Category Archives: Teacher Librarian

librarians just want to have fun

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DR WHO

Today I attended a day of professional development for teacher librarians. The agenda looked as though it was going to be so boring – more cataloguing info and promises about information management systems and IT that we knew wouldn’t work as promised.

By some miracle, as Mr FD was driving me to the venue, I was early and so got to choose a seat with the perfect front on view of the screen at an empty table. Before long four other solo people arrived and joined my table. So by good luck rather than planning I ended up with some very friendly and helpful table companions.

One of the judges for the Children’s Book Council of Australia was presenting a run down on the short listed titles for this year’s awards. This led to discussion of how to represent the August book week theme of Read across the universe.

I was puzzled as it is really more of an activity for primary school readers, but I know our year eight students like to participate so was floundering with a lack of ideas on how to represent it in our library. One of my table companions mentioned cardboard cut outs of Dr Who’s Tardis and suddenly she had given me my inspiration.

I sent an email to Minerva back at the library to place an order for one 2/3 size cardboard Tardis, and when I got home tonight I ordered myself a Dr Who scarf, and a Tardis usb as a prize for a creative writing/digital story competition I am running also.

Many students have phones with cameras and I know that selfies beside the Tardis will be a big excitement around the campus. It may not be reading, but it will get them through the library doors!

Who said libraries are boring?

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by the book

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Librarian

Copyright. Doesn’t the word just fill you with joy and enthusiasm?

Now, imagine an entire day spent listening to someone drone the Australian copyright laws at you. Hours and hours of … you can use downloaded music for the classroom but you can’t use it for a school competition, you can make a copy of an out of print book, but not if there are other editions available, all those, what I call the i before e exception to the rule, rules.

Add to that a table companion who sniffled and snuffled all through the day, and who had the temerity to exhale her hot germy breath all over me so that within the prescribed 72 hours I had a sore throat and runny nose to the point that I couldn’t spend time with my grand daughter this weekend (Petit Fille is 12 weeks today!)

So, the very next time someone says to me, “It must be wonderful to be a librarian and have all those books to read!” as though I sit in my office with my feet on my desk reading every volume in the collection all day, every day, I may just move those feet off the desk top and land them where the sun don’t shine.

other duties as required

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Teacher 1
Parent teacher interviews today. They started at lunch time and concluded at 8pm. Parents were allotted 10 minutes until a bell rang; the usual speed dating process!

I had only one appointment- the very first time slot. It was with the mother of a student that I taught last term, and no longer teach as it was a term unit, so I didn’t have much to discuss. I gave a chapter of my life story, that hurried them on their way.

After that I was on door duty, or meet and greet, as the parents arrived. We were also expected to keep an eye out for irate parents or uncomfortable situations at which we were somehow to magically intervene. I don’t know what a genteel person such was I was expected what to do, and I had not packed the stick, so all I could promise was to bite people on the knee caps. As many of our parents are large Samoans and Maoris, I don’t think I would have got further than a knee cap, stick or no stick!

Home now and tucked in bed – yes, exhausted from being nice. Lordy, the things a person has to do…

The reason for my demise

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I am so tired my head may just fall off my neck and wobble into the waste paper bin and risk lying amongst the banana peel from my morning tea banana, just to get some rest.

I open the library each morning anywhere from 7.15 to 7.30am, depending on the traffic. We do not close again until 3.30pm on a “normal day” but there are always after school activities. This week there has been one workshop until 6.30pm, and then another afternoon both a teacher workshop and also a parent information evening which meant I walked out of the school at 7.30. That was a 12 hour day, full strength.  Throw in my ‘flu vaccination, and supervising a number of year levels waiting to have their various vaccinations (The boys got Gardasil. Yeah! As a cervical cancer survivor I champion cervical cancer vaccination for all!), then you have the life of me.

Oh, and the meeting of the staff book club of which I am the worst member – I got the “lemon award” for the worst book choice last year (The Great Gatsby, and don’t get me started) and I am on track to be awarded the prize for reading the least number of chosen books, as well as having lost one selection on a plane… yes I am a librarian, but that just goes to prove the librarians do in fact have a life and can be unpredictable, doesn’t it. Doesn’t it? No stereotypes with this lady.

So tired and this is just the first week of term – nine more to go!

the perks of the job

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trust

This week has been a good week to be a teacher librarian.

Yesterday we ran sessions by an Australian author for our students. He spoke about his life and how he goes about writing his books, as well the creative writing process as a whole. He was both interesting and inspiring for both students and teachers. I wanted to run home and start writing, so I hope it at least shaped the creative instincts of at least one or two of our students!

Today, I ran a skype lesson for our history students with a Nagasaki bombing survivor. He is 86 and shared his memories of that day when he was just a school child in the classroom, as well as the impact it had on his life. It was a very powerful session and a once in a life time experience for our students.

Tomorrow is that last day of term. Two weeks of vacation time to follow!

A very good week indeed.

you love me, you love me more…

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birds 1
Hello, Beautiful Common People!

MIL made it through the operation and is still on this side of the white light. Tough old bird, my mother in law.

Happy International Women’s Day – the one day of the year that I allow other women to feel like a goddess. Enjoy it.

Been too busy to worry about politic watching. Quality of my life has improved. Hallelujah.

Off to spend quality time with Petit Fille tomorrow. Ok, ok, I am a push over for that little girl, but what Grandma isn’t? Don’t take it as a sign of weakness though, the stick hand is still strong.

Two straight days of sunshine! Luxury!

birthday drink

Three weeks until Easter holidays. Two weeks of vacation! Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I am going to bake and garden and sleep and visit Petit Fille, and eat lots of chocolate.

I wonder if employers ever understand what trouble they cause when they hire an outsider over an insider. The poor outsider enters the organisation completely innocent of the back drama and is thrown to the wolves like an unsuspecting lamb. Has happened to a colleague who started the same time as I did and twelve months later she is still dealing with the fall out and she shouldn’t have too. Luckily I replaced an insider that everyone detested!

In my next life, and yes there will be one, I am going to be even more beautiful, brilliant, witty and wonderful. Hard to believe that could be possible, considering how perfect I am, but I will achieve it. I have preordered a life on a grand scale. I shall not to be denied. I think the Big Whatever owes me.

I have a student who is a self harmer. Her arms are full of scars and she has only just returned to school after a long absence. She is in grade 11 and she has a couple of spare classes so they have attached her to my year 8 class in the library. She studies while I teach the younger class. In the beginning she would just lie with her head on the desk, but gradually she started to listen to what I was teaching my class and then she commenced her own studies. Now she comes to me out of class to ask for help with her studies. It is a gift to watch her reclaim her life.

Through the open window I can hear the train climbing the hill – I think I can, I think I can…and then it disappears into the distance. It has become such a familiar background that we all miss it when the trains are stopped during the flooding. It almost becomes a comfort sound in the night. How surprising.

Sleep tight. You can worhsip me on the morrow.
FD

The medium is the message

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Little 16 month old came to meet petit fille yesterday . He arrived with dummy in mouth, and iPad under his arm. He has been taught a form of sign language ( no he is not hearing impaired nor are his parents) over verbal language and he is already a deft hand playing with his iPad

As a teacher i  am more than a little concerned. I feel that his verbal development is being restrained by the use of signing over speaking. Apparently it cuts downing frustration but as his parents are the only ones who understand him it is very limited. His social interaction with other children is going to be interrupted.

Then the iPad. It was a lovely story about farm yard animals but I noticed that he was just scanning it. His level of concentration is miniscule. This is a problem we are encountering now, students skim read and do not read to learn.

Another child born and raised in this country has been spoken to only in her parents native tongue, a middle European language because they want her to be bilingual. Bilingual is great but at three she should be using English as well. Social interaction with her peers is again restricted and she will be starting her education with English as her second language.

Maybe my generation is showing, but I am of the opinion that these parents while they are trying to do the best for their children are setting their child up for a less than successful start in our main stream world.

What do you think?

Update: just found this article on the subject too. Eric Carle and iPad babies.

Eric Carle and iPad babies

when they are good, they are sufferable, but when they are bad, they are vermin

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arrow

Excuse me, but I have the rather urgent need to vent.

People who do a five minute walk through tour and then make snap decisions, should be snapped in half themselves and their pieces scattered on a motorway.

May all those self-indulgent parents who told their child that they were wonderful for merely drawing breath; and may all those parents who don’t give a shit about their feral children and never taught them any values or manners, may you all rot in hell before coming back as a teacher in your next life, if there is one and get to teach your kid; otherwise just burn in hell. Twice.

“Don’t leave your bag in the doorway”

“Why?”

“Because someone will trip over it.”

“It’s not my fault if they are stupid enough to fall over it.”

 

Treat others as you would like to be treated, or I will surely break your arms and legs off.

Argue about the literal meaning of a proverb over the metaphor one more time and I will ram your arms and legs where the sun don’t shine and post you home to mother.

Why should class be fun? Why can’t you just pay attention for 40 minutes and learn something for once in your damn life.

Can I put up an Easter reading suggestion display with the slogan “Don’t be a wasted space, read a book for once”?

May the subject coordinators who create dodgy lesson plans for teachers to present, be locked into an eternal Groundhog Day of teaching that lesson. May you be eaten alive at the end of each day. No exit clause.

Would someone for f-ing sake build covered walkways between our classrooms so that we don’t end up with 152 sopping wet students in the library at lunch time.

Sometimes, sonny boy, you just don’t get to negotiate or argue every point, sometimes you just need to shut up and do.

Don’t give me the finger because you don’t know how to merge on the highway. I see your finger and raise it one as well.

Stop trying to rearrange the front of my car and attach my car to yours by changing  into my lane without allowing enough space between our cars.

“Put your phone away”

“It’s my mum”

“Tell Mum that Mrs FD is trying to teach you right now.”

“But she wants to know ,,, whether to wash my blue blouse or my pink; where I left the remote; whether she can borrow some money…”

“Tell Mum to send a text that you can answer after class.”

Total disbelief as an expression from student who continues conversation with parent.

 

Enough with the rain already, we need to dry out.

I am a goddess why are my feet in the bloody trenches?

assassins

Time waits for no Flamingo Dancer

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Anne St. Marie, 1960.Have you missed me, dahlings?

My laptop was getting some much needed updating and I was getting some much needed down time, but do not fear, dear reader, lap top and Flamingo Dancer are back! It was one of those weeks that wasn’t horrible but wasn’t wonderful either I have to confess that I am glad it is over

. It passed by quickly so that was one blessing, but my workload grows by the day and I always seem to be running to the next thing. More than one teacher was heard this week to declare that they have never known a year when there has been so much stress so early in the school year. Usually it is the second half of the term when the stress clicks into overdrive, but despite my own workload stress, I have noticed that many of the teachers visiting the library are really tense, tired and stressed. The expectations and the workload just grow and grow and yet we all still get criticised for all of society’s ills!

No grandchild as yet, but Daughter1 was very quiet online today so I am starting to wonder if perhaps something is starting. She has been a fiend on pinterest this week while on bed rest. They said they would phone when they feel it is time to go to the hospital… as son in law has wisely declared, Baby will be born on her birthday! Then we shall have her for a lifetime!

This week we signed the contract for the sale of our parental home. Mum and Dad purchased the house in 1956 and lived there together until Dad’s death in 2000, and then just mUm after that. Mum of course has been in care since this time last year. We needed to sell the house to finance her care, and I was fine with it all, until I got the phone call from the agent to say that the contract was now unconditional and will be finalised by the end of the month. That is when the sadness hit. It is a 36 years since I left my parents’ home, but it continued to be the centre for the entire family all these years. Another reminder of the cycle of life, and how nothing is permanent.

It was a happy home, and that is something to be grateful for and we all have wonderful memories and so are gifted with many positive emotions to go into the future. But isn’t it at the same time, a real shit? For awhile we had it all… and now, well we have it different…

More tomorrow, dear reader.