Reply To: Teachers and Librarians Working Collaboratively: New Models of Professionalism

[Elizabeth Hutchinson Participant]

I think this conversation is really important! When we are trying to encourage school librarians to work alongside teachers we do have this problem of how do they know what they are supposed to do?

If I am honest ‘imposter syndrome’ is a big issue for me and I have been teaching information literacy for years. I always think to myself,  am I teaching something that the teachers already know? Is this just a fill in lesson? Even if I have managed to plan with the teacher I very rarely get teacher input, even after sending the teacher a lesson plan linking with the curriculum areas.  So why do I keep doing it? Apart from feeling in my gut that it is important for the future of our children, there have also been times that I have taught a lesson and the teacher has said to me that ‘they wish they had been taught this when they were at school’ or ‘I’ve never thought to teach that this way’. This is enough to makes me realise I do know more than I think I do and keeps me going, but what do other librarians do?

I believe we need to find a way of supporting school librarians in their learning through education and conversations with universities is a good place to start.