Volume 33 Nº 1 - February 1997
A Day in the Life of a Primary Teacher-Librarian
Maggie Roche
The action described here is attributed to Maggie's school but highlights the major issues faced by many teacher-librarians. The report was prepared by Maggie Roche, teacher-librarian at Burwood Primary School, and members of the NSW Teacher's Federation TL Special Interest Group.
7.00 a.m. Over a early morning cup of coffee, I print out a reading list and shelf labels. Must include a laser printer in next year's management plan so I don't have to use my own.
8.30 a.m. Arrive at school, on duty till 9.00. Log on to Oasis. Give children jobs. Attend to requests. Fill in copyright declarations for photocopying for next week's classes (little chance school assistant will have time to do it today). Find more resources for the kindergarten teacher on the theme 'All about me'. This is a tough one.
9.00 a.m. Classes start arriving. Wand hundreds of returned books and new loans for Year 1. Thank heavens training of monitors in older classes is going well; I couldn't survive without them. A community member arrives to look through our archives. Parent volunteer arrives to cover books. I show her where everything is.
9.20 a.m. Read Koala Lou to the class. I'm glad I saw Mem Fox read this herself. I'd never have had the courage to pull the faces otherwise. The children crack up. A success! Answer a phone call, the computer companies are at last responding to my request for quotes. Explain needs and specifications.
9.30 a.m. Small group booked in to work with me. Very productive. Bookseller arrives, unannounced, so explain politely that it is impossible to see anyone without an appointment.
10.00 a.m. I have half an hour of release time. Was planning to check invoices against the budget, print a list of new accessions for the staff bulletin board, and place an order, but attend to a teacher's request instead. They usually give advance notice, this was an emergency. Discover I need help with Oasis. Ask the front office to ring the Oasis Support Unit for me. A temporary officer walks me through the first part of the solution. Make a note to request permission to buy a telephone extension cord.
10.30 a.m. Year 2 arrive for an integrated lesson on selecting and recording information for their 'Transport' unit. They ask if they can come back at lunchtime to do some more.
11.00 a.m. First half hour of lunch. It's early here! Think longingly of the staffroom, but I have classes nearly all day, so I eat on the run. I prepare a request for the principal to approve the culling of damaged books, take the notice about the next book fair to the front office for the parent newsletter, (it's fund-raising time again!) and continue searching for resources in new units for the English committee meeting tomorrow. Select a page from a student's learning journal to photocopy as a work sample.
11.30 a.m. Second half of lunch - on duty and library open. Students crowd in with requests for books, disks, jobs and help with homework tasks (What famous high court judge was brought before the courts in 1985?). Attend to two students with a problem - first a fight, then tears followed by a long talk. I supervise the library monitors and realise it's time for a clean-up. I remind a child that the architect-designed ramp is not an adventure playground, and show a teacher how to do a boolean search.
12.00 a.m. Release time! Would like to get back to Oasis Support, but I must do some work on new resources. Slog away, but hardly seem to make a dent.
12.30 p.m. Breathe a sigh of relief - only one extra class booked in with teacher, one small independent group and 23 students working individually. Now, I can concentrate on the Year 4 class who are scheduled with me! They've been asked to write about 'A Day in the Life of a Bushranger' and are wondering why they can't find information on exactly that. What a shame the teacher and I didn't have time to meet to do some planning! I rush upstairs and gather armfuls of butcher's paper. This calls for rescue action. We lead them through a brainstorming session to narrow the topic, cluster and categorise ideas, and develop 'focus questions' to guide their search. They think of related search terms and soon the tables are covered with charts, blank with promise. They are ready to go.
1.05 p.m. Time to pack up. They can't wait another week; they need more time, lots of guidance, and a modelled example for the next stage. I invite them to come back tomorrow in my release time, since no-one else is booked in then. The teacher looks surprised. I wonder what stops them from realising they should be able to use the library whenever they need to.
1.10 p.m. Next class arrives for their weekly lesson. They have no resource-based needs at the moment relating to the classroom program, so I run them through the library layout, read them a story and hear some of them read. Make a mental note to find more titles for older 'beginning readers'.
1.40 p.m. Recess - training session for library monitors. They tackle the mountains of books on the shelving trolley. I keep an eye on them while I prepare the week's work for the one-day-a-week clerical assistant. Tomorrow - joy of joys! - I can have some support for processing those new materials the teachers have been waiting for. Must write up the procedures manual for multiple copies and think about the next step in training the new assistant tomorrow morning before lessons start.
2.00 p.m. The scheduled class is having a photo taken, so I begin preparing a pathfinder for a Year 6 class on their unit 'Water'. The search is more complex than I realised: 304, 333, 363, 551, 574, 910... and still going. I check the shelves to see if the collection will sustain 30 students all researching the same topic at once. Could do with more resources. Make a note to visit bookshops to have a look at what's available to prepare an order. Probably have to be Saturday. I wonder if an order placed next week could come through in time? Could be a clash with another Year 5 unit, 'Environment Matters'. Will print a list of resources for all classes involved.
2.20 p.m. Class arrives, preening, from the photo session. They know what they're doing, so they start straight away. The teacher works with ESL and STLD students, while I work with the others. It was worth having planned this unit co-operatively.
2.50 p.m. Sudden rush to borrow before they go home. Voracious readers. Books fly in all directions. The 'hearing support' teacher pops in to tell me a planning meeting is set up with Year 6 and ESL teacher on Monday morning at 8.30. She is integrating two hearing support children with a mainstream class for resource-based learning in small groups. She remains enthusiastic throughout my groan - Monday morning!
3.00 p.m. Open the mail. Tempted to go home to work on program in comfort, but can't bear the depth of the job piles. Work on reading room, designing a system for labelling and barcoding books, doing some of the harder ones myself. Alter catalogue details of resources that are going into theme boxes. Edit the authority files. Check resources for 'All About Me'. Make sure subject headings are entered consistently for next time. Print resource lists for teachers - big books for new teachers, short stories for the senior primary creative writing competition. This is mostly clerical work but the clerical assistant will never have time. There is enough work for her processing new resources alone for a month of Thursdays.
5.55 p.m. Cleaner throws me out so she can lock up and switch on the security system.
6.00 p.m. Call in to have flat tyre filled with air. The garage attendant looks at me despairingly.
6.30 p.m. Home! Do an on-line search of SCIS to classify and catalogue new resources. I must use my own computer because there is no phone line from the library. Will try a search for material on the 'Water' unit for Year 6. Another Year 6 class needs fiction for their 'Survival' theme, too. Can't we search by age group any more? Have to curtail search time as our budget is limited.
7.00 p.m. Dinner, cooked by the man of the house. Finish reading the latest offering from Gillian Rubinstein. Try to find a suitable bit to read aloud. Ring a colleague about a professional development activity planned for Saturday week. How do people with young families get all this done?
7.45 p.m. Search the Internet for the unit on 'Water' - I took a personal account so I could start learning. Realise that the Internet supplements the resource collection well. Decide to prepare an introductory package for Year 6 on the Internet.
8.40 p.m. Remember not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and look through filing cabinets stored in the laundry for resource lists on water, survival, environment, transport, all about me...
8.50 p.m. Read some of the reviewing journals. Write selected titles on an order form. Look at the ABC TV guide to identify programs which relate to units of work planned by teachers. Remember to get the curriculum overview form for teachers ready for next term. Remember that I should have booked accommodation for the holidays.
10.15 p.m. Too late to prepare lessons, will get up early in the morning.
10.30 p.m. Go to bed, solve several problems in my head... but think of a few more. Funny, I'm tired.
