ISCI 794 Blog Post 4: Interview with Chesley Guyer from Riverbank Elementary School

    School libraries are most successful when the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards are seamlessly incorporated into everyday practice. Although each of the AASL standards are vital to the success of a library, there are four competencies that I believe are especially important:

• Inquire & Grow: Learners continually seek knowledge, engage in sustained inquiry, enact new understanding through real-world connection tools and resources, and use reflection to guide informed decisions.

• Collaborate & Create: Learners use a variety of communication tools and resources, establish connections with other learners to build on their own prior knowledge and create new knowledge.

• Include & Share: Learners engage in informed conversation and active debate and they contribute to discussions in which multiple viewpoints on a topic are expressed.

• Curate & Grow: Learners perform ongoing analysis of and reflection on the quality, usefulness, and accuracy of curated resources, integrate and depict in a conceptual knowledge their understanding gained from resources, and openly communicate their curation process for others to use, interpret, and validate.

For my final interview, I spoke with Chesley Geyer, the 3rd-5th grade librarian at Riverbank Elementary School. Ms. Geyer was also my supervising librarian for my internship, so I had already spent a good deal of time with her in her library before conducting this interview. She has been a school librarian for several years now and has worked in a few different buildings, so it’s useful to get that perspective, as all the other librarians I interviewed have only worked in one building.

Regarding the Inquire and Curate competencies, Ms. Geyer told me that she assists teachers and students with locating, evaluating, and ordering books and other resources for classroom inquiry projects. She also does mini inquiry lessons around certain holidays and events (such as Black History Month and Earth Day). Riverbank does a daily morning news, and each day a different person does a book talk, and she also tries to curate the books featured in book talks around different events or different curriculum being studied in the school (and she makes sure South Carolina Book Award nominees are featured).

To promote the Collaboration competency, Ms. Geyer frequently has students work in small groups or partners during lessons. In the past, for example, students have worked together and created banners for Earth Day and have analyzed poems together. This allows students to apply skills and knowledge they are learning in the classroom to a new domain in the library. To promote the Inclusion competency, Ms. Geyer often does read-alouds of books that reflect different viewpoints and have different kinds of representation. Riverbank has an extremely large population of students who speak limited English; I don’t have an exact statistic, but I believe the number is between 20-25%. Ms. Geyer does not speak Spanish, but she has learned some basic words and phrases to help students know what to do in the library and to help them access the content.

Other resources used to promote the competencies include print books, e-books on SORA and Destiny. She also uses Discus for Kids with her students and materials on SCASL’s website. Riverbank’s library has a large physical space, so this space also allows for a lot of creativity. Riverbank has a program for older students to work “jobs” in different areas of the school, so each day, Ms. Geyer has a couple of different fifth grade students coming in to help. This allows smaller groups of kids to get hands-on experience in the library and learn how to collaborate in ways that many of their peers don’t get to experience.

Ms. Geyer does a good deal of collaboration with other teachers in the school, and this is both formal and informal. For example, during Read Across America Week, Ms. Geyer formally collaborates with the literacy coaches to promote different events and activities. On the more informal side, Ms. Geyer will keep up with what students are learning in class and will often prepare lessons and read-alouds based on what they’re learning. This is an area I myself got to participate in when I was doing my internship; when it came time to plan my lessons, I asked the teachers what they were learning in class and planned my lessons around those topics. Additionally, Ms. Geyer and the K-2nd grade librarian, Ms. Pine, will present professional development for Riverbank’s teachers at least once or twice a year. 

One of the greatest challenges Ms. Geyer faces is the sheer size of Riverbank. It is the largest elementary school in Lexington 2 with over 60 teachers and 1,000 students. This can make it difficult, but not impossible, to really get to know each student and their interests. Riverbank’s library isn’t in the related arts rotation (which would be nearly impossible given its size), so each class schedules about 30-40 minutes once a week to come in. This doesn’t leave as much time for lessons as Ms. Geyer would like, but this is the most sustainable way to balance class visits with the other tasks she needs to complete. Teacher buy-in can also be a challenge. Ms. Geyer has tried to get teachers to use Discus for Kids because she believes it’s such a great tool for inquiry, but very few teachers actually use it. She has made flyers, emails, and led workshops, but many teachers just aren’t interested.

Since I got to spend five days with Ms. Geyer this semester, I was already very familiar with a lot of what she told me, and I got to see a lot of what she talked about in action when I was interning. It was very valuable to get to go a bit deeper and learn more about how she approaches implementing the AASL standards and competencies. Although my intention is to work in a middle school or high school library, I learned so much from Ms. Geyer as both her intern and through this interview, and I know I will take this knowledge with me in my future job.

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd

ISCI 794 Blog Post 3: Interview with Brittany Bundrick from Cayce Elementary School

 School libraries are most successful when the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards are seamlessly incorporated into everyday practice. Although each of the AASL standards are vital to the success of a library, there are four competencies that I believe are especially important:

• Inquire & Grow: Learners continually seek knowledge, engage in sustained inquiry, enact new understanding through real-world connection tools and resources, and use reflection to guide informed decisions.

• Collaborate & Create: Learners use a variety of communication tools and resources, establish connections with other learners to build on their own prior knowledge and create new knowledge.

• Include & Share: Learners engage in informed conversation and active debate and they contribute to discussions in which multiple viewpoints on a topic are expressed.

• Curate & Grow: Learners perform ongoing analysis of and reflection on the quality, usefulness, and accuracy of curated resources, integrate and depict in a conceptual knowledge their understanding gained from resources, and openly communicate their curation process for others to use, interpret, and validate.

For my third interview, I spoke with Brittany Bundrick from Cayce Elementary School. Ms. Bundrick began working as a school librarian in the 2020-21 school year, so although she’s still relatively new to the position, she’s had a lot of unique experiences considering she began this position at the peak of Covid. 

Cayce Elementary is unique compared to other elementary schools in Lexington 2 in that they’re the only school whose library is on the related arts/specials rotation. Ms. Bundrick said she knows many librarians don’t like being on this sort of schedule, but she doesn’t mind it. There are some benefits to this schedule when implementing the aforementioned competencies. She said that since they see every class once every two weeks (Cayce’s related arts classes rotate on an A/B schedule), they are often able to incorporate what the students are learning in class with their library lessons. This promotes collaboration and inquiry. She also promotes inquiry through students brainstorming and researching ideas for a grade-wide service learning project. Students typically get to engage with a choice board during library lessons, and there are often options related to STEM activities, which promote creativity. Ms. Bundrick feels like curation is an area she struggles with, and that’s a competency she’s still figuring out how to implement. She does give students lots of opportunities to share; for example, she does a lesson over The Lorax that involves a Socratic seminar. 

Ms. Bundrick said they are fortunate to have a large space in Cayce Elementary’s library, and this also gives students lots of options. Large, wide spaces allow for the inclusion of students with disabilities, and they also have flexible seating in the form of wobble stools. These attributes related to their physical space allow for the implementation of the inclusion competency. Other resources in the library include Promethean boards which can access digital resources like Destiny, SC Discus, and e-books. Since the Promethean boards are large enough for multiple students to use together, this promotes the competency of collaboration.

When it comes to collaboration with classroom teachers to promote the competencies, Ms. Bundrick said that being on the related arts schedule is a blessing and a curse. On one hand, it allows them to regularly see every group of kids and time to incorporate classroom material into library lessons. On the other hand, it is basically impossible to collaborate with teachers outside that time, so it makes it difficult to execute the competencies in that way. However, it can happen with some creativity; recently, Ms. Bundrick has been collaborating with a third-grade teacher via email and patchwork planning sessions for a combined unit on fairy tales around the world. She wishes she had more time to reach out to teachers about collaboration, but she has to mostly rely on them to make the first move.

Time and schedule conflicts are definitely one of Ms. Bundrick’s biggest challenges when implementing the competencies, but student behaviors also play a large role. She works with kindergarten through fifth graders, and the difference in abilities between these groups is vast. She also feels that the AASL standards, while helpful, are written more in the language of middle and high school than elementary school. Cayce Elementary requires all teachers, including the librarian, to post standards every day, and she often struggles to put the standard and objective in kid-friendly language. She wants students to know what they’re supposed to be learning how to do, but the language of the standards isn’t really on the level of most elementary schoolers.

I learned a lot from Ms. Bundrick. Since I am coming from a secondary/middle grades background, I have never really considered the fact that AASL standards aren’t really written with an elementary school audience in mind. Should I end up in an elementary school, I might find it useful to break down some of the competencies into more elementary-accessible language, as that would benefit myself, other teachers, and our students.

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd

ISCI 794 Blog Post 2: Interview with Jessica White from Airport High School

School libraries are most successful when the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards are seamlessly incorporated into everyday practice. Although each of the AASL standards are vital to the success of a library, there are four competencies that I believe are especially important:

• Inquire & Grow: Learners continually seek knowledge, engage in sustained inquiry, enact new understanding through real-world connection tools and resources, and use reflection to guide informed decisions.

• Collaborate & Create: Learners use a variety of communication tools and resources, establish connections with other learners to build on their own prior knowledge and create new knowledge.

• Include & Share: Learners engage in informed conversation and active debate and they contribute to discussions in which multiple viewpoints on a topic are expressed.

• Curate & Grow: Learners perform ongoing analysis of and reflection on the quality, usefulness, and accuracy of curated resources, integrate and depict in a conceptual knowledge their understanding gained from resources, and openly communicate their curation process for others to use, interpret, and validate.

For my second interview, I chose Mrs. Jessica White from Airport High School. I first met Mrs. White when I did my additional internship day in Airport’s library. This is her first year as a school librarian, so I thought her experience would be insightful as an early-career librarian. (Additionally, Airport is the high school that my middle school feeds into, so it was especially valuable to talk to Fulmer’s librarian and one of Airport’s and consider the similarities and differences). Mrs. White works alongside another librarian at Airport, and in our interview, she often spoke about what she and Ms. Muller work on together. 

Mrs. White said that to promote inquiry and growth, they support teachers using the library for activities like escape rooms, scavenger hunts, and other activities using the library's resources. (This includes print and digital materials). This allows students to engage with the library in a unique way beyond just when they’re browsing for books.

To promote collaboration and creation, tables around the library serve as mini makerspaces; different tables have different crafts and activities laid out. For example, there’s a bracelet-making station, a paper craft station, and games. This allows students to organically collaborate and create with their peers; while the facilitation of an adult is good, it’s also good for kids to collaborate solely with their peers. Airport’s library also has some neat tools like a Cricut and 3D printer that students can use in collaboration with a librarian. 

Regarding the inclusion foundation, Mrs. White believes that she and Ms. Muller have worked hard to create an inclusive and safe space in the library where kids feel free to be themselves. Based on the one day I spent in Airport’s library, I can definitely attest to this. The two librarians have built strong relationships with students who come in to talk about their lives as well as books. I also got to witness students with special needs using the library, and Mrs. White was very welcoming and accommodating.

Lastly, for the curation domain, Mrs. White admitted that this is an area of growth for Airport’s library. They’ve had some classes come in and use materials, but they didn’t really have specific conversations about how they chose their information and decided to use it. I appreciated her honesty in this area; I am sure that I will also have areas of growth during my first few years as a school librarian. 

Mrs. White mentioned that they are very lucky at Airport to have access to so many resources to help implement these competencies. In addition to tools like the 3D printer and Cricut, the library has a lot of square footage. There are lots of tables and even a couple of conference rooms that classes will often use for students to collaborate in. This space allows classes to participate in activities such as the ones already mentioned (scavenger hunts, etc.).

One of the biggest challenges Mrs. White and Ms. Muller face is the challenge of time. There are many times when one or both of them will get pulled from the library to facilitate testing, and this sometimes means the library is closed for entire days even though the two of them are physically in the building. This greatly impacts their ability to effectively implement these competencies. There are budget hindrances, too; they would love to purchase more books and materials for makerspaces, but there just isn’t the money.

Airport High School’s library has a lot of tools that I haven’t really seen in elementary or middle school libraries. It is interesting to hear about how these tools are used to implement the core competencies and how Mrs. White ensures the library is a welcoming and inclusive place for all students. Her passion for inclusivity is something I want to take with me in my own profession.

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd

ISCI 794 Blog Post 1: Interview with Rachel Caughman from Fulmer Middle School

    School libraries are most successful when the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) standards are seamlessly incorporated into everyday practice. Although each of the AASL standards are vital to the success of a library, there are four competencies that I believe are especially important:

• Inquire & Grow: Learners continually seek knowledge, engage in sustained inquiry, enact new understanding through real-world connection tools and resources, and use reflection to guide informed decisions.

• Collaborate & Create: Learners use a variety of communication tools and resources, establish connections with other learners to build on their own prior knowledge and create new knowledge.

• Include & Share: Learners engage in informed conversation and active debate and they contribute to discussions in which multiple viewpoints on a topic are expressed.

• Curate & Grow: Learners perform ongoing analysis of and reflection on the quality, usefulness, and accuracy of curated resources, integrate and depict in a conceptual knowledge their understanding gained from resources, and openly communicate their curation process for others to use, interpret, and validate.

For my first interview, I chose Mrs. Rachel Caughman, the school librarian at R.H. Fulmer Middle School. She has been in this position since 2018 and was an ELA teacher at Fulmer prior to taking this position. One way Mrs. Caughman incorporates these standards into her library program is through lessons with different content areas. She has some lessons that she keeps “on hand,” so to speak, and other times she creates lessons with teachers. For example, she has a lesson that she often teaches a few times a year to different classes on proper MLA citation. She also has an eighth grade science unit that she uses each year in collaboration with the eighth grade science teachers on DNA and forensics. I think it’s a great idea to keep some lessons in your back pocket that will be applicable every year; this could be especially helpful to new teachers who aren’t sure what collaborating with the school librarian looks like and might need some ideas.

During these lessons, no matter the content or grade level, students are often contributing multiple viewpoints. Mrs. Caughman mentioned that the eighth grade forensics unit ends with a Socratic seminar where students engage with debate and deliberation. Students are also communicating and collaborating with others regarding their interpretation of the project. This doesn’t just happen during larger unit plans like the forensics unit; Mrs. Caughman mentioned that this sort of conversation often happens during book talks, too. (And since I work at the same school as Mrs. Caughman, I can confirm that these sorts of conversations do in fact occur during book talks). This demonstrates that she has created a safe, collaborative, and creative environment in her library if students are comfortable sharing their thoughts on a regular basis. 

To implement the stated competencies, Mrs. Caughman uses a variety of resources. Depending on the project, students use magazines, print books, or SC Discus (or a combination of the three). If the project involves a book tasting or gallery walk, print materials are often used for students to physically engage with. This allows students to deepen their knowledge and engage in sustained inquiry. For some projects, particularly presentations or essays, students may more heavily rely on SC Discus. This allows them to think critically about the sources they’re using and their usefulness relevant to their project.

Suffice it to say, nearly all these competencies involve collaboration with classroom teachers. If a lesson is going to take most or all of class, Mrs. Caughman makes sure it’s directly aligned with that content’s standards. This helps students make new connections with their classroom content. English and Language Arts classes are used to going to the library, but science, social studies, and math classes aren’t, so when Mrs. Caughman is able to partner with non-ELA content areas, it’s especially fruitful for the students to see the library in that lens.

That being said, there aren’t always other content areas reaching out to collaborate, which is one of the biggest challenges Mrs. Caughman faces. She said that teachers who already work with her are great about regularly reaching out, but teachers who haven’t collaborated often don’t reach out. She acknowledged that she could do more self-advocacy and show teachers how valuable her role is, but she also wishes others would reach out first.

My biggest takeaway from my interview with Mrs. Caughman is that collaboration and group work accomplishes a good deal of the AASL competencies. When teachers collaborate with the school librarian and when students are collaborating with one another during that experience, it naturally promotes the other foundations of inquiry, inclusion, and curation. Students learn far more when we as their teachers reach out and collaborate with others and when they get to work with other students. 

I imagine that as a school librarian, I will also struggle to a degree with getting teachers to work with me. For lack of a better way of putting it, there are some teachers who are simply “stuck in their ways” and don’t want to try new things. I want to be prudent about self-advocacy, but I am sure there are times it will be difficult for me. I really appreciated getting a behind-the-scenes look at my own school librarian’s thought process, and I am looking forward to taking bits of her knowledge and experience with me in my own future career.

References

American Association for School Librarians. (2018). AASL standards framework for learners. AASL. https://standards.aasl.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/AASL- standards-Framework-for-Learners-pamphlet.pd