Blog Archives
It’s Standardized Testing Time!
Get your supplies ready…
It’s that time of year, folks.
Buy a whole pack of #2 and sharpen them all, buddy, because we’re doing this for the next three weeks.
Yeah, you heard me right. THREE. WEEKS.
Personally, I think this time of year is my personal version of hell. I have to sit with students for four hours each day, and I literally can do nothing except watch them take the test. I can’t read, write, doodle, sleep, or do anything except watch my kids fill in bubbles. My brain needs mental stimulation and I can’t handle just watching the clock tick for hours and hours over three days of testing and three days of retesting.
Testing in my state (and probably in yours!) bothers me because it’s too much. There are so many stakeholders in education: teachers, administrators, parents, community members, policy makers, and even the students themselves. Because each of these groups are demanding MORE data and MORE accountability, we equate that with MORE tests, LONGER tests, MORE days of pre- and re-testing, and MORE testing security. As a result, we spend at least fifteen days pre-testing, testing, and re-testing our students just for the main test — that’s not counting, ESL, writing, vocational, and high school-level exams. We also devote several hours each morning over fifteen days for school-wide “tutoring” and remediation, in addition to our government-sponsored after school and Saturday tutoring.
Testing is important because we get an individual score for the student, the teacher, the school, and the district. We calculate pass/fail rates, growth, and value added by the teacher. Score are tied to the school improvement plan and goals for the following year. We are constantly shown data and graphs telling us how we rank against other schools in our district. When our school shows up at the bottom of the graph, teachers and administrators are told we aren’t working hard enough. When we are at the top it is assumed that we are doing something right. Everything comes down to the test.
Testing fascinates me because I think we do too much of it. Too much rides on one test, and I don’t believe the test gives an accurate picture of a student’s success. Don’t get me wrong — the scores are definitely useful. They show us patterns and areas we need to target. However, I think we can get these same results with a shorter test. Two hours of math one day, and two hours of reading the next would suffice — no quarter tests. No retests. No four hour testing sessions. While testing stresses the kids out, most of them realize it does not define them as students. Their grades don’t always correlate with their test scores, and they are almost always promoted to the next grade level, even if they fail. We aren’t making our kids pre- and re-test for their benefit, we are making them pre- and re-test so we can force them to get the highest possible score on a very specific test. The adults (teachers and administrators) need the highest possible scores to justify budgets, teacher quality, and policies.
Our students would fare better and learn more if we took back our thirty days of testing and tutoring and put those back into teaching curriculum. If we’d stop teaching to the test, students might actually perform better on the test itself.
Just a thought.
Since I can’t do much else during testing but think, I’ll be thinking a lot about these issues over the next three weeks. I hope folks across the nation are thinking about some of the same things, and that one day we can scale back on our death-by-assessment practices.
So tell me…what do you think of testing? Love it? Hate it? Necessary evil? Do you have to participate in testing? Does it numb your brain like it numbs mine?
Don’t Know Much About…Tenure
I’ve been an educator for five years, which means I have tenure. We actually don’t call it tenure — we call it Career Status — but the basic idea is still the same. In talking with non-educators and educators alike, and also in listening to, watching, and reading various media, it appears that a lot of people are really confused about what tenure actually is and what it isn’t.
Even tenured teachers can’t throw kickballs at their students’ faces on purpose (photo from the movie Bad Teacher, staring Cameron Diaz)
There’s a misconception that tenure means a teacher can’t be fired. They believe that tenure laws allow bad teachers to keep on being bad teachers and nobody can do anything about it because they are floating on a fluffy cloud of protected, elite status. Apparently teachers just work really hard for four years until they are handed a golden key and then they are untouchable.
Not true.
All tenure really does is allow teachers the protection of due process when their job is on the line.
The Track to Tenure/Career Status
(This is all based on how this works in my district, but the general process is the same across the country)
Years 1-4(ish) — For the first 2-4 years of a teacher’s career, he or she is hired on a probationary status. The teacher’s contract is renewed for each year and the teacher can be let go for any reason. There is support given, including a mentor and professional development (whether these actually help is a different story). Probationary teachers are also reviewed more often. In my district, probationary teachers have four observations and follow up reviews each year. These can include a combination of announced and unannounced observations, peer and administrator reviews, a self-evaluation, and formative and summative evaluations.
After four years — The teacher is given career status/”tenure” if she or he has had good performance reviews. Teachers may become probationary for a single year if they move to a new school in the district, or for several more years if they move to a new district or state.
What Tenure Is
Tenure status essentially means that a specific process must be followed to fire a teacher. There must be a specific reason for firing the teacher, documentation must be provided, and a hearing must be held with the school board.
Tenure protects the teacher from being fired without reason. For example, a principal cannot fire an experienced teacher, who makes more money, simply to hire a cheaper new teacher. They can’t be fired based on their political beliefs, sexual orientation, disagreeing with administrators, personal conflicts, or any other arbitrary reason unrelated to job performance.
Tenure does not protect teachers who break the law or codes of conduct, teachers who have poor job performance over time without improvement, or teachers who fail to show up for work on a regular basis. Essentially, tenure protected teachers before employment laws protected all employees, but now they are essentially the same thing.
Why Tenure Gets A Bad Reputation
Tenure gets a bad reputation because bad teachers are still in the classroom. The general public, as well as educators, wants to believe that all teachers could, would, and should be GOOD teachers and all bad teachers should be fired. This is simply not possible — in ANY profession. I would ask professionals of any profession to think about your coworkers and how hard it is to fire an employee at your company. Do people just get shifted around? Does it take six to twelve months to get a person out? Does a manager not see the whole picture of the employee’s performance? The same things happen in education.
Bad teachers are still in the classroom because:
- There are varying definitions of “bad” — A parent may believe a teacher is bad because of issues arising with an individual child. The parent perception of this teacher may be negative, but that does not mean the teacher is a “bad” teacher. There is no such thing as a perfect teacher.
- “Bad” teachers get shuffled around — This happens either because the teacher voluntarily moves around, or because the administration finds excuses to move the teacher out. It takes a while to realize a teacher isn’t performing, and sometimes the teacher has moved on before their poor performance can be documented.
- Due Process takes time — A principal can’t walk in an see a teacher having a bad day and immediately terminate the teacher. The “bad” teaching must occur over time consistently and be documented. The teacher must be notified and allowed to attempt improvement. Teaching is a profession of constant learning, and we have to allow for that.
- The evaluation tools lower the bar — Sometimes the evaluation instruments are too easy. Under these, everyone looks like a good teacher. No one ever gets an “unsatisfactory.” Many school districts have changed their tools to make them stronger and more accurate.
- Administrators are too lenient — Whether from lack of knowledge or assertiveness, some administrators mark teachers as “proficient” even when they aren’t. They also may not follow through on the process of eliminating a bad teacher because it’s too time consuming, they aren’t organized, or they fear the repercussions.
- It’s hard to know what a teacher really does — The only people who really know if a teacher is good or bad are the students and the teacher himself/herself, and both of these are biased. We rely on administrator observations, both formal and informal, to make “objective” decisions about teacher performance. Some teachers teach differently when they know they are being watched…which is a very small percentage of the time. Test scores and grades can’t even tell the whole story.
When “bad” teachers are still in the classroom, the public thinks these folks are being protected by tenure. That simply isn’t the case. There are many other factors in place. Teachers are subject to judgement from such a variety of sources with completely different agendas (students, parents, the public, policy makes, administrators, and other teachers) that the definition of “good” and “bad” is so subjective, anyway. Tenure isn’t a matter of protecting bad teachers, but rather a manner of protecting good teachers from unnecessary termination.
Overall, tenure in K-12 education seems to be a dated concept. Employment laws protect many folks from discrimination, and civil suits can be filed. But I don’t think the system is doing any harm at this point, either. Tenure is not keeping anyone in a job who doesn’t deserve it, those people would still be there without the tenure system due to the reasons listed above.
More Information
What Tenure Is — And What It Is Not (Article from NEA Today)
Pros and Cons of Teacher Tenure from ProCon.org
Nobody Deserves Tenure by Chester E. Finn, Jr. from Education Next
Why Dystopian Lit is So Hot With Teens
I’m not telling you anything earth-shattering when I tell you that dystopian literature is hot in the YA section right now. It’s been super-hot for over a year, and I’ve been in love with it since I learned the word “dystopia” when I was student teaching in 2006. But why has it suddenly exploded? The genre has been around for at least fifty years. Novels like The Giver, House of the Scorpion, City of Ember, and Truesight already existed in kidlit. But the rest of the world didn’t seem too interested. They were off reading about magical boy wizards or sparkling vampires.
All the cool kids are reading it.
But then something happened.
That something was The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins.
In the same way that Harry Potter inspired a surge in fantasy/magical novels and Twilight brought vampires back with a bite, the smash success of Collin’s series has pulled dystopian literature back out of obscurity and into the spotlight.
Historically, most dystopian novels were products of both the Cold War and a fear of technology/the future. These books were aimed at adults. I’m talking about novels such as:
- 1984 by George Orwell
- Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
- Anthem by Ayn Rand
- The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
- We by Yevgeny Zamyatin
Most of us read at least one of these in high school. But it was never a young adult thing. This is partly because young adult only become a “thing” in the 1960′s, and didn’t gain real traction and credibility until the 21st century. Dystopian novels are dark, political, sometimes violent, and often sophisticated. YA was seen as light and simple. But a few authors decided to write novels that fit within this genre, one hit the jackpot, and it suddenly took off! This may have been a surprise to the general public or the publishing industry, but upon further examination it actually makes a lot of sense that teens would flock to dystopian fiction. Let’s take a closer look at why it works:
1.) Teens are forced to follow rules
The future societies in these books usually live in a world with a lot of rules. The government determines what you eat, what you wear, where you work, who you love, and even when you die. One step out of line and a police officer of some sort is going to take you away. The consequences are strict. Teenagers feel like they live in this kind of world. There are rules at home, curfews, driving laws, high school codes of conduct, and even the unwritten rules of behavior in social and peer groups.
Example: In Matched by Ally Condie, the government chooses who Cassia will marry, what her career will be, what she eats, and what she does with each hour of her day.
2.) Teens are becoming more independent
A major theme of many YA dystopian novels is leaving one’s family behind. Sometimes this is by choice, and sometimes by force, but the protagonist must face the world alone. Though this is a typical feature of young adult novels, it is particularly strong in dystopia. Leaving the family represents rejecting the rules of the society. The choice is tough and the consequences final, but strong convictions override all of that. It’s not a matter of seeking a talisman or falling in love, but more about rejecting a particular way of life…or seeking a better one.
Example: In Divergent by Veronica Roth, Tris leaves her family’s faction of abnegation to join Dauntless.
3.) Teens are questioning authority
At some point in most dystopian novels, the protagonist has the realization that the orderly government is flawed or corrupt. And once a single flaw is discovered, the additional realization is made that there might be additional flaws. The government is not perfect and they don’t know everything. Young adults often start having similar realizations: their parents aren’t cool, their teachers don’t know everything, and even the president makes mistakes.
Example: In Delirium by Lauren Oliver, Lena realizes that love is not the terrible, dangerous thing her government has always warned her about.
4.) Teens Like Action, Romance, and Victory
Nothing fuels teen hormones like passionate make-out sessions in the middle of a life-or-death situation. Dystopias always have action-packed pages. The adrenaline level is high because the fate of the main character is at stake — but also the fate of the whole society. Of course, the protagonist always fights a brave battle, gets the girl/boy, and defeats the bad guy. While this is true of other genres, it’s also a necessary feature of dystopia for capturing the YA audience.
Example: In The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Katniss may not always know what she wants, but readers get what they want!
5.) Sometimes, The Future Looks Bleak. But They Want to Fix It.
In this economy, a lot of teens are aware that the future will be difficult. Money is tight, politicians are fighting on the news, and divorce rates are high. They can identify with the political chaos in these novels and the feeling that one person can be at the heart of change. Whether purposefully or accidentally, the protagonists in many dystopian novels are the catalyst for change.
Example: Connor, Risa, and Lev in Unwind by Neal Schusterman.
6.) It’s Realistic
Though set in the future, many of the scenarios presented are possible in next hundred years. Many readers believe that magic, vampires, ghosts, talking animals, mermaids, and zombies aren’t real. For folks who need an element of realism and logic, but fall asleep in contemporary YA, this is their genre.
I would also point out that dystopian YA is largely popular because it’s being read by all ages. Current twenty-somethings read these novels for all of the same reasons listed above because we’re still trying to find our place in the world. But while fantasy and vampire novels might be read for escape or to satisfy the imagination, or romance novels are read as a form of wish-fulfillment, there is also a draw to dystopia that is very “now” and very relevant.
A Sampling of YA Dystopian Novels:
(most are trilogies, but pace yourself and focus on the first one!)
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Delirium by Lauren Oliver
- Divergent by Veronica Roth
- Unwind by Neal Schusterman
- Matched by Ally Condie
- Uglies by Scott Westerfield
- The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
- Wither by Lauren DeStefano
- Bumped by Megan McCafferty
- Feed by MT Anderson
- Birthmarked by Caragh M. O’Brien
- Among The Hidden by Margaret Peterson Haddix
And for More Information:
Teenage Wastelands: How Dystopian YA Became Publishing’s Next Big Thing by Scott Westerfeld (author of Uglies)
Author Alison Stewart on YA Books and Dystopian Novels from Penguin Teacher’s Corner
Why is Dystopia So Appealing to Young Adults? from The Guardian, by Moira Young (author of Blood Red Road)
Full List of YA Dystopian Novels on Goodreads (voted by readers)
Sharing Is Caring
I share my library and my collection with an elementary school. I mention it from time to time, but today I wanted to elaborate on this unique situation and how it is a challenge.
So here’s the set-up: two completely different schools, one physical space for the library. The folks who dreamed up this campus thought this would be an effective use of space and a great concept. The folks who put the books in the space and automated the system made a decision to put both collections in the same online system.
Let me break this down for you non-library folks:
- Two schools, with completely different administrations, staff, budgets, and accounts.
- One space.
- And all of our books are in the same catalog. All of our patrons and reports are in the same computer system.
It is a difficult. Even the nicest and sweetest of folks would get frustrated working in an environment like this.
Our shared media center space
(click to see a larger image)
Physical Space
For starters, just sharing the physical space is rough. It would be one thing if we were a true K-8 school where we were all coworkers and a cohesive school with the same mission and the same boss. We are not. There is a constant conflict over behavior expectations of students and staff. Objectively, our problem is not so much in the actual behaviors, but in the perception of what those behavior are and should be. Our middle school teachers are routinely bothered by the behaviors of the elementary students and staff. The elementary teachers are constantly complaining about the behaviors of the middle school students and staff.
Here’s two examples that have happened recently:
- Our middle school boys, on their way to the bathroom, were playfully telling each other to shut up. This offended a kindergarten teacher and her class that we walking in the door, because kindergarteners take “shut up” seriously.
- While I was trying to do a serious research project with a sixth grade class, an elementary teacher was doing a lot of singing, clapping, and cutesy stuff with her class while they checked out books. The teacher I was working with was offended because the class was distracting.
What exactly are we supposed to do in these situations? We utilize teachable moments constantly, but it’s kind of tiring to constantly have to hold eighth grade boys to the standard of being “good role models to the kindergarteners” when it is out of their normal standard of behavior. I can’t write a kid up for saying “shut-up.” The elementary teacher in the above scenario was doing an appropriate activity with her kids to make library time fun. Nobody is “wrong” in these situations, but both sides think the other is out of line and tension results.
I get so tired of trying to anticipate problems and calm people down. I get tired of being the diplomat. I get tired of holding eighth graders to unrealistic behavior standards. I get tired of listening to elementary school activities (I’m sorry — they are cute…sometimes. But I don’t teach elementary school for a reason, y’all).
Our schools don’t collaborate on scheduling AT ALL. Everything is done as if we don’t share the space. Communication is non-existent, and I can’t fix that alone. No matter how much I want to.
Also, another pitfall: everyone has to stay on their own side of the library. The space is basically a large rectangle, divided into two symmetrical spaces by an invisible line. Students can see books that they aren’t allowed to check out. Teachers can see a free, open space that they aren’t allowed to use. We have a huge problems with students and teachers trying to use the wrong computers. And no one seems to understand that the staff is completely different for each school. It’s hard for me to explain that I can’t help them with things because I am not their librarian. I am not a back-up librarian for them, and neither is my media assistant. We are both overly helpful people, but we learned quickly that giving in to this behavior quickly becomes a huge burden and takes a lot of time/energy away from doing our own work for our school.
Shared Database
The bigger problem than the shared space is the shared database. Not a shared COLLECTION, mind you. I buy my own books with my own money and store them on my own side of the library. But our catalog is lumped together as one big school. I can see why someone thought this would be a good idea — with all the books in the same room, it would be way too confusing to have two different databases. However, this causes a lot of problems in reality.
The first problem is in labeling exactly what belongs to which school, both on the physical item and in the computer record. Apparently no one thought about this when they first automated the collection, so this has been done very poorly. Fixing 40,000 items is overwhelming, but it needs to be done. There is no good way to tell if something is owned by the elementary school or the middle school.
Now imagine trying to run reports in that environment. A nightmare. They are always wrong! We have to gestimate who owns what, and it sucks. I can’t get accurate statistics or numbers on ANYTHING. Running overdue notices is tough, too. And fine collection is a pain because it can be hard to tell who the fine is owed to and fines are always sent to the wrong accounts.
It also sucks when the kids search for a book and they don’t understand that it actually belongs to the other school.
The Big Picture
Working in this environment is frustrating over time. My first two years I was very much of the “we just make it work!” mindset. And we do make it work. The frustration crops up more some days than others. Most of the time things move along smoothly. But there is an above-average amount of conflict and confusion. It would take a very special personal to stay in this environment for all thirty-plus years of his or her career, and that person is not me! I guess I’m too much of a control freak.
It’s not the worst situation in the world — far from it. But, given the choice, I would want to work in a media center where I had more control over my space and my records. We’ve cleaned a lot of it up in three years, but it’s only made a dent.
There are positives, of course. I don’t have to worry about purchasing lower-level books, because we are able to use those on a limited basic from the elementary school collection. We can collaborate with elementary teachers and students. I’ve even made friends with some of the elementary school staff. I always have another media specialist to ask questions to and two media assistants around to gain insight from. Our students mostly come from the elementary school, so we can keep up with fines more easily. We have a great sense of community and the media center is always busy with multiple activities, so it is obvious that we have a great space for learning that is essential to both schools.
I just thought I’d share my unique situation to those of you who might be curious. I’d also be interested in hearing about your unique media center or education spaces if you have one! There is no “normal” in education, so I’m sure we all have stories!
Iceberg Right Ahead: The Tragedy of the Titanic
Iceberg Right Ahead: The Tragedy of the Titanic
by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson
Twenty First Century Books
Library copy from Junior Library Guild
[#22 in my 75 book challenge]
I love the Titanic. Since this is the one hundredth anniversary of the ship’s sinking, I’m finding myself fascinated by all the new material out there to learn more about the ill-fated ship. This particular book is great because it covers everything. It may not cover it in full-length-adult-non-fiction depth, but it covered it all well enough for me to learn new things. I especially loved the great statistics at the end about the percentages of total passengers in first, second, and third class and the break down of men, women, and children in each who survived.
Though the book is non-fiction, it tells the story well enough to stand out. Well-written non-fiction can pull you into the story like fiction, and this one does exactly that. To me, a child of the 80′s, sometimes the Titanic can seem like that — fiction. I have to step back sometimes and remember that this actually happened. There is a spot in the Atlantic Ocean where 1,500 people floated in life jackets until they died of hypothermia in the middle of the night. And that is terrifying.
I think that is why the Titanic fascinates us. We all wonder what we would have done in the face of such chaos and tragedy. Would we escape? Become heroes? Accept our fate with peace or terror? The photos and descriptions provide by McPherson left me questioning all of those things. Of course, then I found myself wanting to watch the 1997 Leonardo DiCaprio/Kate Winslet Titanic movie and watch the big-budget Hollywood version of what happened. In fact, two of my favorite quotes in the book come from the movie’s director, James Cameron:
“I made Titanic because I wanted to dive to the shipwreck, not because I particularly wanted to the movie.”
“[The Titanic is] the quintessential story of loss, of coming to terms with death, heroism and cowardice, and the full spectrum of human response before, during, and after a crisis.”
Final Grade: B I’ve said before that it’s hard for a non-fiction book to get an A from me, and that holds with this book. It’s a FABULOUS read, a great non-fiction book, and it definitely stands out among other young adult non-fiction titles and Titanic books alike. But non-fiction always falls a little short of “OMG AMAZING” for me. And that’s okay! My students will love this one, so will adults, and I highly recommend it for everyone over the age of eleven. I could see this paring well for a fiction/non-fiction unit with The Watch The Ends The Night by Allan Wolf, which covers a lot of the same people.
Are you as fascinated by the Titanic as I am? What is is about disasters that fascinates us? And will you go see Rose and Leo on the big screen when they return this spring?
And the book club reads on!
Sixth grade book club finished Stargirl last week, and they were ready to dive into our next novel! After book talking several titles from our class set collection, the kids voted heavily in favor of Matilda by Roald Dahl.
My boys were okay with this selection, but not thrilled. Every single book we have read this year has had a female protagonist, but we are having a really hard time finding (good) books in our class sets that have male protagonists. However, the books we’ve read all have great secondary male characters and universal appeal. Here’s what we’ve read so far, with the female protagonists and their male sidekicks:
- When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead (Miranda, Sid, Marcus)
- A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L’Engle (Meg, Calvin, Charles Wallace)
- Stargirl (Stargirl, Leo, Kevin)
Now technically Stargirl is told from Leo’s point of view. We discussed whether Leo or Stargirl was the protagonist, and the kids agreed that Stargirl was definitely the focal point of the story. So I understand where my boys are coming from when they groan about yet another book with a female main character.
I offered the boys a deal. If they didn’t like Matilda after the first week, we would do a breakout group to read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang. I only have eight copies of the book, so we can’t read it with the whole club. However, after reading the first chapter of Matilda together during our last book club meeting, I think I have the boys hooked. Matilda may be a girl, but most of my kids can relate to her and they LOVED Dahl’s great style of writing. I’ve saved myself with this particular pick, but my next book really needs to have a male protagonist. I’m thinking either The Mysterious Benedict Society, Peter and the Starcatchers, or Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie.
Anyway, we are full steam into Matilda and the kids are loving it. Some have seen the movie, which we will watch when we finish the book, but I don’t think any of them have read it. I’ll keep y’all posted on what the boys think about this read and what all the kids think of the story!
Did you ever read Matilda? What discussion points do you think I should bring up with my students during book club meetings?
Just call me Dr. Anderson…in 3-5 years.
How could I not love this place?
I had a major life event occur over the weekend, which you might have caught if you follow me on Twitter: I got accepted to UNC-Chapel Hill for their Ph.D program in Education! My concentration will be in Culture, Curriculum, and Change, and I will start in the fall of 2012.
I picked this program because it will offer me incredible flexibility in my coursework and my research. Looking at the course list made me giddy! I wanted to take them all! Though I did my undergraduate degree in education at UNC, I will have completely different professors and totally different experience this time around. But I am terribly excited to be going back to my alma mater for another four years(-ish) of being a student!
This news sets me on a new career path! I will be leaving the library and K-12 education to pursue a career in academia as an education professor. Though I love my job, I recognize that our public education system is going through some tough times. I feel the best way for me to contribute to changing public education for the better is through thoughtful research, teaching our future teachers, and utilizing the resources of universities.
I’m still narrowing down my research interests (I want to study everything!!), but I think I will be focusing on either teacher preparation, student transitions to middle school from elementary school, professional development, social media in personal learning networks, or middle grades literacy.
So this blog will still have a librarian focus for the next four months, but eventually my focus will shift. I still plan to primarily read and review young adult literature, but I will likely change the name of the blog and talk about my experiences in academia starting in mid-August. Stay tuned!
The Red Blazer Girls
I love the pulp-feel of this cover. It's actually the reason I bought the book.
The Red Blazer Girls
by Michael Beil
Scholastic
Audio book from public library/
Purchased from Scholastic Book Fair
[#17 in my 75 Book Challenge]
Sophie, Margaret, and Becca are three normal seventh grade girls attending a normal Catholic school (St. Veronica’s) in New York City. One day they stumble upon an old woman with a puzzle to solve — a puzzle created twenty years before for her estranged daughter. The puzzle was never solved and Mrs. Harriman enlists the girls to go on the adventure and recover the hidden prize at the end.
The puzzles in the book range from word problems to literature trivia and math equations, and they are exactly appropriate for a bright middle school student. Unlike most of the books I read, this is quite solidly a middle grades novel. YA’s would be too mature for the story.
By far, I loved the characters the most. Sophie, Margaret, and Becca are normal girls that I would want to be friends with. They are bright, yes, but a little sassy and a little lost when it comes to boys. The narrator on the audio book, Tai Alexandra Ricci, nailed the voice and tone of the story without sounding too juvenile (unlike the obnoxious narrator in The Lightning Thief).
Final Grade: C While it was a cute story with likable characters, it didn’t blow my mind. I’m grading it as C against other middle grades fiction, not against all fiction, since the novel knew so clearly which audience it wants to reach. There’s a very small portion of middle-class middle-school girls who would appreciate the novel, and they would love it. I am not a middle school girl anymore, so it fell a bit short for me. This is a short-ish review because I just don’t have much more to say!
A day in the life of a librarian
I’ve been thinking about this post for some time now. My job is a busy busy one, but sometimes I feel less-than-productive. I fail to realize how many directions I get tugged in over the course of a single day. One day I decided I needed to write down everything I did, minute by minute, to see where my time goes. The day needed to be just a regular, average day so I could really get a good picture of this.
Coffee is essential to my day.
The day I picked was Wednesday, February 8. I was supposed to be teaching a class on this day, but we finished the project early and I had a surprise open day in my scheduled. Turns out I ended up being pretty busy! So here it is, a day in the life of a middle school librarian:
5:45 – Wake up. Shower, get dressed, spend five minutes picking out the sassiest scarf, primp, feed the cats, pack my lunch, toast a raspberry Pop-Tart. Run out the door with no coat.
6:20 – Drive to work. Eat the raspberry Pop-Tart. Listen to my audio copy of The Red Blazer Girls that I got from the public library. Briefly turn to the radio to sing a Bruno Mars song on the top of my lungs before realizing I hate Bruno Mars.
7:00 – School Improvement Team meeting. The SIT team is the main governing body of my school. I fought to be on the committee…but I spend most of this meeting picking my fingernails because they are discussing student-led conferences, which I have no part in. Other topics: discipline referrals, school uniform policies for next year.
8:05 – Time to start my day! Thank the kids at the computers for being polite and mature during the SIT meeting. Touch base with my assistant. Turn on my computer and start answering e-mails.
8:15 – HOLD THE PRESSES. Title I folks are here to check our Title I Notebook. The curriculum coordinator runs down with a list of all my Title I orders from this year, requesting two books from each order to take upstairs to “prove” via spot-checking that we’ve cataloged them correctly. Luckily I know my books by heart.
8:30 – Talk to elementary school media specialist. I gave her a heads up that she would need to pull her Title I books for the spot-check. We discuss the abysmal state of our 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 records that we’ll have to fix before May. Received a call from the curriculum coordinator saying our Title I reports were satisfactory. Celebratory fist pump.
8:45 – Sit back down to check emails. Mostly these are about scheduling media center time. All others are about tech issues. Also spend time prepping the TV New PowerPoints/announcements/words of wisdom/birthdays. Breathe. Make some phone calls. Leave myself some sticky notes.
9:25 – TV News. It actually starts at 9:35, but it takes a few minutes to get situated.
9:45 – Talk with Learning Team Facilitator. Discussed TV News flaws and moodle issues. Our Star3 Coordinator from central office joined us as we discussed some ed issues.
9:55 – I make everyone a pot of coffee. Including myself. Since so many people from central office were in my media center, I felt like being nice and playing coffee fairy. They definitely appreciated it. Also, I go to the bathroom.
10:15 – Two students need help setting up a blog. I help them set up a group blog on Blogger. I also utilize my teachable moment speech about netiquette and not doing anything they wouldn’t want their mommas to read.
10:30 – Uploading MARC records. I uploaded the records for February and March Junior Library Guild orders and set them up for Title I cataloging. I look at the box of JLG books and think, “I’m going to catalog those today and it will be fun!” Pull three out and read reviews/blubs on Goodreads.
10:40 – I talk SS curriculum with the Social Studies Program Manager from central office. She just happens to be setting up camp in my media center today, and I just happen to be the media coordinator appointed as the SS ambassador for the new Common Core standards. I have to develop a document with resources for the whole county. We collaborate, yo. And totally geek out.
11:15 – My assistant and I make a sign for the “new book” rack.
11:25 – Elementary media specialist comes in to chat. We discuss the new after school procedures in the media center, how her book fair will run next week, Title I records, phone answering (we have 8 phones between the two of us). We also discuss Renzulli.
11:50 – Social Studies Program Manager shows me a HILARIOUS tumblr. I spend 10 minutes reading the Hey Girl Teacher Tumblr, in all its Ryan Gosling-y goodness and laughing like a fool.
12:00 -My assistant tells me she finished cataloging the JLG order. I didn’t even have to ask her to do it. She read my mind and finished it, quick as a bunny! She’s so amazing. I tell her she’s amazing.
12:05 – Lunch. Spend it making notes for this list, checking Twitter, and talking books with my assistant. I eat pasta salad, a peanut butter sandwich, a banana, applesauce, a lightly-salted rice cake, and a fruit roll-up with a Diet Pepsi.
12:45 – Clean out my email folder. It’s reached 100% for the third time in two weeks. I cannot wait until we switch to Microsoft Live email.
1:00 -Run errands in the main building. Program the gym teacher’s TV, fix the internet on the dance teacher’s laptop, take the SmartBoard out of the auditorium, check my mail, touch base with the principal about tech facilitator interviews, leave a nice note on the staff kudos board. Say hi to at least twenty students in the halls, receive two hug, and exchanged niceties with three teachers. Also end up with several overdue library books.
1:30 – Sit in on the 6th grade Learning Focused workshop. This has been happening in my media center all day during each grade level’s planning period. I chose to sit with sixth grade because the time is the most convenient for me. Topics: lesson planning for acquisition lessons, plus an intense discussion of vocabulary instruction.
2:13 – Talk with principal about tech facilitator interviews. Again.
2:26 – Talk with elementary media specialist. Students are messing with her books on carts and shelves when she’s not around.
2:34 – Help 6th grade teacher. She came to me wanting to schedule media center time, and we ended up discussing her lesson plan because I had just taught it with another class yesterday. Then I showed her the new science resources we got with Title I money, the parent resource center, and our professional resources.
3:06 – Bathroom break. I was about to die.
3:10 – Sub plans. Being out for a day is a lot of work. It’s hard to teach someone that you’ve never met how to do your job for a day! I prepare my sub plans for tomorrow and calling to touch base with the sub.
3:45 – Closing out the day. Helping kids on the computers after school, checking emails again, cleaning up my desk area, making notes about my day for this post, shutting down computers, leaving stuff for sub.
4:10 – Walk out the door. My official quitting time is 3:45, but that never actually happens.
