It’s time to educate media specialists in schools of education

As a doctoral student hoping to teach school library courses at a university, I may be shooting myself in the foot to say this: school library degree programs should operate within schools of education, not in schools of library and information science.

The focus of most school library degree programs is on the library as a source of information and on developing the skills of librarianship. No surprise there. To be sure, there are many, many skills to master. The school librarian must be a jack of all trades, competent in collection development, Web design, cataloging, budgeting, marketing, and management. But the school librarian must apply these skills in the enormously challenging context of teaching and learning, the demands of which are so overwhelming that half of all new teachers quit the profession within five years of landing their first job.

Think about your own training. Did your course work examine the ways school library programs contribute to teaching and learning within the broader school community or such fundamental issues as differentiated instruction and scaffolded learning? Did most of the professors even know what these terms mean?

If school library degree programs were run out of schools of education, the focus would be where it belongs—on the learner. The rapid evolution of information technology keeps librarians hopping as they explore the best ways to deliver information. Online databases, Web pages, wikis, blogs, streaming media, and podcasts all have their place in the library, as do books and periodicals. But while school librarians must stay current with the evolution of such technologies, the essential question is not how to make information available to students, but how teaching and learning should change to take advantage of an information-rich environment.

The most critical struggles that school librarians face are not about finding and organizing resources. The real dilemmas lie in working with faculty to plan lessons that take advantage of the resources and tools at our disposal; in identifying the skills students need to negotiate new information formats; in anticipating the strengths and weaknesses of new technologies so that students maximize their critical thinking and learn how to learn. In a nation where two-thirds of the students read below grade level, the most important struggle centers on teaching our youth to read and encouraging them to become lifelong readers. These are the concerns shared and understood by the larger school community.

You may question whether schools of education would do any better than schools of library and information science in addressing these issues. Credential programs of all types, you may argue, are notorious for ignoring the real world of public education. Consider the advantages, however. Many school library degree programs are virtually invisible to other education-related credential programs. Cross-pollination between the school library program and other programs would be much more likely if students and faculty occupied the same building and participated in some of the same classes. Equally important, moving school library credential programs into schools of education would help change the perception of school librarians. As school communities develop expectations of librarians as teachers, school librarians who guard books and tidy shelves would be pressured to adapt or seek work elsewhere. Outstanding teachers who are looking for new challenges may consider becoming school librarians instead of moving into administration. Potential administrators may come to view school librarians as key allies in effecting schoolwide change.

The bottom line is that good school librarians are teachers first. Schools of education offer specialized degree programs in virtually every other field in a school community—from reading specialists to technology coordinators to curriculum developers to counselors. It’s time to add school librarians to the list.