Reflection Post - Marcia Mardis (in substitution for Blog #2 topic)

I had the opportunity on September 11, 2010, to attend the Hazel Harvey Peace Lecture, sponsored by UNT's College of Information.  Marcia Mardis is a leader in the LIS field from both a professional and policy perspective, and we had the privilege of hearing her speak.

Mardis delineated current themes in educational policy: achievement, accountability, and affordability.  She summarized how these themes affect outcomes in our public schools.  She gave a brief biography of four major thinkers in the realm of media and education, Melvil Dewey, John Dewey, Marshall McLuhan, and Paulo Freire.  Mardis quoted Freire at the conclusion of this section,

For apart from inquiry, apart from the praxis, individuals cannot be truly human.  Knowledge emerges only through invention and reinvention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other.

Freire's educational philosophy paves the way for the importance of informal learning environments such as the library, where achievement, accountability, and affordability take a back seat to Mardis' real themes for learning: consistency, connection, and community.

Mardis stressed consistency as one important aspect of learning in informal environments, citing the building of solid collections, knowledge of school curricula, and being a counterbalance to the binding elements of public educational policy.  Next Mardis discussed connection, with its emphasis on cyberinfrastructure and hands-on, interactive learning.  Maris' final theme dealt with community, citing schools' role as social institutions within communities and the global village mentality.  Though teachers and librarians sometimes behave as Lone Rangers heading their own outfits, these professionals must work together.

The librarian, in particular, has a responsibility to be complementary with teachers' efforts, not competitive; he or she must be counted as a vital part of a school's mission to further the education of its students.  Librarians have a role to be post-metacognitive in their approach, constantly thinking about how others are thinking about thinking, as complicated as that sounds.  In other words, librarians must put themselves in the shoes of teachers, parents, and students as they help others not only seek information, but develop an understanding of what questions they are truly asking and their relevance to life.  Librarians, in essence, must be involved with the information-seeking process all the way from questioning, through synthesis and application.

One particularly interesting portion of Mardis' lecture dealt with STEM, the United States' efforts to ramp up its achievement in science, technology, engineering, and math.  The STEM initiative has its roots in the Cold War, when America was stunned by the Soviet satellite Sputnik's orbit of the earth.  Unfortunately, most teachers rightly consider library collections regarding these topics to be old and small.  Librarians must work to change this reputation as they broaden their STEM collections and pursue the most recent age-appropriate sources available for their schools.

As the United States ranks 25th among industrialized countries regarding STEM, the federal government will, in all likelihood, rightly continue to emphasize the importance of these topics.  School librarians have an incredible opportunity to highlight the importance of reading as a key to STEM learning, to create a learner-centered environment, to build superlative collections, and to provide images and guided inquiry techniques to support science learning.  In short, the school librarian is poised at a unique point in time regarding the chances that STEM policy affords.

Mardis' lecture certainly highlighted many of the challenges ahead of school librarians as they seek to keep up with state and federal policies, rapidly changing technologies, and everyday interactions between support staff, faculty, students, and administration.  Nevertheless, Mardis on the whole inspired and encouraged future school librarians as still providing attention to the whole child, following American Association of School Librarian guidelines for 21st-century learners.  These learners will hopefully emerge being able to inquire, think critically, gain knowledge, share knowledge, participate ethically and productively as members of a democratic society, draw conclusions, make informed decisions, apply knowledge to new situations, create new knowledge, and pursue personal and aesthetic growth.  Now how is that for a statement of objectives?  This is no small task, and it will require the involvement of a true village for students to reach these goals, a village in which the librarian will wear the hats of facilitator, catalyst, questioner, connector, differentiator, literature lover, information seeker, and "tender technician."