redOrbit
Posted on: Thursday, 3 April 2008, 03:00 CDT
By Braxton, Barbara
THERE WERE TWO PICTURES-ONE THAT WOULD MAKE A PRINCIPAL SHOUT WITH DELIGHT AND ONE THAT WOULD MAKE A TEACHER-LIBRARIAN WEEP WITH FRUSTRATION. The first was that of a large group of students, predominantly sixth-grade boys, waiting impatiently for the library to open at lunchtime to go in and continue reading the Deltora Quest series (a series of extremely popular books by Australian author Emily Rodda) so that they could earn the next gem for their belt in the challenge. The second was that of a group of sixth-grade students squirming and squiggling in their seats as they struggled to understand the nuances of To Kill a Mockingbird, being read aloud by their teacher, even though the teacher had already said, "Most kids would have missed the relevance of the trial, anyway."
If we look behind the canvas to find out what was really the difference between the two pictures, it soon becomes clear-the first has the input of an experienced, qualified teacher-librarian; the other does not...
http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/1324258/the_teacherlibrarian_as_literacy_leader/
