Image by Sarah McIntyre. Used with Permission.
After being a classroom teacher for over ten years, I was well accustomed to the lack of respect for my profession from some people in the community. The cringe-worthy phrase “Those who can do and those who can’t, teach,” was like a thousand fingernails down the blackboard for me. There is such a disappointing lack of respect for people who have the single biggest influence over children and youth, outside of the family home. I have often found myself having to justify my choice to be a teacher to well-meaning (?) friends and acquaintances over the years, who exclaim, “you could have been anything you wanted to be”, “don’t you get bored?”; this attitude seems typical of attitudes toward teachers generally.
I probably shouldn’t have been shocked at the seemingly even worse attitudes towards Teacher Librarians. Unfortunately, even within a school, teachers themselves do not always understand the role of the TL and at the beginning of the school year (as the new TL), a teacher I had known for a long time asked me, “Do you think you can handle being just a Teacher Librarian?” I laughed it off, but responded, “What do you mean, just…” and I have found the response quite indicative of attitudes towards TL’s generally. Her response was, “well you know, it’s not that hard to read a few stories…”
As a passionate Teacher Librarian, making a difference one day at a time, I feel an obligation to share the evidence on the value of librarians and what it is we (I) actually do. Of course, every TL is different and every context is different, but the evidence speaks for itself. Teacher Librarians are not ‘Just’ anything…. other than human; just like everyone else.
Research studies show that when a school has a qualified Teacher Librarian, student results are positively impacted. There is so much to say about the role and value of Teacher Librarians, that I wrote a separate blog post entitled, Teacher Librarians are Vital in Schools. click through to read it.
