The Library Department is about to host a NYSAIS conference with the EdTech department around the importance of collaboration between librarians and technology teachers. As the field of school librarianship continues to grow and change, librarians are discovering that a successful partnership with technology faculty is not just a good idea but vital to creating young digital citizens who know how to evaluate information, protect privacy, and form healthy online communities. It should be easy, but sometimes we are our own worst enemies when it comes to sharing curriculum and classrooms. We are often too quick to say, “But I can’t give up time to collaborate, or I’ll never get through my curriculum!” or “Our schedules just don’t match, it’s hopeless to try and plan something,” or “But I love teaching this topic, I don’t know if I want to share it with anyone!” These all too human responses remind me of a blog post I wrote for Library Lost & Found about giving it all away. Even though it can sometimes feel counter intuitive, the only way to improve, advance and grow is to share, share, share. When we give it all away, we quickly discover that we get it all back–with interest!
Great post, Jen! Not to get all meta human, BUT…we humans are social creatures. Collaboration is social. Teaching can fall in to a trap of isolation, at least we can be isolated from our colleagues. Collaboration is essential. Plus, we are “teaching” our students how to collaborate with their peers all the time, so I believe that it is imperative that we model this on a regular basis as adults for the students.
When my kids are collaborating, I often tell them that the project they are working on is actually more important than any one individual. In a way, it can be a relief for a student to hear this because they feel that they are in charge of taking care of something else, rather than feeling the burden of being a “perfect” all by themselves. The results are frequently a creation of something bigger and better than any one person could have come up with.
After all, it’s a microcosm of democracy.
Jen, thanks for posting. I think your post gets at the heart of what we are trying to do in this space. How might we as a community of progressive practitioners continue to find ways and moments for collaboration with each other? I hope that we can use these posts as a way to connect and learn from each other and then whenever possible move past beyond the digital to face-to-face collaboration.