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February 6, 2009

Librarians Aren't Teachers?!



So says the Dallas school district, interpreting Federal rules attached to one of those crazy pay-for-performance schemes.

Reading the email they got carefully, they're basically saying that librarians, counsellors and speech therapists are not teachers and are equivalent to the food service staff and the custodians.

I could go on a real rant here, but I won't.  I'll simply say that this helps me decide a question that until now, I thought was a bit silly.  There's apparently been a debate in the world of my future job, namely what should we call ourselves?  Media Specialists?  Librarians?  Teacher-Librarians?

It seemed silly to me until now.  Now I'm throwing my hat in with the Canadians and going for the title Teacher-Librarian.

The real silly thing is this pay-for-performance nonsense.  If you don't think every single person in the building is contributing to the education of these children--including our wonderful food service staff and custodians, then you are deluding yourself.

Yes, the classroom teachers get dumped on when it comes to the grading and the standardized tests and that is wrong.  But saying that that someone who, at least it our district, is required to have a minimum of a Master's degree and must go through the yearly teaching goals and observation ritual (that would be observations of teaching) is not a teacher is kidding themselves.

Ok, so I went into a rant...

(Clip art licensed from the Clip Art Gallery on DiscoverySchool.com)