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AASL Standards in Action: "Curate" with Ms. F

     This entry is the third in a series of four.  This series reflects on interviews I held with various Teacher Librarians in Southern California.  We spoke about the  National School Library Standards for School Librarians.  Each entry will discuss how a single librarian implements a particular Shared Foundation in their program.  Since the interviews were conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, we discuss both how their program typically addresses the standards and how that has changed during the pandemic.

Ms. F is a high school librarian.  We discussed how she implements Shared Foundation IV: Curate.  The Key Commitment for this Foundation is to make meaning by collecting, organizing, and sharing relevant resources.  

A stack of over-full binders
Sear Greyson on Unsplash
Ms. F is a master of curation.  Whether its a 17 "room" Bitmoji library, google slide presentations, a Symbaloo, or an extensive school library website with specific pages for specific teachers' projects, Ms. F provides students with a variety of sources (B.2).    She adapts graphic organizers so her students can assess information (B.3) or organize it for their own understanding (B.4).  Her presentations are interactive, they have clickable links or QR codes to engage students. 

She has created an entire professional development website for teachers encouraging them to teach the research process in small chunks (instead of one big project).  The website contains a page on Evaluating Sources with quick lesson ideas and examples of how Ms. F, the librarian, can help prepare.  The lessons explore media bias and she provides a clickable chart of news sources organized by their self-reported political leaning (D.1-3).

Ms. F's catalog of work is extensive.  It is clear she is always thinking, striving, and designing ways to support her students.  Even in the pandemic she has found ways to curate resources for her students and provide content.  Since she has created open access websites, her work can reach beyond her school as well. Of all the librarians I interviewed, she came closest to really achieving the depth of the standard.
As stated before, however, the standards are extensive and in Southern California each library typically only employs only one librarian without an assistant regardless of school size.  Is it any wonder then, with individual librarians doing the job of several people, that even the most industrious librarians cannot achieve them in full? 

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