Lately, everything we hear about the Common Core State Standards is gloom and doom. Well, I’m here to spread the gospel, to bring you The Good News. And this news is so good it comes in several parts: the conference, the school visits, and the mood.
The author on February 7th at Rutgers University
The Conference
On February 7 at Rutgers University, where I lecture, a conference was held, sponsored jointly by the Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) program and including the Center for International Scholarship in School Libraries (CISSL) and our Graduate School of Education (GSE). The event brought together panels of award-winning intermediate school principals, leading professors from library and information science programs, and an education professor and two classroom teachers. It was a day of collaboration in action. Planning for the day we asked each panelist to craft “pass along” requests for the two other groups. Thus, what do principals want from librarians and teachers, librarians from teachers and principals, and so on.
What each speaker wrote in private and then shared was fascinating: teachers want assurance that principals will support professional development; librarians want to know how to help; principals would like to offer targeted professional development and to give librarians and teachers time to plan and work together–as long as it’s clear what the benefits are to the community. In other words, what each group wants can be delivered; however, their needs must first be expressed and recognized, and a structure and plan provided.
Dr. Joyce Valenza, Dr. Ross Todd, and Dr. Kristin Fontichiaro spoke on behalf of librarians; as conference planners, we are creating a model for this type of cross-school collaboration, spelling out what each actor needs, can deliver, and can expect. Watch this space–and Joyce’s blog–we’ll keep you informed as we progress. The Good News: the conference was great.
The School Visits
I am writing today from a hotel in Syracuse , NY, where I will be for a full week of school visits–grades three through nine. Yesterday I met with more than 800 sixth and seventh graders at the Ray Learning Common in Baldwinsville. The kids could not have been more engaged and excited about learning, about ideas, about nonfiction. That was true throughout the day, from the assembly where one seventh grader knew about “Moore’s Law” because he had heard it mentioned on National Public Radio and asked his dad about it, to the last class of the day where I met a group of severely challenged kids with whom I had lively conversations on myths and fossils. I found the same spirit in the staff–from the social studies teacher who is doing the mad dash through world history by going backwards–(beginning at World War II and ending in Sumer)–to the principal, a former history teacher whose ideas about Common Core implementation were a perfect match with what I’d heard at the Rutgers conference. More Good News: the visit was great.
The Mood
And that brings me to mood. In those classrooms, in the conferences where motivated teachers and librarians meet, I’m seeing something altogether different from what the news media is reporting. I’m seeing people excited about collaborating, excited about using nonfiction, excited about creating text sets. Instead of “should we do this” there is “we are doing this.” The game, as Sherlock would say, is afoot. I’m off to another school today; maybe I’ll return to this hotel room less enthusiastic. But I am hopeful; we can use the challenge of the Common Core to make schools better–to bring teachers and librarians together as true collaborators in student learning.