Reading Well(s)

Photo by  Thomas Park  on  Unsplash  I 💗the podcast "Fake News and Digital Literacy." I took Dr. Green's suggestion and listened to it while I walked the dog  Thank goodness for the rap song because when I got home, it offered a great summary of what had been said so I could take notes. Since I am raising teenagers and studying library science, I sometimes do informal quizzing about information habits of the teens hanging out in my house. I ask them how they evaluate websites, organize their email, determine fake news etc.  ( it all started when I took 706).  Their favorite answers are, "I just know" and "I check the end of the website address" (you know .gov, .net, etc. ) According to these teens (a very small sample really) the ending of the website is all their teachers have taught them about online source evaluation (and and never use Wikipedia they say). Ever since I took 706 and did research on digital literacy, I've been pondering how you t

 Necessary background: For 4 years I've been operating a library in an elementary school for 3rd-5th graders in Michigan. Michigan has no state or local (at least in my district) standards for school librarians. I am paid as a parapro. My primary job is to maintain the books, check them out, collect fines. Since I wasn't hired as a teacher, I am not expected to teach. It is a part time job. I am a certified teacher though.  Teaching is instinctive for me so I teach while in the library. There is no curriculum. There are no other librarians to learn, grow or collaborate with. The job is whatever I make it. Even with all the lacking parts, I love the job  How can either the AASL or ISTE standards be applied in a state/district that still views school librarians as book-moving luxuries who can be cut in seasons of budget strains? The standards in both AASL and ISTE align with my vision for what a school librarian should be. Yet, the standards feel dreamy and impossible. One of IST

  I spent three years teaching high school English. I loved the idea of teaching writing to kids, but the practice of it was hard.  33 kids x 6 classes = giant piles of papers to grade.  I tried to offer useful feedback on writing assignments only to discover many kids did read the feedback. The librarian where I taught was an older man who liked to gossip. We weren't sure what he had actually did. I have no memories of the librarians at my middle or high school. I have memories of the library space in elementary school but no clue who ran the library. The examples of school librarians I had seen did not inspire me.  I stayed home with my girls for 14 years--homeschooling for seven. We were frequent users of the public library. When I decided to reenter the workforce I did not want to be an English teacher again. I saw a posting for a school librarian job. Twenty-five hours a week. School calendar. High school diploma required. I left that job interview thinking I had found my drea