The role of a school librarian has changed greatly in the last 10 years, and many people are not aware of the role that we play in schools.
Most of us are teacher-librarians, and we’re not just teaching kids about the Dewey Decimal system anymore. Last week, I taught the fourth and fifth grade about Three Cups of Tea, a timely true story about one man’s quest to educate kids, especially girls, in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We covered the topics of culture, compassion, geography and vocabulary with a Power Point presentation, pictures from Google images and a brief video from a related Web site.
When the students came to skills class later in the week, we reviewed the differences between a database and a search engine, then launched into a discussion of Web site domains. Each student logged on to their own computer to explore different Web sites, which helps them to learn how to navigate around the computer.
The skills that school librarians teach today are life skills. We have become multi-media practitioners who collaborate with the teachers to match all forms of knowledge with today’s students. The world that they will inherit is vastly more complicated (and perhaps more interesting!) than they can imagine. We take very seriously the responsibility of helping students wade through the huge amount of information that exists in the 21st century. Kids need school libraries and librarians more today, not less.
Donna Watson,
Danville
Donna Watson is the interim librarian at Linntown Intermediate School in the Lewisburg Area School District.
