Sands Shift in Summer Reading

Summer Reading, From Morguefile

Check out this article by Lisa Kocian for The Boston Globe, June 28, 2009:

Educators include unconventional picks on lists of required and recommended books to coax teens to bury their noses in pages, as cited in ASCD Smartbrief of July 6.

I noted with interest the variations on a summer-reading theme, from site to site, and was happy to see that students at Concord-Carlisle High School chose for their One Book, One School summer reading initiative the reading of Greg Mortenson and David Relin's Three Cups of Tea. This was one of the three books I had selected to recommend for Vancouver educators' summer reading. The others were:

• Lullabies for Little Criminals by Heather O'Neill because, although it is fiction, teachers might have pause to consider -- you just never know what your students face between when they leave at the end of the day and when they come back in the morning
  
• Jason Ohler's Digital Literacy because it makes such sense.

Planning for Italy is now in full swing ... everyone is confirmed for registration and flights. All other details are in progress. Presently the plan is that we will be five days in Rome, four days in Tuscany, four days in Venice, and eight days at the conference in Abano Terme and Padua. In preparation, Frances, Chris, Mary and I all went to see Angels & Demons on Saturday night. There is an A&D tour of Rome ... we wonder if we will be whisked around in black saloons. I am now the proud owner of an iPod so that I can download walking tour information, something new in the way of travel tips for which I am grateful to Al Smith in Kelowna.

I am hoping to stay at the Hilton Molino Stucky in Venice -- this is the roof-top pool -- but the group is balking. There's even a half-price deal, although it's still expensive. If you're still thinking about coming along ... well, we still haven't figured out how to rent a car and get all the luggage in. The thought of imposing our own luggage restrictions has us looking nervous.

Hope you are enjoying summer so far.

M

How lucky we are!

Just a few things for your last-minute consideration as you head off for summer:

• Have you signed up online for the September Update session?
  

• Have you got your pile of summer reading?

• Have you "bookmarked" The Bookmark (Summer 2009) for summer reading?

• Have you marked this blog as a favourite and made plans to check in occasionally?
  
• Have you sent me an electronic copy of your year-end report?
  
• Have you thought about how lucky we are to be TLs here in Vancouver? Supported as we are by a system that values the role school libraries play in the literacy and learning equations for young learners, we don't have to travel far from our boundaries to find districts where programs just like ours have been hard hit this year by budget cuts. When you heave the sigh of relief that you have survived another year, be grateful you are lucky enough to be in Vancouver. I am cautiously optimistic in saying that, for the first time in years, we may have a small increase in our FTEs. Thank you, everyone, who give hard work and political commitment to keeping cuts away from kids and who ensure that school libraries are valued.
  
  
  

Let the Sun Shine in!
Adapted from photo, K Lindsay's blog, Montreal, CLA Conference, 2009

• Have you thought about how lucky we are to have the reasonable BCTF and reasonably well-adjusted district and school administration, as well as local union leadership, working with us and for us as educators? This news story came from this month's ASCD Smartbrief from a google story and is cited in the Web-bits weekly online bulletin put out weekly by SFU's Linda Hof. It has me wondering, Can this be a hoax? Could this be true in the 21st century? Check out the Rubber Room youtube, described as follows: What happens when a teacher in New York City is accused of misconduct or incompetence in the classroom? They are sent to the "Rubber Room" while an investigation is launched. They spend months or even years there getting full pay and doing nothing. Check out the NY Times and other sources.
  
  All jokes aside -- and many spring to mind -- a google search for more information about the hundreds of teachers paid full salaries to report daily to New York City's "rubber rooms" confirms that, in fact, teachers can spend literally years reporting daily to temporary reassignment centres (TRCs or, as one article calls these centres, DOE Siberia) on the basis of allegations of offences, real or contrived, spurious or serious, to the tune of tens of millions of public dollars every year since this began and that this was agreed to by unions, the school district, and civic politicians. Oh my! There are just some things too egregious to take in. This one sent me into the frenzied search for corroboration and credible alternate accounts ... but it appears it's true! This one ranks as pure Ripley's, in my humble opinion.
  
• Have you thought about all that we are lucky to have in our society, in particular in terms of communications, travel, and technology, that we take for granted? Check out this 4-minute youtube video clip for a truly funny but thought-provoking look at this phenomenon. I thank the thinking administrator from whose "have a great summer" year-end blog to his staff I brazenly borrowed the idea of posting this particular video.
  
  
  

On the Grand Tour of Italy

Drowning as I am in the celebrations and farewells that are inevitable in June as well as planning for Italy and September Updates two days after my return and packing to move to a new lighter smaller cubby, I am compelled to action by thoughts of Tuscany. While I was intent on having the Best Wishes up before you leave, I am being thrown into the frenzy of sorting out the details of our trip and conference with Chris, Mary, and Frances, as well as Italian lessons for which we are truly grateful, Frances.

I am most intrigued by The Angels & Demons Tour I found we can take in Rome and by decisions about our "new" plans that would include either the Sante Croce agroturismo B&B in Tuscany or the 8-day bus and stopover option that Frances has found (The Marco Polo tour) to take us from Rome to Venice! The details of the August 31 pre-conference Guided Inquiry workshop with Kuhlthau and Todd have just been posted. I'm in! How lucky am I! Particularly in working with the wonderful members of the BCTLA Executive, I am very lucky indeed.

I'm working at Churchill in July, and the IASL Conference in Padua starts on August 31 and continues for the first week of September. I will be there with Chris, Mary, and Frances. Check in here occasionally for updates ....

Farewells and Welcomes

We here at Command Central thank you for a wonderful year in school libraries and for your part in building the vision of strong, well-supported school library programs. We will be welcoming some new TLs in September even as we say thank you and goodbye to dear friends and long-time contributors to the energy that characterizes our programs. We will miss them, as well as one, my dear friend Katharine, off to share the joy of working with young people with teacher-candidates at SFU, or others who are off doing the important work of creating future readers. Congratulations, new TL/mothers of which there are a few this year as well. We -- well, they -- are increasingly a more youthful group.

We wish one colleague every success with her teaching a TL course at UBC this summer. I am sure we in summer school libraries will be in regular touch with each other and with Maryann .... and have I told you how lucky I am to be working with all of you -- TLs are amazing and it's a wonderful thing to be in this leadership role for such a supportive and professional learning community -- and I get to hang out in the finest workspace and workplace in BC here at the penthouse near the corner of Granville and Broadway!

Otherwise, we wish you a joyful summer of rest, fun, reading, and professional replenishment. See you in September!

Penthouse Particulars

We are dashing into June here at the mothership. May was mostly, for me and Maryann, an on-the-road delivery of our Update sessions and workshops to prepare everyone for June and September and the changing nature of our work, including the latest information about inventory, databases, statistics, information literacy, and so on. This week was:

• Monday morning's SLRCCC meeting where a group of TLs prepared for our annual June report to Trustees



• Tuesday morning's Inqiry TLs meeting at Byng Library for a last chance to work together to prepare for the June 3 "public" presentation in Room 400 -- can you come?



• Wednesday afternoon's gathering of all secondary teacher-librarians at the UBC Ike Barber Learning Centre for their May Update and introduction to Education Librarians Chris Ball (UBC) and Hope Power (SFU), who talked about their findings based on a survey of the information literacy needs of first-year students, as well as new Sustainability Consultant Kevin Millsip who took on questions about Libraries and sustainability.



• Thursday featured three meetings: one that is monthly in Learning Services, another that is quarterly with Metro-area TLs -- we mostly talked with ERAC guests and teleconferencing participants -- and finally one very lovely event that occurs annually to honour people like me who joined the district 25 years ago, in my case, in 1984! Add to this schedule a rather frantic run back to UBC to retrieve the cell phone left the day before.
  
  
• Somewhere in the week MK and I decided we needed one more Update for a group who hadn't been able to make the other sessions! June 4 pm ... anyone want more? Is there something wrong with this picture?
  
  
• Then I had hoped to spend Friday in recovery and getting ready for next week ... which would have been the case except that "recovery"for me meant attacking backlogged desk work and email as well as sorting out the cubicle which had become something of a supply base from which I had been launching the city-wide Update project and related catering services for three weeks -- and for Maryann it meant recovering from the fall taken while getting ready for the Thursday meeting with Metro area District TLs.
  
  
• Missed in the blue blur that was the week was finding a time, finding just the right moment to phone or drop by Kerrisdale to wish Michele a wonderful weekend in Montreal. Am trying to keep tabs on the CLA Conference from the blog-point of view of winning Victoria TL Karen Lindsay who is with Michele. Check out Karen's blog. She has been having problems with transmission, as you will see, but we expect that Michele will lead her to the light! Way to go, you two!! We'll want all the details when you get back.

So, do you see any indicators are that it is time to "smell the roses"? Let's say I have every reason to keep this week's blog post short. Maryann, you okay? And I am certain some of you would like time to get caught up with blog-reading anyway.

All Thoughts

Turn to Italy

A reminder to those of you considering the IASL Conference in Italy in the first week of September and related excursions:

You can register for the pre-conference events including (1) The Guided Inquiry Workshop on August 31 with Drs Ross Todd and Carol Kuhlthau, a day that promises to be an outstanding learning opportunity for TLs and I do intend to be there, so am signing up today; and (2) "Reading in the Digital Age": scroll down through a day of featured speakers including Aiden Chambers. Space in these two days of workshops is limited.

We are awaiting the finalized conference agenda but expect it will be as exciting as the conference in Berkeley last summer.

Also, I met up with our TL colleague and Tuscany Tour Organizer Francesca (della Hastings) at the celebration of 25-year district veterans on Thursday ... we celebrated together and talked about our summer trip planning with Trustee Mike Lombardi who told me we will love Italy, where everything revolves around food, friendship, and family. Oh, and Frances!

Frances and I, needless to say, are thinking that the tour of Italy this summer should be organized by now! I am wondering if you are coming ... are we meeting up as a group to do 10 days in Tuscany? See previous posting (search Italy or find May 2 archive). Email me or Frances della Hastings for the information flyer.

VTLA Dinner:

I will see some of you on June 8 at the Annual VTLA dinner where we celebrate and say goodbye to retirees. Have you ordered your ticket from Akemi yet?

Have a good weekend. One more month and you are into recovery.