I started back to school this week and the one thing that I keep saying to my colleagues when asked about my summer is how much I enjoy being a student. The catchphrase when I was in school to become a librarian was that the goal of librarians was to prepare students to become "life-long learners" and I believe that is what I am. The YA literature course was a dream come true for me because it presented me with so many great books to read. I never considered the class to be work either. Even the written assignments were something I enjoyed doing because reading instruction and literature are such strong interests of mine.
Many of the books that I read this summer were ones that I previously purchased for my library, so I am eager to promote them this year. I would love to go into classes to do book talks and our school is now doing video announcements each morning so I am going to ask if I can do short books talks and book promos on the announcements. I would love to do a lesson with students so that they can do book talks for the announcements as well. I look forward to seeing how this can snowball into other book promoting ideas.
The class readings also empowered me as they supported my own opinions about literacy. I often look to knowledgeable people for confirmation, so the readings encouraged me to speak up. I hope I can use this empowerment to advocate more for in-class reading time and for financial support for classroom libraries. I would also love to be a resource for teachers to use for reading support for struggling students. I have worked with students in my previous elementary school positions, but I have not had the opportunity at the high school where I currently work. So much of my time is spent troubleshooting Chromebooks and I think it is a waste considering I could be helping with reading instruction.
I am a teacher/librarian who reads, and I feel like I got a boost this summer to read even more YA books this year. I learned that I can move from one book to another one without needing a lot of time in between books to say goodbye to the characters that I grew to care about. This was a push that I needed as a reader as I have a hard time letting go and moving forward. I realized this past week that as a student who never struggled with reading, I was never really pushed as a reader when I was in school. It is an interesting realization to make at this stage of my life, but I think it is a good one. All students and "life-long learners" need to be pushed and challenged.
