A Constructivist, Contextual Librarian Philosophy

By Tyler Guerin, English (With an Emphasis in Creative Writing), '19

I chose to share my librarian philosophy because it testifies the unique ways a library and a librarian can benefit students. Teacher are of paramount importance, but other school personnel can be crucial to a student's life as well. This other personnel should have just as much intention, rigor, and research in their philosophies. 

In our digitized age, libraries have become access points for the entire world’s information. As a high school librarian, my role will be to assist students in navigating this vast media landscape. I will also be the gatekeeper of the physical library itself: a space ideal for contemplation and collaboration. Direct intervention often fails in educating students, while creating a proper educational context is more effective. My library will be a context where I take a constructivist, self-directed approach in that I will allow students (both individually and in peer groups) to build their own knowledge of media I carefully select.

https://www.laratorres.com/blog/2018/2/18/fashion-in-the-expanded-field-strategies-for-critical-fashion-practices

There comes a time in a student’s intellectual development where she must come to learn that not all information is created equal; as a school librarian, I can be instrumental in this realization. I will help students learn to differentiate between levels of research by creating mock projects and asking them to match the proper kind of research to each project. One cannot fully understand the definitions of masculinity in Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing via a simple Google search; yet, one also does not need JSTOR to learn how to bake a cake. I will also help students understand that when using a less regulated search engine such as Google, more caution is necessary. I will do this by presenting a question or topic to a student with two links (one to a website with credible information, one to website without it). In comparing the two websites, the  warning signs of incredibility will become clearer to the students. I will apply a similar framework to projects where I teach students the differences in credibility between sources of news. This is a practical skill that successful adult life requires, as misinformation about politics, culture, and domestic and international affairs is rampant in our society. Additionally, interacting with news sources will allow the students a space to have their own ideologies identified, developed, and challenged.

Almost all of the preceding activities will likely exist in the digital sphere; however, I still see the library as the physical intellectual anchor of the school. Databases are efficient for specific information retrieval, but interacting with physical texts is still crucial for developing minds. Reading print media, by engaging the body more fully, enhances one’s ability to retain the read information and form a deeper interpretation of it. My library will be a space where students can come for this experience of holding a text close to their chest and quietly contemplating its content.

https://www.edutopia.org/article/making-most-class-book-clubs

I do, however, see collaboration as vital to learning. At many schools, students must sit for hours in uncomfortable desks, in orderly rows, without speaking a single word except to answer a teacher's question. All humans have a basic affinity to speak about their interests and ideas with their peers, or, in other words, to socialize. My library will satisfy this desire. For certain blocked out periods of the day, it will switch to a noisy, talkative space where I will allow students unrestricted time to discuss whatever they want. This will lead them to feel as though I am validating their interests and respecting them as adults. At points, however, I will invite them to study together and work on material from other classes. I will also implement my own specific projects such as book clubs where they pick the books and create their own reading schedules, and I will incorporate initiatives like the Aspen Challenge, a nationwide challenge where high schoolers form teams to brainstorm solutions, alongside renowned thinkers and leaders, to some of the greatest issues facing the world. The throughline between all of these collaborative efforts is student input. Students have greater intrinsic motivation to learn when they are able to have a hand in designing their own educational activity.

The tallest hurdle for educators is the weakness of direct intervention. A teacher can tell a student all the benefits of reading one hundred times over to no avail. What matters more is the context. A reading-averse student needs to enter regularly a space where she can research a personal interest, interact with current events and the ideological lens interpreting them, collaborate with friends on a shared passion, quietly contemplate, and browse for books that she wants to read. In other words, a student who struggles with or dislikes reading needs a library, and a librarian trained to facilitate her use of it. I will be that librarian, the one who helps students come to appreciate the fulfillment in using your resources to learn for yourself.