Transforming My Practices

           I have been catching up on my professional reading and just came across an interesting article in the October 2011 Teacher/Librarian magazine, Some Questions to Transform Practice by Tim Gauntly (page 35).  Though I am several months late reading this article I feel it is very timely in my planning for the next school year and setting my own professional development goals.
            In this brief article Tim guides us through a series of questions that will help librarians and the staff they work with define what it actually means when they say, "Our school library is the center of our school's learning community." 
          What I like about Tim's series of questions is that the answers that are given to these questions can be as unique as the school's community.  I feel that as we develop our libraries for the future there are core standards we should all meet, but the paths we take to meet those standards should be as diverse as our school populations.
            I am going to ask my principal if I can use one of our professional development sessions at the end of the school year to start this discussion.  This might also be a good year long project to work through with students.  I could guide them through projects and discussions based on the questions.  Their answers to these questions would allow them to decide what the library means to them.

            Seems I have another project to work on….

If you want to know more about Tim Gauntly you can find his blog at http://timgauntley.blogspot.com/