The Librarian who thought outside the box....

A while back I had a graduate student in an advance Instructional Technology course, the objectives which were to examine how we use resources in the schools. Anna (not her real name) was an American who worked and lived across the border in British Columbia (Canada). She had been a fourth grade teacher and wanted to be the new librarian. She knew that the present librarian was about to retire.

Anna was one who challenged my thinking at every level--indeed she challenged her own thinking as well. She was more then a delight to have in class. College instructors can be invigorated by the type of students one has in class. And Anna certainly took the opportunity to invigorate the class. "What makes a good library? How many electrical outlets is optimum in a class? Why can't the library have a door to the playground? Why can't the school have a greenhouse so that children can check out plants?" Anna found the textbook that I had chosen boring so she checked out several other textbooks on school resources but she didn't care for those as well. At least she gave me credit for picking probably the best of the bunch.....but that wasn't saying much in her mind. I remember taking her and the rest of the class on a field trip to Bellevue Community College to look at resources. I think for the first time she understood where I was headed and agreed with me. Bellevue Community College was at the time probably one of the best in the country with Chester, their phone in tape source, an advanced television studio(s), a very modern library system, and classrooms that were optimized for the teacher and the subject. Their lecture series was televised and on the cable shortly after the presentation. Anna was in her element.

Shortly afterwards, Anna got the position of librarian at her school. Because the elementary school was just over the border I had the opportunity and good fortune to visit it on several occasions. I think the school was built in the eighties to service the local community which was blooming with new houses and communities. It was a time of growth in the lower BC delta area and new schools were going in fast.

When I first went up to see Anna in her new position she was in the library helping kids. She gave me a quick tour of the school with kids asking her questions most of the time. Anna was unhappy with the size of the library and the fact that it had no storage space and no working area. But never mind, she said to me, I take care of it. The principal had already said that expanding the library was not in the future. There was a kid crunch and they needed all the space for students.

About a month, if I remember correctly, I stopped by to see how things were progressing. Progressing they were as Anna had taken all the furniture out of the library including the check out desk, all the tables and all the chairs. No furniture at all. And she had book piles where new shelving was going to be placed.

Wait, I forgot. There was one small table in the corner covered with a cloth. Underneath it was the opaque projector and a hard bulletin board. The kids would find a picture they wanted to copy from a book, crawl under the table, put the book in the opaque projector and tape a piece of paper to the bulletin board and copy away. Colored felt pens were kept in a box under the table as well. Anna said this worked well...she didn't have to turn the lights off and the kids could keep working on their projects. There always seemed to be two or three kids working on tracing something out of a book.

But I also asked about how she checked out all those books without a card catalog and a check out desk. Not a problem, she had the children write the name of the book and their name on a clip board by the door. She would help the first graders but it was not hard to see that the little ones could soon print their names. I asked if she knew where most of the books were? And typical Anna response..... "Most of the books are in the classrooms and the children are reading them. When they are done most of the time, one of their friends wants the book too and it is just handed over. Most trained librarians would be aghast at this system but it worked for Anna. I also asked Anna if the kids were really reading the books or were they just keeping them in their desks. "Good question. I'll work on that."

The next time I visited the school I didn't see Anna at first--I don't know where she was. But the library was busy with kids. Some were putting books back on the shelves and others were checking them out. As usual the opaque was busy with a waiting line to use it. I found Anna down one of the two halls putting stars on some charts. Anna had decided that if a child read a book and verbally reported it to Anna, she would give that child a star. After so many stars after the child's name, that child could give a book to the library.

What! GIVE a book to the library? Anna explained that first she knew most of the books in the library--she had cataloged them and at the time skimmed them. If a student could tell her enough about the book she would give them a star. When that student had accumulated enough stars (I forget what the number was) a bookplate was pasted in the front of the book with that student's name...This book was earned for the school library by ...and the students name. Already she had a number of books with "earned bookplates."

But here is the kicker. It turns out that the district office had sent out a memo (a paper before e-mail) with the policy that all library books would have a sticker of some sort in the front of the book indicating it belong to which school and the school district. Anna was just making use of that policy and using it for the kids.

About a year after Anna took over I went back to the school and children were showing me what books they were reading. A number of them pointed out that their big sister or brother had earned the book for the library. Cool, eh?

Another interesting tale. Apparently Anna found out that this school had a significant less number of books then other schools in the region. She went to the district meeting and requested more books which the district agreed to. They agreed to bring the school up to date with the number of books. However Anna had a plan. She ordered all the expensive books like atlases, coffee table books, and picture books. The district reported to me that it was one of the most expensive book purchases they had ever made. But that school could now say they had the right number of books available for the kids.

There was one book on motorcycles that was a favorite with the boys. It was never check in for almost a year. One boy would get done with it and then someone else would take it and go down to the library to check it out. One day when talking to Anna some young boy wanted to know where the motorcycle book was? "Go down to Mrs. Blyth's class--Tommy has it." Anna knew pretty much where all her books were most of the time.

Oh yes, Anna's office. When the school was built a workroom and small office was built for the librarian. As usual, Anna declared it too small for an office and not needed anyway--she was always out with the children getting books to read. So she made it into a storage space for the teachers. She went down to a local men's clothing store and bought two dozen boxes in which new suits were sent home. About three feet by two in size, Anna labeled them with subject areas that the teachers wanted and used every year. Barn yard animals, Spain, Canadian railroads, lumbering....what ever the teachers studied in their classroom year after year, Anna collected the material and stored in these boxes. They held pictures, maps, books and booklets, overhead transparencies, even lesson plans. When the time came the teacher would asked Anna for the box on........ Over the years, Anna kept adding material and keeping them up to date. The teachers loved her. I know I would had I been teaching there. Here is an interesting point--the books that were in these boxes were not part of the collection so that when they were made available in the classroom, children had not seen them as yet. New material in a way.

By the way, for some reason, student reading scores jumped after Anna was hired as librarian and continued to rise. It was too small a library but Anna had her ways. After being at this school for about six years, Anna was hired by a district in the eastern part of the province as an Assistant Superintendent in charge of Instructional Technology. The last I heard of Anna was that her school district had bought out a local print shop and was printing material for the teachers.

Anna, thanks for teaching me in my class. You were a delight and you certainly pushed the envelope on how to teach kids. Thanks my dear.....

The Worst Teacher I knew who was Teacher of the Year!

I said I would tell about the worst teacher I ever knew who was "Teacher of the Year."  Really.  I had just returned from "my" war and my military duty and was back in the classroom.  Fifth grade in a new school.  I was happy but wanted to do more in my profession so I volunteered to serve in a WEA (Washington Education Association)(trust me it was a different organization in those days comprised of teachers, principals and superintendents) committee.  They put me on the TEPS commission.  TEPS stood for Teacher Education and Professional Standards and our main task was to look out for teachers who perhaps might have been unfairly let go of their jobs.  There were a couple of superintendents who routinely fired teachers after five years and hired new ones to keep his budget in order.  Some teachers were fired for religious practices (in the classroom) and a few were released because of alcohol problems.  No, the TEPS commission didn't always back up the teacher after reviews.

I was going through some old files to get myself familiar with what the commission had done and came across a file that was obvious a teacher who had been in our district.  Even more startling, she had been the teacher I replaced when I returned from the Army. Probably shouldn't have perused it but I did.  It appears she was a terror.

According to the files, she was quite disliked by everyone, teachers, parents, administration, janitors, kitchen staff--anyone who came near the school.  One entry was that after lunch when the children returned to the classroom she would have them read silently and she would put her head down on her desk and take a ten minute or longer nap.  

In another case she sent a bottle of cheap cologne home with a child with a note stating that if they couldn't bath their child more often would they please use some of the this.  The note was in the files.    I guess the final straw was when she held back about a third of the class saying they weren't learning and needed to repeat the grade.  She apparently had data to support this conclusion.  

The district released her and she hired a lawyer and contacted the WEA TEPS commission for support.  The commission denied her support and suggested she look to another profession away from children.   She then promptly sued the WEA!  But before either of the cases could go to court, she dropped both cases and left the district.  It turned out that the superintendent did not want a prolong court case that would take lots of money and instead offered her a letter of recommendation if she would just leave.  I suspect she thought this might be the better road to take.  Was the superintendent ethical?  One could make a case for either side.

By the way, I went back to the school and asked about Ms. G and nobody would talk about her.  They really hated her.  It was like a bad dream and no one wanted to remember it.  So okay, end of story?  Yes.  It was the end. No more Ms. G.

Some years later I had just been selected to teach at a School of Education at a regional university, a position I looked forward to as a new professor of education.  Being one of the newest on the staff I was informed that all new professors of education were required to go about the state in the spring and interview first year teachers who had just graduated from this institution.  The task was a bit of a pain--several days on the road, cheap motels, cheap foods (per diem or the cost of travel was severely limited), but the long hours on the road were good for thinking.  For me it was a mixed bag.  I was assigned an area that I had grown to know through my work with the WEA.  Almost old home week for me with the six teachers I would be interviewing.  

I tried to interview a new teacher in the morning and then travel and get to another of the new teachers in the afternoon.  Questions were pretty standard--what courses have been the most help to you in your first year?   What has been your biggest problem?  What courses could we have offered that you would have been helpful to you.   I'd also got to watch them teach a bit and get a feel for the school and their classroom.  Good data for my colleagues and me back at the college for future planning (didn't know we did that did you?).  My first year teachers were five women and one guy, all at the elementary levels.  And all were in suburban districts of Seattle.  

One of my first year teachers when asked what she would like to tell us went on a forty minute tirade non stop.  According to her we were the poorest school of education with no professors who knew how to teach--and that was the good part.  It went downhill after that.  I could hardly keep up with her in taking notes and in the back of my mind was silently gratified that she had never taken a class from me for she would have surely put me in my place.  When she finally got done, she sat back and said, "you know, the university is really a nice place." Apparently she just had to unload a lot of thoughts and feelings.  And thank heavens for my training in guidance and counseling.  In subsequent years she came back to the college and finished her master's degree and we became good friends.  But the initial blast was something to behold.

On Friday I finished early with my morning interview and looked forward to seeing my afternoon first year teacher and then hitting the road to get home for the weekend.  One more school district to go!  It was further out in the county not your suburban type community.  Most were "stump farmers";  had ten or twenty acres, cut the trees and were farming or grazing between the stumps.  These folk probably moved to this area right after WWII and wanted to be left alone.  Friendly people but don't tell us what to do.  Some of the men probably commuted into Boeings as well as worked their farms.  Hard working community. Off the beaten path.

I found the elementary school just outside of town--a typical brick "L" shape single floor building that was popular right after the war with a "gym" backing up one wing and a lunchroom backing up the other wing.  The office was right at the apex for both wings.  To the left was the primary grades and to the right were the intermediate grades.

As I entered the school I noticed it was extremely clean with nothing on the walls of the halls.  Some schools have the children's work posted but not this school.  Shall we say, "cleanliness next to Godliness?"  I introduced myself to the secretary, gave her my card and she had me sit down.  "The principal will be with you in a moment."  I waited and waited--it was a long moment in my mind.  Most principals in the schools I had visited were quite prompt in greeting me, would invite me in and discuss the school and our new teacher.  I had gone to graduate school with one of the principals and we had a good gab fest about old times. 

But this principal was letting me know he was a busy man and although he knew ahead of time I was coming kept me waiting for about a half hour.  It took him a while before he could get to me.  He was a big man, not fat, but very imposing--I remember him being bald.  Why do I remember that?  But he was certainly someone I would not argue with.  He was in charge.  I mentioned I wanted to watch my teacher teach if possible and then interview her--I showed him the form of questions to somewhat let him know I wasn't here to under mind the school.

Still he wasn't ready to let me go.  Okay! now to small talk as far as I was concerned.  Since I was interested in "audio-visual" area of education I asked if his teachers ever showed movies in the classroom.  "Oh, yes.  When they do want a film  I wheel the projector down to the classroom and show it for them." "The teachers don't touch the projector."   As an aside about a year later I interviewed the media person with the Intermediate school district and found out this school had one of the lowest film rentals of any school in the county.  I wonder why?!!!!

Finally he asked if I would like a tour of the school--he really wanted to show it off.  We started at the office and went down the primary wing.  Typical classrooms all in neat shape.  All women teachers in the primary wing.  Next we headed to the intermediate wing and before we looked into the different classrooms he wanted me to see the library.  Obviously an addition to the school building in recent years, it was a large library for an elementary school.  On this they got extra points from me.  It was, like the classrooms, very neat, and for what I could see, no children were in it at the time.  A small woman came to meet us and the principal introduced me to Ms. G.  Ms. G?  Where had I heard that name before.  Come on brain, do you thing.

Somewhere in the opening remarks I mentioned that I had taught a library course or two at the local university and off Ms. G went with how poor the library department was......I am grateful for the earlier first year teacher who had blasted me and the college with her then negative remarks for it gave me some practice for what was coming from Ms. G.  It was the same woman that I had read about in the TEPS report.  Holy smokes was she something!  While she was telling me a whole lot of stuff, the principal wanted me to see that 'this teacher had been selected as teacher of the year' in the district.  Parents voted her the very best teacher in the district.  There were signs in the library attesting to this fact and indeed as we listened to her some parents came in with cookies and cakes for an event right after the school.  I remember shaking her hand and congratulating her--however I was in shock.  Really.  I do remember the principal saying that they had 'more' books at the end of the year then when the school year started.  I'm sure of it....I suspect there were a few children that were too afraid to go back and get their own book.

To this day I cannot remember seeing the teacher I came to visit.  This is amazing.  Did I watch her teach?  Did I do the interview?  Did she make suggestions to the college?  Was she seeking another position.  I can't remember.  All I can think of.....is Ms. G. being selected Teacher of the Year.   She had no love for college professors so I didn't stay for the ceremonies.  My brain was in turbo mode on the drive home--I really don't remember much.

Why?  Why does a teacher who is really disliked in one district become the Teacher of the Year in another district?  What did the first district do to bring out the worst in a teacher and what did the second district do to bring out her best?  I don't know how many hours I have pondered these questions.  I would have agreed with the TEPS commission that Ms. G should have gone into another profession......the army, lion training, anything not around children.

But then you have to think of the community.  They liked black and white.  They like right and wrong.  There was no gray, no in between.  They wanted a clean, neat school where children came to learn.  If you didn't learn something was wrong with you.  First grade went on to second grade which went on to third.......  Life was predictable.  Monday followed Sunday.  You didn't need movies in the classroom, you were there to learn.  And books were meant to be brought back when you were done with them.  I am sure there were others in the community that were just like Ms. G.  There were things in the world that just wasn't right.....and they would tell you about them.  

So there!  The worst teacher I've ever knew....and met who was the Teacher of the Year.  True story.  

And if you had a "tough" teacher that made you learn...be sure to take time and thank them.