First Days

2/3/10 (4 hours) (middle school media center)

I chose to spend the morning with Mrs. K to get a feel for a middle school media center. I currently teach at the high school level, so I am familiar with the high school media structure, and I have arranged with spend a day with an elementary media specialist, so this was my first glance at the middle school media center.

Mrs. Kaigler has worked at the elementary, middle, and high school levels and her favorite is the middle school. She shared with me some of the different expectations of the three levels. For example, as part of her job at the middle school is keeping the I-grade password system up-to-date; each year as new sixth graders some to the middle school, she has to enter them, issue passwords, and distribute these passwords. She is also responsible for tracking the fixed assets for the school—a large task for a new middle school who has the most up-to-date technology (Smart Boards, LCDs, and Promethium Boards in each classroom). This is Mrs. K’s second year at this media center; the school opened last year and she has the task of establishing a new media center. She used her experience at the high school (went through their media center) to determine what she needed to place on her list to order for her own media center. Mrs. K and her clerk, Mrs. Clark also host a monthly book club and they have two books fairs each year. Rather than just having a book fair, the create a theme and decorate the media center space in preparation for the book fair These books fairs take place in the fall and spring and last a week. Mrs. K informed me that they are very successful. They are fortunate to have parent volunteers who are willing to come in and monitor the book fair materials during the week while she continues her job of assisting teachers and students.

While I visited I was able to experience some of the expectations of the media specialist. For example, every two weeks, the 6th, 7th, and 8th graders come into the media center to check out books. The Parent-Teacher Organization sponsors a reading initiative where they provided treats to the kids of read and to the class who has read the most. The grade level who reads the most books is awarded movie passes; second place gets a ice cream party, and first place is award a Chic Filet breakfast—there are no losers. As each student turns in documentation of reading, he/she also gets a “sweet” treat. A couple of young ladies had read 6 books in the past three weeks. It certainly appeared that reading was taking place at this school.

In addition to classes coming in to check out books, there were several groups of students (groups of 3) coming into the media center to work on group projects. The teachers had signed up to utilize the media center, so the ladies knew who to expect and when. It was surprising to see these small groups come in unsupervised and work on their task. In addition to the 12 computers in the media center, there are 2 computers labs; one lab is for 6th grade, while the other is for 8th grade. There is currently space for a third lab, but the funds to complete the lab are not available.

One behavior that I noticed while watching the students as they worked, was the use of ThinkQuest; a document storage site. Some of the kids has been taught how to use this site earlier and were still making use of it. Mrs. K did tell me, however, that many of the students forgot their log-in and password, so they were having major issues with being able to use this. She felt that since these students were going to be using USBs at the high school level, that it was fair for the middle school to expect them to have such a device. The media center does sell these devices in their school store. The school store was something that Mrs. Kaigler realized that she needed to establish. One practice of the schools that helps with the success of the school store is open house. When Stalling Island has open house, the students pick up books and school needs. Parents quickly head to the media center to purchase these items, so both parties benefit from this resource.

I also paid attention to the kinds of books that the middle school group chose to check out. They were definitely reading for pleasure. I had to wonder if the high school’s circulation drops because of all the “required” reading we do. I can honestly say that the enthusiasm for reading is much more apparent in the middle school. None of the students who came in seemed to resist the idea of selecting a book.

One interesting conversation we had concerned “appropriate” books. Mrs. K told me that she was very methodical in purchasing the books that were available in the media center. She had already had a parent question the “Twilight” series because she didn’t want her daughter to read those books. She also had a group of books that had pulled from the shelves because she was concerned with the content. These were information books on STDs, Assisted Suicide, Toxic Shock Syndrome, Gay Marriage, and other fiction works that contained some questionable, age-appropriate material. These books had not been challenged; however, Mrs. K was concerned about the wrong student taking home one of these books and the parent’s reaction. As a matter of fact, she told me that she doesn’t let the kids check out books on drugs unless they happen to be doing a report on that subject. Have we gotten to such a point where we have to censor to avoid challenges to valuable literature?