Friday, September 25, 2009

The Hot Librarian Was Me

Sept. 25, 2009

Today was my first half-day in a new elementary school and as a librarian. It was a really nice school, gorgeous library...and when I walked in, I had no idea what to do. I also had bus duty. I may have had a bun, but I wasn't wearing any glasses and no one asked me to take my hair down and to seductively ask them what the penalty for an overdue book is. This was an elementary school.

With the help of the principal, an aide and other teachers, I was able to figure out that the librarian (who had been out several days taking care of a sick parent) had a system. She had bins with books, for different grade levels that contained lesson materials for each grade level for the entire week. We were recycling lessons for the entire week as each class had this special about one time a week.

I had to do some digging to figure out where some things were (we never did figure out how to lower the projection screen)how to check out/in books, where the kindergarten name tags were for the afternoon class, and how to figure out which class on the lesson plan corresponded to actual classes coming to the library (turns out you could do this with the phone list).

After all that initial anxiety, I only had to teach a 4th grade class and a multi-handnicapped class of two students who were accompanied by aides. I was even able to set some things up for the afternoon sub before I had to leave. They asked me if I could stay for the afternoon, but I had a prior house-sitting commitment. No dice. It was a real bummer, because I could have used the money.

Lessons Learned:

Find a place to lay down your lesson plans and remember where you put it (bring a neon clip board and clip them to it for visability).

Sometimes, you can have more than one CD with a song on it with the same title, but it turns out they are different songs and the one you thought was the right one is actually, quite wrong. Don't worry, the kids will tell you if you're wrong.

Find out crucial responsibilities and make sure you have the tools you need to get them done properly.

Sometimes you will have to improvise if technology is not available to help you with whole group instruction. You will end up having to repeat yourself a lot.

See if the sub has left a list of reliable students that you can pump for info as needed. If not, single them out quickly.

Be prepared to split a large group between an activity and computers. Give directions before "off you go." LOL

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