSE in Curriculum & Instruction. The diploma is beautiful. Being able to put this up feels great!!!

Beginnings

Today was the first day of school with children. Many kindergarten children separating from Mom. Who was it harder for? Transfer students adjusting to new environments. Teachers that have changed grade level getting their feet wet using new curriculum. Many new beginnings.
I had Fourth Graders in for Information Literacy Skills classes. We worked on introductory reflections which took longer than I thought it should but many interesting conversations later, most of them finished or came close to finishing the page. I look forward to reading their work.

Tomorrow I head back

We have teacher in-service tomorrow and so the school year begins. Tuesday we work in our buildings and have staff meeting. Wednesday we start classes with students. It is always interesting to have three days with students and then start on Monday reviewing everything they were told the first three days of school. Don’t know that I am really ready to start but I am more ready than I was Thursday last week At least now the displays are up and the room looks more like we are starting school.

Web 2.0

I opened a Twitter account partly to find out more about this tool and to “follow” some people that are “up” on technology. I do not write posts a lot but I follow different people and groups like the American Library Association, MO Association of School Librarians, MO State Teachers Association, etc.

There are teachers and librarians out there that are so technically adept I realize I have a lot to learn–and just when I was allowing myself to feel a little sense of accomplishment regarding my professional development. Sigh.

What Have I Learned This Summer?

I have learned that I can finish a Master’s program. I learned that working on projects with my husband is more fun that working on them by myself. I learned that even though some tech tools are intimidating at first, that if I get my toe into the water, I can become a more confident “swimmer”. I reaffirmed the fact that there is always more to learn so I’d better not get complacent.

Ready or Not…

School starts with students on August 17th. I have yet to set foot on the premises of either school,which makes me feel a little bit guilty but I am trying to learn to have a balance. I will have go to both school’s this week and make sure the files/desk are set up and do some decorating so that we will be ready for Open House but I want to make sure that I enjoy the blissful days of being able to spend my day however I want. “Sleeping in” until 7 or later has been wonderful.

Graduated

I graduated Friday, August 5th, 2011, with my Master’s of Education in Curriculum & Instruction. I’m still processing that this means I don’t have extra deadlines every Sunday evening. I am working on setting new goals and my own deadlines so that I have things to accomplish since, apparently, accomplishing goals without replacing them with new ones “can” cause depression. (Don’t want that.)
One of my goals will be to apply what I have learned to my work week and continue to learn. What I am really looking forward to is getting my diploma so that I can put that on the wall. Very cool.

8 days of summer school left!

I’m talking about summer school with kids. I am working the last half of summer school because I am covering someone else’s vacation. There are actually 9 days left but I won’t be working that particular last crazy day because the person I am covering for asked me to start a day earlier than planned and they will work the last day which worked out fine for me.

The end of this month I have my summer school class. Then, in the not too distant future, I will receive that coveted diploma. Glad I have done all of this work–both for the education, because I have gained a lot, but also for the raise that I get in spite of the salary freeze this year. (Last year, little did I know that this would be the case, but because I took this step I am one of the lucky ones that will advance on the pay scale.) Education does pay.

A Great School Year

This past year I had the pleasure of seeing some students that “hated” reading become avid readers. A Junior High girl came up to me in the library one morning before school and told me that “I used to hate reading but a friend told me to read this book [held up the first Cirque du Freak book] and now I love reading!” She read the entire Cirque du Freak series and has been reading ever since.
One of the Junior High teachers told me she knew of another former non-reader that we had added to the avid reader column-another young lady.

I also had a fourth grade boy that was difficult to help in reader advisory because every book I pulled out and gave a quick book talk about he invariably would say no to or would take out to be polite and bring it back the next day unread. One afternoon I finally kind of threw my arms up and suggested he just pull a book off the shelf himself and try it out. He chose “Wenny Has Wings” by Janet Carey and he absolutely loved it! He came back to the library a couple of days later and his bookmark was three-fourths of the way through the book. I asked him questions about the book and he gave me a synopsis of the story and what he enjoyed about it. He indicated that two of his friends wanted to read it after he did and then he told me that I should read it if I hadn’t.

That’s one of the things that makes this fun. All it takes is connecting a child with one book, one author or one genre that they like and they are on their way to continued enjoyment. I love it!