The Power of Partnerships

Education and library conferences often consist of like-minded professionals with similar jobs convening to discuss the latest news, strategies, and developments in the field. A substantive conversation among different stakeholders with very different educational roles and agendas is rare. School Library Journal took on the challenge by inviting six leaders in education to initiate a dialogue on how they could best work together to improve student achievement.

The panel, moderated by SLJ Editor Evan St. Lifer and held June 30, during the National Educational Computing Conference in Seattle, brought together administrators, technology coordinators, school library media specialists, and teachers to discuss the steps necessary to establish a learning-centered school. The panel's spirited discussion focused on three key areas: the importance of weaving the library media center and information literacy into the curricular fabric of the school, cultivating leadership, and breaking down the cultural barriers that exist among a school's faculty and administrators.

Eisenberg: Using the ALA Information Power definition, it means being able to recognize when information is needed and have the ability to locate, use, and evaluate it. It's really about being able to think in the 21st century.

St. Lifer: Joyce, how were you able to successfully integrate information literacy into your school's curriculum with a program that really has teeth?

Valenza: When I came to Springfield High School five years ago, student work was simply not meeting the standard of excellence that we were hoping it would meet, and there was a growing level of plagiarism. So a group of teachers got together and we decided to integrate information literacy into the language arts curriculum. The language arts faculty in K–12 was responsible for delivering that curriculum in collaboration with K–12 librarians. There was an expectation on the part of the principal and our administrators that this new curriculum would be delivered across disciplines because those skills were important in social studies, science, and all the other classes. I was lucky to find a principal who was of the same mind-set. [For more details, see "Making Research Count ," November 2002, pp. 48–51.]

St. Lifer: What if a school librarian doesn't have an ally like Joyce has, or a principal who "gets it"?

Eisenberg: Principals don't get up in the morning, get dressed, and come to work and say, "I'm going to stick it to the school librarian." Principals are after the same goals that we all are, which is student learning. So it's a matter of media specialists ascertaining the priorities of the school, principal, faculty, and the community and tying information literacy to those priorities. I don't buy it when people say, "I can't do it because my principal isn't supportive or the teachers don't get it." It's the job of the library media specialist, the library program, to show how information and technology skills integrated with the curriculum help students learn.

Haack: It comes down to being proactive. We need to move away from a library theme and more toward a media specialist theme, because a library conjures up the thought that I've got to go to the library to get information.

But what Mike and Joyce are saying is "No, we're going to go out and help seek out those that want resources."

St. Lifer: What I'm hearing from Terry [Haack] as well as from other administrators is that the term "librarian" represents something different to them than the term "media specialist." Doug, is the title immaterial or do we need to consider administrators' perceptions of specific titles, for better or worse?

Johnson: Everybody has strong feelings about it. You're a librarian, a media specialist, or a technology director. The only research I've seen was from focus groups of young people conducted by AASL [American Association of School Librarians]. In terms of perception, the term librarian was associated with books, with passivity, with the elderly. When participants were asked if they would consider librarianship as a field, males especially said no. When they asked about the term media specialist or library media specialist, there was a perception of working with technology, being more proactive. And when males were asked if they would go into that profession, a much higher percentage said yes. So there is some power to a name, but it's probably more of what you do than what you're called.

Eisenberg: Library media specialists are teachers. You can call them anything you want: information specialists, media specialists, but you've got to call them teachers. That's why I really like the "teacher-librarian" term. Our curriculum is as important as any other curriculum at school. It may be more important. The way we implement that learning is through collaboration. It's integrated with the classroom; it's not separate classes in information skills.

St. Lifer: Is the library media specialist in your school reaching out to teachers?

Haack: All too often media specialists are more clerical than they are a resource person or teacher. And that's wrong. The only way you can change that is for the media specialist/librarian to be proactive. It's not going to take a principal to force somebody to get out there. It's going to take leadership by that media specialist. It's very easily done—in a middle school, invite yourself to the planning time for teams. In a secondary school, look at some lesson plans. Read through them and send teachers e-mail saying, "I have something for you."

St. Lifer: Doug, what kind of give-and-take goes on in your schools?

Johnson: When I arrived at our district 10 years ago, I actively recruited people that I knew were going to do outreach, be a real positive influence, be real leaders in their buildings. To a large extent, that's happened. Our best folks don't just help the teachers on an individual basis. My wife does staff development activities on a regular basis. We have folks who are co-grant writers, so that when we have a big reading grant initiative they're on that committee giving their input. They serve on the curriculum committee in the district. A good information literacy program legitimizes kids' abilities to draw conclusions for themselves, moving them away from the sit-and-absorb mode to helping them become active learners.

St. Lifer: Gordon, what's happening in your district?

Dahlby: We have engaged all of the K–12 media specialists to be proactive members of the core team for technology. They have been leading the field for the last three years because of the expectations we have for them to help support teachers and students. Attitudes are contagious, and you want to look at yourself and ask if yours is worth catching.

St. Lifer: What can be done to ensure a common level of expectations about information and technology literacy in our schools?

Valenza: We are now creating checkpoints along the way for students. I conference regularly with every single senior to make sure there are no major research holes in their senior projects and that they have a thesis worth developing. We have specific rubrics that deal with how to develop a tentative thesis and what we're expecting in a whole project. We're assessing their tentative bibliographies before they get to their papers. We're assessing thesis paragraphs before they start writing. The rubrics and tools are helpful as guides to the whole faculty.

Johnson: In states with less local control, having a written articulated information literacy curriculum that is taken as seriously as a math curriculum or a language arts curriculum or a science curriculum is very helpful. One of the things we've done in our school district, which has been met with some controversy, is to assess students at the K–6 level on information literacy and technology and lifelong reading behaviors and appropriate use. We report our evaluations in progress reports just like we do for math, science, and social studies.

Wagman: The states need to lay off the districts as far as testing our kids and our teachers to death. If you want the librarian and the media center to be the core of the school as they should be, states need to allow districts to experiment with alternative forms of assessment and have states come in as quality control agents to make sure that we are assessing in an accurate and thoughtful way. Those alternate forms will bring information literacy skills to the forefront to help students with those assessments.

St. Lifer: Where do we go from here?

Eisenberg: There is a book called Information Technology for Learning: No School Left Behind [Big6, 2003] by Ferdi Serim, and it talks about information and technology teams—library media specialists, classroom teachers, and technology teachers—all getting together to implement what we've been talking about.

Wagman: Take a look at what your students are doing. If you're not satisfied with what they're doing, then you need to get a leader in your building and empower that person. As an institution, we will be irrelevant if we don't start bringing these information literacy skills to the forefront.

Dahlby: I encourage principals and superintendents to promote leadership among your media specialists and all of your staff and look for opportunities for them to step out and be seen as leaders in your building.

This feature was written by SLJ's editors.