Thursday, May 19, 2011

LAUSD Doubts that Seasoned Teacher-Librarians Can Teach

By Beverly Goldberg, "US & World News," American Libraries Magazine, May 18, 2011

“There’s no better use of limited funds than paying attorneys to harass educators who’ve devoted their lives to helping our children,” Bennett Tramer of Santa Monica, California, said in a letter published May 17 in the Los Angeles Times. A tongue-in-cheek response to the May 13 Hector Tobar column, “The Disgraceful Interrogation of L.A. School Librarians,” the letter concluded: “I also applaud the valuable presence of armed police officers at the hearings; you never know when a librarian will pull out a book and start reading." Read more ...


Read also  LA Times Letters to the Editor for letters in support of the teacher-librarians who find themselves inexplicably accused of the crime of not being real teachers! 

For your critical consideration:  If TLs (mostly women) are viewed as non-essential in education because they are being replaced by Google and Wikipedia, their jobs have been lost to young men and to the valuing of technology skills over teaching and learning, reading and the requisite skills for thinking critically about information, and over caring about kids.  Could it be that gender is the real issue here?  ME

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