Reflections on the AASL Standards for the 21st Century Learner

Crompton, Marc

American Library Association. (2010). Position Statement on the Common Core College- and Career-Readiness Standards [Brochure]. Author. Retrieved October 10, 2012, from http://www.ala.org/aasl/aaslissues/positionstatements/collegecareerstandards

I feel kind of awkward posting on a required reading like this, but it strikes me that this document is worth discussing.  It is, by far, the most dense of our course readings and I think that there is a lot to consider here.  I couldn't help but thinking, as I re-read it, that this is like a masterwork of art in that every time I come back to it, I get something different.  I may bring different experiences and ideas to reflect in it, but I come out with something unique each time.

The first thing that hits me about the AASL standards are the four key elements: Skills, Dispositions in Action, Responsibilities, and Self-Assessment Strategies.  This is not a document about teaching; this is a document about learning.  It puts the responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the learners.  It doesn't talk about curriculum in terms of what we need to teach; it talks about the kind of person that the learners strive to become.  I would venture to say - and this is not stated in the document - that this applies to ALL learners in the school community, regardless of age or position.

This emphasis on the learner allows those in coaching positions (traditionally, the teachers) to see the students for who they are in order to help them grow to where they should be.  This is an individualistic approach.  It does not say that students need to be collaborative.  It says that one of a learner's responsibilities is to "Solicit and respect diverse perspectives while searching for information, collaborating with others, and participating as a member of the community" and that they "Assess [their] own ability to work with others in a group setting by evaluating varied roles, leadership, and demonstrations of respect for other viewpoints."  While the end point is the same, we recognize that learners arrive at different times and take different paths. 

Finally, it puts the library/media centre/learning commons square in the middle of learning.  Not by forcing it there as some documents seem to, but by simply recognizing that there is no better place in the school to learn than at this physical and virtual hub.  I think that it is easy in this day and age of digitization for us to fear for our personal futures and cling to the past.  We get defensive about our roles and talk a little too desperately about how things "should" be.  If we simply recognize how things are and that the learning commons is the natural centre of any learning community, there is no advocacy, there is only statement of fact.  I read each point in this document thinking about how else learners develop these skills, dispositions, responsibilities and strategies.  It is true that many are supported in a variety of places in a learning community, but there is no place in the school that addresses them all and I would venture to say that there are many (most?) that are addressed best in the learning commons.

This is a logical document to be developed by the AASL but it is one that should be adopted by schools, not just libraries.  Libraries then are the ideal place in the learning community to foster these ideals and drive their development.

Today marks the second anniversary of the release of this document.  I hope that it has been well circulated and adopted throughout the educational community.

OK, there's my two cents worth.  What do YOU think?

Demonstrating Our Care
entry by Kathryn Whitehouse

Nesi, O.M. (May/June 2012). The transformative power of care. Knowledge Quest: Journal of the Association of School Librarians 40, 5. p. 8-15.

Is your current position merely a vehicle for paying the bills, or are you called to your current profession? If you feel genuinely called to school librarianship, then you understand what it means to care about school libraries. You will also deeply understand this article and perhaps be tempted, as I am, to tear it from the magazine, copy it, share it, save it in my journal, incorporate its major points in my SLIS e-portfolio, and use it to communicate passionately to school stakeholders why the school library is deserving of investment.

Some readers may feel this article shares significant conceptual overlaps with self help and business management guides. That is OK in my book. While librarianship has much to offer the world at large in terms of inquiry, the better run retail/service businesses have much to offer librarianship in the way of customer service and maintaining positive internal and external customer relationships. Nesi suggests communication and service based strategies librarians can use to increase the quality of their interactions with children, school colleagues, and administrators. She then relates how caring can be felt as librarians deliver instruction and coach children and colleagues to become more efficient learners. The suggestions for “reading guidance the caring way-with children” is especially impactful as it takes a respectful approach to students’ sometimes bumpy road to literacy. This article even touches upon collection development and care of the physical environment.

Nesi’s takeaway point is that care has the power to transform. School librarians can create significant impacts for students, colleagues, and school libraries by being “genuinely and consistently attentive, heedful, concerned, engaged, and interested” in their lifelong journey to reading and learning. I hope this inspiring article finds its way to your reading in-box.   

entry by Kathryn Whitehouse

Discussion - Librarian/Library/Learning Commons Role in the 21st Century School

Marc Crompton

I hope that I'm not stepping on toes to be the first to chime in here, but one of our course readings has prompted a string of questions in my head that I would love to get some feedback on.  The reading that I'm talking about is:

American Association of School Librarians. (2009). Empowering learners : Guidelines for school library media programs. Chicago, Ill.: American Association of School Librarians. 

I've written two blog posts on Empowering Learners so I won't go into too much detail.  Please feel free to visit my blog to follow through more fully.  I will say that I found the book to be a great relief in that it lends much greater clarity to my current role heading up a 8-12 library in a private school in Vancouver.  The job description that I inherited was very vague.  Given the history of the particular job in the school, the circumstances of my hire and the rapidly changing role of school librarians in general, this is not overly surprising.  The detail that Empowering Learners goes into helped me to clarify what I am doing right and where my weaknesses might be.  This I truly appreciate.

The big questions that came up in my mind are addressed in my blog but I would love to address here as well.  The first question(s) revolve around the degree with which school librarians and schools in general adhere to the AASL guidelines.  I am probably safe in saying that I may be the only person in my school that has read the document.  I certainly am not held accountable to it in any way.  Are there schools, districts or states that have elevated the guidelines to policy?  I know that we don't have a parallel document in Canada (nor a parallel organization any more) so I am unaware of it being used as policy anywhere.

My second, and more interesting question is more about the role of the Library/Learning Commons in general.  Empowering Learners often speaks of the Librarian being on a school administrative level.  This makes me wonder where the line between the role of librarian and school administrator lies.  This relates the building itself.  I have been involved in a school building master plan committee that is working with an amazing education building design firm.  Many of their example buildings tend to focus around commons areas.  My question to them was where the library function fits when the entire school is based around commons spaces.  One of the concepts that we discussed was that the library becomes ubiquitous in the same that information is ubiquitous.  The concise version of the question becomes where are, or are there, walls in a Learning Commons/21st Century School Library?  While walls restrict, they also help to define.  The more a school librarian's role is everywhere in the school, the harder it becomes to define the role.  I'm very curious to hear other thoughts.