Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES: Are You The Problem?

I have recently blogged about Dealing with Failure and Dealing with Criticism but I have steered away from discussing behaviors we have that may be contributing to the problem. However, since we can’t fix what we don’t know, let’s uncover ways we may have inadvertently added to our problems.  The good news is, you can change.

There are librarians who still focus solely on the tasks needed to run your library. No matter what you hear, you feel too overworked to proactively promote your library program and yourself.  It’s no wonder no one knows what you do or believes you have anything to contribute. Others have gotten sucked into the negativity that pervades schools today.  The problems (challenges) are easy to see.  Rather than tackling them, they endlessly discuss them with like-minded teachers.  This contributes nothing to your program, and, as I’ve written, it’s the opposite of how a leader behaves.

Leaders inspire. By holding a bigger picture, they find alternatives and new directions. No one enjoys being with someone who only complains and sees what’s not working.  This is the time to launch a new program. It could be small, but it needs to be new.  Something to bring a positive focus on the library—and in some ways to offer hope to teachers who, just like you, are feeling undervalued and overworked.

I was inspired by Bryan Robinson’s article identifying 10 Reliable Career Killers: How Many Do You Practice on a Daily Basis?  Most of us do some of these things. Fortunately, there are ways to combat the behaviors.

  1. Multitask – You know it. I know it.  Studies have proven it.  Multitasking doesn’t work.  Yet we continue to think by doing several things at once we will get through faster.  Remember the old adage, “Haste Makes Waste.”  This is how you send an email to the wrong person.  Or put something in a place you can’t remember later.  The errors happen because your mind wasn’t fully on what you were doing.  This is a tough habit to break.  Work on catching yourself and pulling your mind back to focus on the priority at hand.
  2. Play It Safe – This especially happens after you have had a project fail. You crawl into your shell and hope nobody sees you.  But that will do nothing for your program, and you certainly won’t be seen as a leader. Stay “safe” for too long and you will be viewed as expendable.  Leaders need to be out there.
  3. Work More Hours – Your job is huge. There aren’t enough hours in the school day to get it done.  So, you come in early.  You stay late.  You are always somewhat behind, but that doesn’t stop you from getting on the hamster wheel each day. Stop! That behavior leads to burnout (and multitasking!). Prioritize.  What must be done? What is less necessary?  (And don’t forget family and friends time in the priorities.)  Once your list is done, schedule a meeting with your principal and discuss those priorities. Does s/he agree?  What suggestions does s/he have?  And come with your own suggestions.
  4. Focus on Problems –If all you can see are problems, you become a negative person. It’s hard to build relationships when all you are giving off are negative thoughts and/or in a bad mood. You are likely to attract equally negative people. Leaders seek solutions and often do so in collaboration with others.
  5. Put Yourself Down – When we are feeling low, we can resort to self-deprecation, believing we are saying what others are thinking about us. It is rarely true, but by repeating such comments often enough, we convince others we are failures. Try positive self-talk, internally and aloud, for a change.  If this is one of your typical behaviors, find a good friend and ask him/her to help talk you out of that negative mindset. If your friend suffers from the same syndrome, you can be partners.
  6. Practice Self-Neglect – There’s a host of ways you can neglect yourself. Not getting enough sleep.  Not taking downtime. Not exercising. Unhealthy eating.  Airplane safety says to put the oxygen mask on yourself before helping others.  It’s the only way to survive. When you neglect yourself, you invariably neglect others whether it’s your family, students or program.  If you are drained, you can’t be your best self.
  7. Harbor Self-Doubt –You are better than you know you are, but you won’t find out unless you give yourself a chance. Every leader has doubts, but they act despite those niggling thoughts. Focus on the places you have succeeded.  Use that to power you rather than rehashing any failures.  I have been a lifetime member of Weight Watchers for years and have seen how those who look at the week they gained weight as a failure are more apt to quit—and then they really fail.  Those who succeed point to the progress they are making, knowing it won’t be a straight line.
  8. Fear Failure – No one succeeds all the time. You are trying to teach your students to see failure as part of the learning process.  You need to embrace that as well. You don’t have to love failure, but there’s no need to fear it.
  9. Set Unreasonable Deadlines – This leads back to multitasking and working more hours, which leads to other defeating habits. Recognize life happens and the best-laid plans don’t always work. Be realistic in your deadline.  Build in a “cushion” for things going wrong.  And set short-term deadlines on large projects so you know if you are on target or need to adjust the final deadline.
  10. Eschew an Idle Mind – Believe it or not, we need more idle mental time. This is the pause for reflection and rejuvenation. I walk. Some of you meditate, color, or do yoga.  All good ways to have an idle mind. Look for SEL activities that work for you.

Life is hard enough.  We shouldn’t be making it harder. Notice which of these behaviors might be holding you back.  If you can overcome these habits, you will make your life easier – and you will make it easier for others.  It’s what leaders do.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

The Forest, the Trees, and Sometimes the Leaves

In last week’s blog, Should You Be a Leader or a Manager?, I didn’t specifically mention one big distinction: Leaders hold the big picture. Managers focus on the here and now.  While you can’t only look at the big picture, you also will miss the forest if you are only seeing the trees.  And some of you have gotten so caught up in the day-to-day details, you are only seeing the leaves.

Our world changes fast, and, as we have learned, the library program needs to constantly prove its value to the educational program.  In a few short years, for example, we have incorporated (and sometimes moved beyond) Makerspaces, Genius Hour, Hours of Code, and any number of other variations you may have experienced into the library program.

Those who hold the big picture were among the first adopters of these changes.  By doing so, they solidified the position of the library and proved its importance.  Those who weren’t focused on the big picture missed the opportunity. Sometimes, by the time they got to it, they discovered other departments had taken the lead, and the library was left out.

Today early adopters are looking at to incorporate “soft skills.” The business world is talking about them and so are some schools. How will you be incorporating communication, teamwork, and problem-solving into your library program? You are probably are doing it, but have you communicated to teachers and administrators that you are building students’ critical soft skills?  Maybe not, because you are too busy with the everyday needs of your program.

So, what keeps you from seeing the big picture?  You aren’t alone in dealing with this challenge. The business world is also concerned with and focused on what’s next, knowing that in order to be responsive to change they can’t just deal with what’s new. Those who want to get ahead discover what is holding them back from taking the larger view and getting past it.

A post by Joel Garfinkle looks at The Importance of Big Picture Thinking. He identifies five habits that may be preventing you from seeing the big picture and offers ways to combat them.

Overanalyzing – This is what happens when you closely examine every possibility.  Then you relook at them. General Colin Powell once said he made military decisions with only 60% of the information because if he waited for all the information to be in, it would be too late.  He referred to the practice of over-gathering information as “analysis paralysis.” It’s an easy trap to fall into when you’re too worried about not being right or the danger of taking a risk.

Fixating on Results – Stop being on the hamster wheel. Trying to do it better and faster is draining.  If you are leading, you are not the one who should be doing all the work.  This is when you empower others to become a part of what you are doing.  Big jigsaw puzzles get done faster when you know how the finished picture should look – and when many hands help.

Managing Reactively – When you are focused on the little tasks, every bump in the road becomes a mountain. It’s why Vision and Mission Statements are so important.  When you know where you are going and why you get past these minor setbacks.  I have said that librarians who don’t have a Mission or a Vision Statement spend their day with a fire extinguisher and duct tape.  They are either putting out blazes or patching things up. By the end of the school year, they are exhausted and don’t know what they accomplished.

Going Solo – This is a bad approach on so many levels. You don’t build advocacy when you are going alone.  Ideas are fleshed out better when there is more than one mind working on them.  And it’s great when you have a big picture person working with someone who is more detail oriented.  They complement each other.  The big picture person may miss details, while the detailed thinker may lose sight of what the ultimate goal is.  Together, everything gets covered. We teach our students the importance of collaboration. We need to practice it.

Overfilling the Calendar – We all have a tendency to do this.  It is vital to have the opportunity to step away from the tasks at hand.  Make time for reflection. This is when you can strategize and plan.  For me, it happens on my walks.  I am regularly amazed at the ideas that I get during these times, and I’m not always trying.  I might be looking at work being done on a house I’m passing, and suddenly I get a thought about a future blog post or a way to better explain a concept to my grad students. Or sometimes it’s about nothing more substantial than dinner.  But the constant swirling of my brain when I am at the computer is now at rest and open.  We all need that.

So, as I said last week, scan the larger environment to identify innovations and ideas that will potentially impact the library program.  And take a walk in the forest.

 

Posted on by hildaweisburg · 1 Comment

ON LIBRARIES: Should You Be A Leader or A Manager?

The title is a trick question.

The answer is as a school librarian you need to be both. However, too many are almost always managers and the role of leader is sacrificed to the demands of managing. For your program to be successful, you need to employ the characteristics of both and know which role is necessary in the moment.

In the corporate world, the Chief Operating Officer (COO) is the manager, while the Chief Executive Officer is the leader.  As a librarian, you are both the COO and the CEO of your library program (minus the double salary).  It’s up to you to decide which hat to wear, and the decision is not always easy.

To recognize when you need to be one or the other, you must know what the differences are. In an article for Forbes, William Arruda defines 9 Differences Between Being a Leader and a Manager. Much that he says applies to the unique job you have as a school librarian.

Here is his list- with my translations into the education environment:

  1. Leaders create a vision; managers create goals. Having a Vision is a required attribute of leaders. You need to know where you are going. Hopefully, you all have Vision and Mission Statements. It’s the leader part of you that created the Vision. As a manager, you develop the goals to execute your Mission, which is your path to your Vision.
  2. Leaders are change agents; managers maintain the status quo. Leaders hold the big picture. They look to see what is likely to be the “next thing.” Their external scan of the environment goes beyond the library and even education. They are aware of developments in technology, psychology, and politics. Don’t panic.  It’s a scan.  Not an in-depth study.  The more you do it, the better you get at it, and the less time it takes.  The manager in you will want to focus on getting today’s job done.  While that is necessary, you can’t let it be the sole focus of what you do.
  3. Leaders are unique; managers copy. Leaders don’t try to reproduce the past even when it was successful. When I left one job where my library program was highly regarded, my successor, who had worked with me, tried to do everything the way I did it. But she wasn’t me, and it didn’t fit. Slowly the library program was reduced. When I retired from another school system, the librarian who took over had also worked with me, but she drew on her own strengths and expertise to move the library in another direction while keeping the values which she also embraced.  The program grew.
  4. Leaders take risks; managers control risk. Those of you who read this blog, read my books, or seen my presentations, know I am always encouraging librarians to step out of their comfort zones. Your Vision requires it. Managers fear failure, but as I said in my blog Dealing with Failure, it’s part of the process that gets you to success.
  5. Leaders are in it for the long haul; managers think short-term. You won’t attain your Vision in a year. You may never reach it. But those who know that is where they want their program to go will keep getting closer to it.  Some librarians may write their Vision because it’s what they are supposed to do, but they regard it as unattainable.  Then they don’t create strategic plans to achieve it—which guarantees it will never happen.
  6. Leaders grow personally; managers rely on existing, proven skills. If you aren’t growing, you are dying. We are role models for lifelong learning. What have you learned today? How can you use it in your program? Reflect on how many skills you have that you didn’t when you first became a librarian. Where would you be if you hadn’t learned them?
  7. Leaders build relationships; managers build systems and processes. Relationships are the key to our success. It’s through relationships that we build collaboration and create advocates for our program. No matter how busy you are, you cannot limit your attention to managing the library.  It won’t work without the relationships.
  8. Leaders coach; managers direct. This is about trusting that others have good ideas about the library program. Be open to suggestions from others and discuss whether or these can be integrated into the program. The more you recognize others, the stronger your program will become.
  9. Leaders create fans; managers have employees. I love this one. Your job is to empower others to be their best. As the saying goes, “Leaders don’t create followers; they create new leaders.” You not only need to empower your students; you also need to empower your teachers – and everyone else in the school community. Even, and sometimes especially, your administrators. The library has a huge reach. Use that to your program’s advantage.

Going from leading to managing and back to leading is a juggling act.  It’s easier when you are aware of the differences and know when it’s time to switch roles. One is not better than the other, but one to the exclusion of the other will not give you the success you want.

 

 

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES: Dealing with Criticism

Last week I blogged about Dealing with Failure. This week’s topic is almost its twin.  Most of us hate to be criticized as much as we hate to fail.  Both are inevitable.  Some criticism will be formal, such as a bad observation or evaluation. Other times it will be informal, ranging from negative feedback from a teacher after doing a lesson (which also ties it to failure) to a denigrating comment on how easy your job is.

Like failure, it’s important to be prepared for criticism and know how to deal with it. Two common reactions can have an adverse effect on your leadership.  Going into offense/defense mode ignores what the other party said.  In the process, you are likely to escalate the event, say things you don’t mean, and rupture what should be a developing relationship.

The other reaction, often based on fear and embarrassment, is to curl up inside yourself and say nothing.  But it festers.  You hold inner arguments about what you could have said, alternating it with self-recrimination.

Does this sound like a leader?

Nobody’s perfect.  While the criticism may have inflated your supposed errors (and deflated your ego), there invariably is an element of truth in what is being said. It’s that element that is the true trigger to your reactions.

For example, perhaps you have a class getting rowdy at the end of the period.  You might have yelled at them or ignored it and waited for the period to end.  However, the teacher coming in saw an out-of-control class and possibly an out-of-control librarian and said you and the kids shouldn’t be behaving that way.  Well, that is true.  But you want to explain the situation, justify it. The list of reasons as to why it occurred can be extensive.  Whether you want to lash out in defense or just be tight-lipped, you are missing the point.

As with failure, this is an opportunity for reflection and self-assessment.  Maybe not immediately, but certainly before the day is over.  How did it happen?  What could you have done to prevent or reduce the situation?  How would you like to deal with it in the future? You learn more from what goes wrong than you do from what goes right.

Unsurprisingly, there are a lot of online posts on dealing with criticism from both the business world and psychology.  The one I feel did the best job is Laura Schwecherl’s How to Handle Criticism Like a Pro.

The first piece of advice she offers is to consider whether the criticism was constructive.  It’s easier to accept when you know the person is well-meaning. However even hurtful criticism may have a valid point – otherwise, it probably wouldn’t hurt. She follows that observation with a five-step action plan.

Listen Up: Again, assess whether the criticism was constructive or rude.  Have the courage to ask for clarification, particularly if you are unsure if it was only meant to be hurtful.  People tend to make a general critical statement.  You need more details to determine just where you missed the mark.

Respond Calmly: Really tough to do sometimes.  Whether you want to rant or disappear, you do need to respond.  You can say, “I appreciate your observation.”  You don’t have to do more, which is good since you probably can’t take it all in and make a reasoned assessment in the moment.  Later, when the critic is not around, analyze what you heard.  How much was true?  Was there a place to do it better?  In the best case scenario, you might even go back to the person and thank them for taking the time to give you valuable feedback.

Don’t Take It Personally:  This is a reminder that you are not a failure (see last week) nor are you a bad librarian, person, etc.  Focus on the specific information without generalizing. It was just one more learning experience.

Manage Stress: This is a challenge since you were probably stressed by your day before you were dealt this criticism.  Take a deep calming breath.  Or three or four.  Or some time in your office if that’s possible. As Judith Viorst so accurately put it in Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, “some days are like that, even in Australia.”

Keep On Keeping On: As Schwecherl note, this was just one person’s perspective.  Sometimes you need to also check to determine whether the criticism was valid.  Just because someone says it, doesn’t make it true.  And tomorrow is another day.

All leaders get criticized. It comes with the territory.  Some is mean-spirited coming from envy, and some are accurate.  It may not feel like it in the moment, but you need good criticism to grow.  It’s hard to see where we miss the mark. It helps when the good people around us help us get back on track.

 

 

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES: Dealing With Failure

Leaders take risks—and sometimes those risks lead to failure.  What do you do then? I know what you would tell your students, but are you taking your own advice?

As with everything in our world failures come in different sizes.  There are quiet failures and more public ones. A small quiet failure might be you set up a display of popular fiction from years ago – and no one has looked at it.  A more public failure would be you planned a short program for parents during a conference or back-to-school night and only one parent showed up.

It feels awful. If this was one of the first risks you took, no matter the size, you are apt to crawl back into the tried-and-true. Obviously, leadership isn’t for you.  Or you have no business playing “large.”  You are not at that level of leadership and never will be. Fear of failure stops many from becoming leaders.

If you fall back and believe that story, you are depriving yourself of the benefit of failure.  As you tell students, failing is a learning opportunity.  No one reaches success without failure.  And even those who seem to be highly successful leaders will fail at times.

I made several mistakes when working on the plans for a new library wing in one high school. I made several others when I did a renovation at another high school.  I failed at keeping the School Librarian’s Workshop going as an e-newsletter.  And even recently, my proposed program for the upcoming AASL Conference was not accepted.

Does that make me a failure? It depends on what I do next. If I decided, for example, that AASL members were no longer interested in what I had to offer, I could tell myself I’m a failure, but failing is not the same thing as being a failure. That only happens when you quit.

Each time one of your plans or ideas doesn’t succeed, you can use it to grow and be better. For AASL, I didn’t read some of the details on how the final programs would be selected. I needed to reach more of my contacts to ask for support and do so frequently.  I sent something out once and then voted.  Next time I can and will do better.  (That’s also growth mindset.)

Look at how you failed. What caused it? Did you make assumptions that proved erroneous? Should you have built more support before you began the project?  It may be painful initially to look back, but it’s the fastest route to future success.

Everyone, especially leaders, risks failure and the potential for losing confidence in themselves.  And that is the big danger.  When your confidence level slips, it affects every part of your professional (and possibly personal) life. You can’t afford to let that happen.  We are not alone in facing the challenge of coming back from failure and losing confidence in ourselves.

Jesse Sosten offers some compelling advice on How to Regain Your Confidence When It Falters.  He refers to this loss of confidence as “the dip.”  He suggests you “Leverage the Dip.”  By this he means, reframe it so you look at it as a sign you are poised for growth. Accept that “you are a work in progress.” After all, if you are not progressing, you are not growing, and as I’ve written here before, that means you are dying.

Sosten’s next recommendation is to Limit Your Inner Compromise. This is the part where you shut down and hope no one is noticing you and remembering the last idea you had that was a non-starter. Instead, be more aware of your reactions.  When you see yourself wanting to exhibit this kind of behavior, check in with your Mission, Vision, and Philosophy.  What do you stand for?  Speak up as needed.

Confidence is not developed overnight.  But you can lose it all in a moment if you aren’t prepared to deal with the fallout when things go wrong.  The fact is things do go wrong even with the best of planning.  Having a Plan B is a good idea, but even that might not work.   When it doesn’t, don’t be afraid to come up with and move forward on your next new idea.  The best way to have people forget about a plan that didn’t work (and for you to let go of your negative self-talk) is to follow it with successes.

 

Posted on by hildaweisburg

Crisis? No!  It’s a Chopportunity

With all the grim news about cuts in library positions and budgets, it is easy to have a pessimistic attitude about the future which affects how you interact with others on a daily basis. I learned the word “chopportunity” in 2013 at a School Library Journal Summit. It’s a mash-up word combining Challenge and Opportunity.  I strongly believe our mindset influences how we look at our world and feel about what we do.  When you look at a challenge as an opportunity, it changes your mindset.  The shift puts you in charge of the situation rather than feeling like a victim of what is happening around you.

What challenges are you (and your teachers and administrators) facing?  How do you deal with turbulence and disruption when they occur?  You could panic.  You could complain. You could hunker down and hope it will pass.  But that’s not what leaders do.  When technology first captured the enthusiasm of administrators, affecting library budgets, I told librarians, “When you see a runaway truck coming at you, don’t try to stop it by lying down in front of it.  You will die. Instead, jump on and steer.” The advice remains true.

Chopportunities come in all sizes.  A small one that frequently occurs in our lives is being “asked” to cover a class when no substitute is available.  We know it’s more of a demand. When possible, find out if the class can meet in the library. (Hopefully, it is just one period.) Explain you don’t want to close the library to students and teachers who need it. This nicely informs the administration that your work is valued throughout the school and throughout the day.

And even if you must follow the plans the teacher left, you invariably can add a library component.  Invite the kids to learn library tricks to help them get work done more efficiently.  Or you can use the time to weave in of your lessons on hoax sites and evaluating sources based on the subject you’re being asked to cover.  Challenge them to find the “agenda” behind a website they check. Compile their exit tickets and give a copy to the teacher and your principal.  What was an inconvenience becomes a Chopportunity to reach students and prove the worth of the library!

The paradigm we all grew up with was that schools have libraries with librarians.  Not ever contemplating the situation could change, many librarians focused on doing their job but not showing teachers, administrators, and other stakeholders why it was vital. You know what happened next.

In Embrace Turbulence Ken Goldstein advises those in the corporate world how to avoid being swept out when the world changes once again.  He points out you can’t control change.  What you can control is “attitude, anticipation, and readiness.”

Attitude is the ability to see the latest crisis as a chopportunity. Goldstein reminds readers that “The reward for getting over a hill is the opportunity to climb another hill. There is always another this to get through.” Supposedly, “May you live in interesting times” is a Chinese curse, but it all depends on how you look at interesting times.  It can be exhilarating.  A chance to try something new and different.

Anticipation in this context is the opposite of complacency. Things are going well, and you assume they will always continue this way.  In actuality, change is coming.  It always is.  There’s a new educational idea.  New technology explodes on the scene.  How many changes have you seen in the past two years?  Goldstein refers to “big company syndrome” which is “the belief your paycheck will always show up.” (We’re looking at you Sears, Blockbuster, and Kodak.) He says, “smart company syndrome is knowing you have to earn your keep every day.” For us, it means proving our worth – every day.

Readiness is the key not only to survival but to increasing your value to the educational community.  Our National School Library Standards challenge us to embrace change.  We are to reflect on our practice and go beyond “it’s good” to “what do I need to do to make it better.”  We must be aware of the larger environment, looking beyond the library to what’s happening in education, trends in technology, and whatever else might impact schools and the library program.

I was once talking to my vice-principal and said it would be great to have one normal year without a crisis.  She told me crisis was what was normal.  She was right.  As Goldstein advises, “Make peace with turbulence. Pace yourself for a ceaselessly bumpy endurance contest. Expect an unruly rollercoaster ride and be mildly pleased the days it doesn’t throw you from the train.”  In other words, you must always be ready to deal with something – usually several somethings—in the course of the school year.  Some small, but others quite big. It’s just another Chopportunity.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES: Plan Your PD

Summer vacation is either imminent or has already begun. The last thing you may want to think about at the beginning of your time off is work, but after you give yourself a little time off to relax and regroup, this is the perfect opportunity do just that – think. Most of our time is spent doing and reacting to all that is going on around us. For the next few months, take time to reflect on what you might need and where you want to go next.

Have you been (or feel) too busy to “grow? Biology tells us organisms are either growing or they are dying.  It’s true for your professional growth, and true for the growth of your program.

Professional Development (PD), being a lifelong learner, is imperative for school librarians. Sure, your district probably offers PD workshops at least once a year. But the reality for librarians is that what is offered at best only touches on our practice.  If you want to grow, you have to take responsibility for your own PD.

My favorite PD are the national and state conferences.  They offer a wealth of opportunities for learning, networking, and leadership. And with a few exceptions state conferences are nothing like the national ones so both are worthwhile.

ALA Annual is coming up in Washington, D.C. from Thursday, June 20th until Tuesday, June 25th, and the professional development you get (not to mention the swag!) is superb. You don’t need to be there the entire time.  If you are still in school, get there by Friday evening and leave Sunday night, and you will learn plenty.  Plus DC is a great place to visit if you’ve never had the chance.

Do your best not to make cost an excuse. I have attended every ALA Annual since 1979.  Most of the time the money came out of my pocket.  I listed it as a professional expense on my taxes.  I regard my memberships and conference attendance as a cost of doing business, no different from what it cost to drive my car to work or have suitable work clothes.  PD is invaluable.

Everything you need for registering and housing is online and you can check the Schedule for AASL programming in advance. Don’t forget to see what ALSC is doing if you are at the elementary level and what YALSA is offering if you are at a middle or high school.  Look for amazing speakers who will be there and plan your time.

Every other year, I strongly recommend you plan to go to the AASL Conference which is being held this year in Louisville, Kentucky from November 14-16. The AASL Conference is my favorite because it’s all about us.  Every program, every speaker, and every vendor is focused on school librarians. That’s what is special about AASL.  It’s the only national organization who speaks solely for school librarians.

The best reason for attending an AASL Conference is the people.  This is your opportunity to expand your PLN nationally (and in some cases, internationally). When eating at the restaurants either at the hotel or the conference floor, don’t sit alone.  Join others and engage in conversation.  And, of course, exchange business cards to be sure you connect afterward. After so many years of conference attendance, I look forward to seeing the many friends I have as well as meeting new ones.  With some, I schedule dinners or lunches in advance, and this will happen to you as well.

Great as they are, conferences aren’t your only PD option. Summer is a terrific time to catch up on your professional reading. If you are a member of AASL you receive Knowledge Quest bimonthly, and probably haven’t time to read it. (The current issue is all about the different ways the National School Library Standards can impact your teaching and learning.).  Then there are all those issues of School Library Journal or Teacher Librarian you haven’t read… yet. Take time to intersperse these with your ever-growing pleasure reading list.

Group of Business People in a Meeting About Planning

Another great source of PD is the archived webinars on AASL’s eCOLLAB. While you have to be a member – or pay for some, many are free.  Here is a sample of what’s available:

·       Comics Librarianship: Essential Tools for the School Librarian

·       Don’t #%?$ My Graphic Novels: Conquering Challenges and Protecting the Right to Read

Your state association might also offer free webinars and some vendors do as well. A quick online search should yield some helpful results.

For professional reading options, start at the ALA Store under AASL. Libraries Unlimited is another source of professional development titles as is Rowman & Littlefield. Explore new resources when you aren’t harried and have time to play with them.  See what’s new at AASL’s Best Apps for Teaching & Learning and Best Websites for Teaching & Learning.

Summer is a time for relaxing and rejuvenating.  You do need that time off.  Hopefully, you can balance it with taking the time your career needs and deserves to keep learning and growing. It’s what leaders do.

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES: Leaders Know The Buzz

When you are in education long enough, you can become cynical about the latest buzzword that’s going to change everything.  And yet, the world keeps changing so we can’t keep doing things the same way. Sometimes the latest is merely something old cloaked in a new name.  As I wrote in last week’s blog Word Wise, words carry emotional meaning and every change reflect an altered perspective, which is why you need to keep up with the latest buzzwords.

When you know and understand current buzzwords, you show your leadership by presenting yourself as an expert in current trends. You should also check to ensure you are aware of buzzwords that go beyond librarianship and are circulating among administrators.  Even better is to know what’s happening in business and technology because it is likely they will affect education – and therefore your library program.

I am a member of ASCD so I can get their journal Educational Leadership. The themes of each issue are strong indicators of where administrators are going.  I also get SmartBriefs on a variety of topics, including leadership (invariably business leadership) and technology in my inbox daily.  These SmartBriefs lead me to relevant online columns and blogs. I interpret what I discover through the lens of school librarianship and you’ve seen many of these articles referenced in this blog.

Anjana Deepak’s article Buzzwords Make an Impact Paving the Way to Learn Something New, and Creating Value for and within, the Profession, lists 23 current buzzwords along with an explanation of buzzwords, differentiating them from jargon and slang. You will know many of them, but for the ones you don’t know, take time to research them so you are up to speed.  When and if they are relevant, you want to be able to use them in your conversations with principals and teachers in your building.

In addition to Deepak’s list, I came up with seven more which I have been noticing, bringing the total up to thirty.

  • Agency – Ability to make free choices and act independently as opposed to structure such as social class, gender, ethnicity which can determine or limit one’s decisions.
  • Competency-based education -A system using instruction, assessments, grading and other techniques to determine if students have learned the skills and competencies they are expected to learn. Usually tied to state and national standards, its goal is to ensure students are prepared for school, college, career, and life. (Based on the definition from Edglossary)
  • Computational thinking – A problem-solving approach formulated in a way that it can be solved by humans or computers. It has four stages: Decomposition – breaking the problem down into smaller parts; Pattern recognition – seeing commonalities among the parts; Abstraction – focusing only on the important parts; Algorithms – forming a step-by-step solution.
  • Growth Mindset – Mindset is how you see yourself. Unlike those with a fixed mindset who view their positive and negative abilities (and attitudes) as unchangeable, people with a growth mindset believe they can improve or change. Having a growth mindset makes you open to learning.
  • Personalized Learning– As opposed to the one-size-fits-all instruction, this approach uses multiple avenues to tailor learning experiences to meet individual student needs including small learning “academies “and allowing students to design their own learning routes such as taking an internship or enrolling in a college course.
  • Proficiency-based learning – A system that requires students to demonstrate they have acquired the knowledge and skills deemed necessary (usually according to set standards). Those who don’t meet the standards are given additional instruction and practice time.
  • Social and Emotional Learning – Commonly called SEL. Districts are embracing it in various degrees. In essence, it’s about developing Emotional Intelligence as it helps students and teachers to understand and manage their emotions, leading to improved relationships and decision-making. CASEL (the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) has an easy-to-access website on what SEL means and how to implement it.

Knowing the current buzzwords is integral to being recognized as a leader. I remember when rubrics came in.  I knew about them, although I had never created one. When a teacher came to me to help her make a rubric for an assignment as her department chair required (and had given no help), I knew enough to work with her, and her department chair was pleased.

There is a caveat.  Don’t flaunt or overuse buzzwords. Your conversation shouldn’t be filled with them. It can sound forced, making the listener uncomfortable either because they don’t know what you’re talking about or because it sounds like you’re talking at them rather than to them. A.  Too often buzzwords descend into jargon which shuts people out.  Think of legal or medical language and how off-putting that can be.  You want to be inclusive. The library is a safe, welcoming environment for all – not just those who know the buzz.

 

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES: Word Wise

Our words matter.  Just as our body language and tone of voice send messages we didn’t mean to send, so do our words. Noticing and making a shift takes diligence as we change patterns that have become natural to us. Becoming more aware and mindful of our word choice leads to stronger relationships and greater success for you and your program. And this is true for both the written and the spoken word.

For years, I have been teaching writing Mission and Vision Statements to pre-service school librarians.  I have given workshops on the topic, and invariably, unknowingly, librarians select weak words for statements that need to be powerful and compelling.  When this happens our message gets minimized as a result.

“Enrich” is a common weak word.  It sounds good when we say, “the library program enriches the curriculum” but what the budget-pressed administrator hears is, “It’s a nice extra, but the curriculum will do fine without the extra enrichment.”  And the result? You won’t get funds.  You may even be eliminated.

Surprisingly “support” is almost as weak.  So is “extends.”  You may know your program does this, but how vital does it seem to the administration? Your Mission and/or Vision needs to be under 50 words to make it memorable.  You can’t afford to waste any of the words, and you certainly can’t use words that detract from it.

So what are your alternatives?  “Fully integrated” (or at least “integrate’) implies that something important will be lost if eliminated.  “Essential [to …]” is even better.   While there is no guarantee your administrator will agree, proclaiming it positions you in a far better place in any discussions you have about the library program.  It follows that by writing stronger words, you will use stronger words in your conversation,

In conversation, many of us have adopted phrasing that suggests we are not sure of ourselves.  This is frequently a result of years of conditioning and not wanting to be “pushy.” But these phrases are subconsciously interpreted by others, making them less likely to see us as leaders.

“I feel” is high on my list of phrases watch or particularly when I am in a conversation with a stakeholder. “I know,” which suggests others should recognize the validity of what you said is so much more powerful.  Sometimes “I think…” is a tentative statement.  Other times it’s a more of a pronouncement. You need to be aware of whether you are making a clear statement or trying to avoid having to respond to someone who won’t agree with you.

Unsurprisingly, the business world is also aware of the damage words can inadvertently do. Christine Comaford identified 15 phrases that make leaders look weak She points to what she calls “verbal qualifiers.”  These are her fifteen:

  1. Almost:  I think I’ve said almost everything about that.”
  2. A Little: “She’s a little challenging to manage.”
  3. Sort Of:   I sort of want to do that.”
  4. Kind Of: “I kind of think I will.”
  5. Maybe: “Maybe I’ll call you tonight.”
  6. Just: “I just called to ask how you are.”
  7. Sometimes: “Sometimes I feel…”
  8. May: “I may go to the movies tonight.”
  9. Might: “I might finish that today.”
  10. They: “They think…”
  11. Everyone: “Everyone says…”
  12. Someone: “Someone told me…”
  13. Probably: “He’s probably”
  14. As If: “I’m feeling as if…”
  15. Better: “I feel better.”

She explains the problems with verbal qualifiers is that “It keeps us from owning the statement we are making.”  Strong leaders believe in what they say.  They take ownership and invite others in.

As I said earlier, “think” is a word usually indicates you are hiding out and are hoping others will agree with you instead of taking a stand that others can join.  Look at how many of the phrases above have “think” in them. If you use them, how could you rephrase and sound stronger/

Comaford concludes with two big takeaways for us.

Consider your answers to her questions.  Start listening to the words and phrases you use, as well as those used by others around you, and make the changes you need that allow you to speak as a leader.

 

Posted on by hildaweisburg

ON LIBRARIES: Weed to Lead

Ongoing discussions (and some very funny pictures) in our Facebook group have made it clear that weeding is a critical library task. Believe it or not, if you leverage it, it is one more way you show you are a leader.  To do so, you need to be mindful of the process. The why, what, when, and how you weed each requires an awareness of what you are doing.

To begin with, keep weeding in line with the rest of your program, and connect it to your Mission Statement as well as to the National School Library Standards (NSLS). For example, if you have a statement that reads:

The mission of the School Library Media Program is to ensure that students and staff are effective users and producers of ideas and information, promote literacy, and develop students’ competencies to be ethical participants in a global society.

then weeding is important because the relevance of your collection is important to your ability to deliver your mission. To be a producer of information, students need current information.  The collection needs to rise to that challenge. Additionally, in NSLS, the Standard D. Grow and IV. Curate for School Library states:

The school library engages the learning community in exploring resources by:

  1. Describing, organizing, and promoting the collection for maximum and effective uses for multiple learning applications.
  2. Maintaining a collection of sufficient breadth and currency to be pertinent to the school’s program of studies. (p. 95)

Some of what you weed seems obvious.  Certain sections of nonfiction, such as technology and science which become dated quickly, are easy to make eliminations. But what about other parts of the collection?

History books may seem to be relevant even if they don’t have the latest material, but the older stuff is still correct—or is it?  Sometimes older books have a bias we no longer find acceptable.  I once found a book on the Conquistadores that discussed the “heathen Indians.”   Other areas also have these less obvious issues but still need to be discarded

Reference frequently leads to a challenge because a set of encyclopedias cost so much money, and now you are throwing them out.  But the truth is, even if there is some information there, the articles are not up-to-date, and there is misinformation.  It’s tough, but they must go.

Fiction is possibly the hardest to weed.  How can that be outdated?  The dust jackets are one indicator.  Among the howlers I have come across is a book I remembered reading myself (which shows how old it was) A Cap for Mary, copyright 1952. It’s been a long time since nurses were capped – before men came into the profession.

Then there are outdated DVDs – and any VCRs you have.  Old and no longer used technology and equipment need to be removed as well.

When you weed is usually a personal decision.  You can do a form of continuous weeding. As you shelve a book, you may see one nearby that should be discarded, or you can focus on one section at a time, covering the entire library over the course of a set period of time. The most common time for weeding is when you are doing inventory since your focus at that time is on the collection. And, you might plan on a few days after school closes to deal with the ones that require more thought.

And now for the “how” of weeding which is the part that makes you a leader.

Promote your weeding.  You might say, “The library is doing spring cleaning to keep resources current and fresh.  Come see our howlers.”  Make sure you have books and other items that explain the term howler (it’s not just a letter from your parents when you’re at Hogwarts) will show why you need to weed.

Post a copy of your Mission Statement where you have displayed these weeded items.  Highlight the keywords showing why this is a vital part of how the library serves the educational community. List the criteria for weeding. Invite the principal to see what you are doing.

You also need a plan for what you will do with the discarded material.  Check to see if the district has a procedure you need to follow.  It may only be for the technology, but it may include books as well. If you throw the books in the garbage, either tear off the covers or at least rip out any pages identifying the book as belonging to the library.  You don’t want a Board member finding the book for sale at a flea market.

Many librarians give the books away, but this isn’t always a good idea.  It seems such a shame to throw them out, but you had a reason for doing so.  Think twice before passing them on to others. Sending them to schools in need of books, usually in a poor country is a difficult choice for me.  I dislike the idea of sending outdated information to kids too poor to get current material. The truth is, these books likely aren’t a benefit for anyone.

Teachers might like fiction books they remember. You can certainly let them have those titles. Anything else they want should be for personal use only—not for classroom collections—or all you have done is move the books to a new location.

If you don’t have a collection development policy, use the summer to create one.  Include weeding and the criteria for doing so in it. Try have the Board approve it. It’s one more way you show you are a leader.

Weeding may not be a favorite part of our work and there are, of course, challenges involved but it is another great opportunity to take a task and use it as a way to shine and show up as a leader.