Like so many others, I've read this wonderful article many times and am just now getting to annotating it. I'm seriously thinking of asking my administration for professional development funds to go visit Robin to see her LC in person.
The part of her write-up that grabs me in particular is "Reinventing Ourselves." I will admit here in cyberspace for all to see that the first couple of times I read this section I tried to read between the lines, hoping to ascertain that, indeed, Robin's position as teacher-librarian was a "head librarian" one. I was wholly unaware of my own desire to see a hierarchy in her job descriptions, I just knew something about the networked, interdependent descriptions made me slightly sea sick. I'm so accustomed to vertical organization I craved it intensely as I imagined implementing some form of her breakdowns of who would do what.
Well, I've just realized why I've had vertigo regarding the whole thing, and I realize that there may well be a clear hierarchy to her organization. But I also have taken the lesson that as I encourage teachers to lower their guard, open their doors and work collaboratively, I have to keep this experience in mind. Surely some of my colleagues' resistance is rooted in similar fears of either losing their place in the hierarchy or losing the control that singular work allows. I've thought all of this to myself but never connected it to my own emotional experience. Maintaining ones place in line is a frightfully powerful motivator for status quo behavior.
I will remember this as I move forward, and among other things, I'm grateful to Robin for providing such a clear canvas for this realization. Her work is so impressive and, well, straight-forward.
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