Capstone...working towards the light

It's been difficult, to say the least, to sit and work on my capstone over the past few weeks.  I have a lot of catching up to do!  I finally wrote my PDP - prof. dev. plan on the blog.  You can check it out under the "PDP" tab.

It probably seems like I whipped this out in 30 minutes but I've actually been writing it in my head for weeks.  My future as a public school librarian is uncertain these days.  I'm not afraid to say that here, but it's hard to say that on a PDP when I need to project my goals and desires for a path I'm not even sure I want to keep moving on.  I have not enjoyed my elem. school experience.  No one tells you how challenging a fixed schedule really is and NO ONE tells you the reality - you are the planning period for the teacher and they don't care about collaborating with you.

That's the truth.  I said it, so help me God.

While I know there are teachers and principals out there who see the benefits of flexible scheduling, it's not happening at my school or many in my county.  As school librarians, we struggle; we lament; we curse; we blame; and at the end of the day we really want to do more for our students but it's really a challenge to get anything done.

Teachers will tell you that the school librarian has it easy.  We don't have to worry about grading.  We only see a class for 45-minutes so we should be able to suffer through even the worst.  We don't have to deal with parents or homework.  AND...I can't forget...that we are not being evaluated on how well our students do on the state standardized tests.

And I agree with those teachers...except for the "easy" part.

There is nothing "easy" about being a school librarian.  We don't have a formalized curriculum because we are supposed to be teaching information skills in collaboration with THEM.  We are to be working together not in silos.

But that isn't happening at most schools and it's sad.  So I've decided to do what I can, hone my skills as best as I can and not worry about the rest.  Come January, my resume will be ready to hit the Internet waves and I will be open to the possibilities of a new adventure someplace else.

Cheers.