Fisher is Asking Good Questions

Over at Remote Access, Clarence Fisher asks why more school curriculum isn't tagged in Technorati. He then asks his real question, "What does this say about how current many of the topcs that we teach are?"

I think I understand where Mr. Fisher is going with this - in a nutshell, that modern curriculum isn't attractive or meaningful to our students in the 21st century, and that teachers/and web authors are not tagging their information so that it can be found.

My short answer is that the reason our curriculum has little meaning is not that the content isn't valuable, but rather that we do not have enough artistically-trained teachers who know how to reach their students...because teachers have been trained to concentrate on the curriculum/standards instead of the students first. As I review the Georgia Performance Standards, I am overwhelmed with boredom at what teachers are asked to present. But again, it's not what is presented, but rather how it is presented that can make the difference in the way students receive the information they are being force-fed.

Mr. Fisher's second question, to me, has the greater implications for teachers who want to figure out ways to reach their students. The question he asks is, Have you noticed... "how few of the webpages that you access, looking for resources you can use in class, have RSS feeds to bring the latest news to you?

My answer is two-fold. First, the majority of educators probably wouldn't understand how or why they should use RSS feeds to keep up with current news, and second, the sources I would likely use to reach my students in the classroom can have RSS feeds, even if the authors do not provide a feed of their own. That's right...I would use a service like Page2RSS to create my own feed to pages that could be helpful to me in the teaching of my students. Though not 100% reliable, it would likely serve me well enough.

I would also use the Google News RSS feature on topics I knew I would be presenting to my class. As a matter of fact, I am in the process of conducting Google searches on the Georgia Performance Standards for grades 6, 7, 8 Social Studies topics. When new news items make their way to the Web, I can receive an update. It's a great service that Will Richardson discussed at the 2006 Georgia Ed. Tech Conference last November. He used Darfur as an example. Powerful! For the teacher who doesn't understand the RSS thing, they can even have email updates on their topics. Too cool, too easy, and too few teachers are using it.

Again, it is not that teachers are hurting for curriculum, material, knowledge, news, or lesson plans. Teacher are lacking in the skill to find, collect, evaluate, analyze, and use information that would assist them in making their students more interested in the content they are presented...the art of being a good teacher. As an old history teacher once said, "History is not boring. Everything we find exciting has happened sometime in the past." History is boring when we present the material in textbooks, handouts, and from the standards. History comes alive when we can illustrate that the human condition has not changed that much, even if technology has. I wouldn't try to hook middle school kids on the issue of slavery by talking about antebellum America. I would hook them by reading today's article from allAfrica.com about how Mauritania's government made slavery illegal...in August 2007. I might even consider using something like illegal immigration (a topic of great debate in our city of >40% Hispanic population) and how local companies recruited workers from other countries to take jobs at a lower pay than normal. I might get in trouble for that one though.

Future of Librarians, What is the

David Warlick shared the following the other day:

While at the National School Boards Association Conference the other day, more than one school board member came up to me, a tech guy, and asked, “We’re trying desperately to find ways to deal with budget crunches. With all of these computers and access to online information, do we really need librarians or libraries any more?”

In the past, I have always viewed librarians as "gatekeepers" of information. I now view them (probably because I am one) more as "lifeguards" of information.

Do we need librarians now? I think more than ever! With so much information available, someone must be able to organize, maintain, update the information which is changing faster than ever before. Teachers simply do not have time to manage the information.

So what's the answer? I think a name change that means something. Like when stewardesses became flight attendants (and the title fit). Librarians have become "media specialists" but the name does not fit. Just because there are VHS tapes, DVDs, cassette tapes, CDs, and the players to make them work, does not mean that the librarian has become a specialist of the media. Computers can run media, but with all the different levels of restrictions (bandwidth and/or filtering) we are not ready to become Library 2.0 people either...if we are honest anyway.

Most librarians do not have a natural background in technology; so why thrust the media title on them (which relates more to technology). Most school librarians come from the classroom. They understand instruction, curriculum, and know how to find, manage, and utilize information that can be valuable in the classroom. I think a more accurate term for most (at least in our district) media specialist would be information specialists. To me, that is the power of the library/media center.

There are many forms of information. Some people prefer (or are more comfortable with) paper-based products (books, encyclopedias, etc.) Great! Others are more comfortable with online resources, and hope to see schools move to a Web 2.0/Library 2.0 world in the near future. Schools need a BOTH/AND approach not an either/or dichotomy. Regardless of the preference, the true value of the people who work in the big room with all the books and computers, is that they are trained to find, organize, utilize, and share information. To me the big issue is how to convince teachers that we exist for more than the reading teachers.