Educational Philosophy
As part of Kent State University's graduating requirements, all Elementary School Medial Librarians are encouraged to develop an educational philosophy.
Developed for LIS 60607 School Media Manager class; Summer, 2012
The role of the School Librarian (SL) has changed greatly over the years. In today’s school setting we wear many hats-some are administrative, some are teaching oriented, and some tasks are specific to our job, such as cataloging.
While each classroom teacher faces many tasks, our school librarian tasks affect all of our co-workers, all students in our building, our administration, and all of our student’s parents.
Since everything we do touches many people in our school building, we must always strive to have strong ethics, the best technology skills, and uphold each patron/students right to privacy. The ALA affirms that “the rights of privacy are necessary for intellectual freedom and are fundamental to the ethics and practice of librarianship.” [1]
We are a facilitator of knowledge and information, and a guardian of free speech, the right to information, and the right to privacy.
Equally important as an educator is the understanding that our job is one of collaboration, innovation and facilitation.
We educate our students and teachers about new technologies, new techniques and the new AASL standards. We function as a resource guide for our school’s teaching needs. We serve as an advocate for educational learning and standards for our school district. We collaborate with our peers in teaching units. We partner with resources in our community, district and state to create the best learning environment we can. We are constantly learning ourselves and keeping abreast of new trends and technologies to keep our knowledge and skills current and fresh, and our students and teachers motivated and challenged.
Often we work with minimal budgeting, so we learn to write grants, collaborate with our public library, and serve as an advocate to educate our parents and community on the importance of our position in the schools.
We become savvy managers of resources, personnel, and our facility, as we realize everything we do impacts our students’ and teachers’ learning environment.
It is our challenge to be the best that we can be in all areas, so as to contribute heavily to our students’ success not only in school, but in becoming “life-long learners.”[2]
[1] ALA website: http://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/librarybill/interpretations/privacy, Retrieved July, 9, 2012.
[2] ALA website: http://www.ala.org/acrl/standards/standardslibraries, Retrieved July 9, 2012