A Penny For Your Books

Welcome back to the third installment of the Day in the Life series! I’ve been working this job now for two full months and have multiplied my responsibilities. I still only see each class for thirty minutes per week, but now have decided to add additional weekly check out times for fourth and fifth grade, and some every other week for third grade. I am glad that teachers agreed that this time was important enough to make space in their schedules. This means that we have enough time during class to actually learn and do fun activities. Kindergarten, first, and second graders check out during library every other week, and I’ll check out additional books to classrooms if they need them or have individual students come check out when they have time.

Most grades are struggling to respect the books and shelves themselves when it comes to checking out. I think I’m going to have to start walking around and taking pictures of the library in disarray following a check out session to compile a presentation about how we should be treating our resources. Some of what I’ve seen is atrocious–books littered on the floor, books haphazardly put away inside of another book, turned around or upside down. It only takes a moment to put a book back correctly, but their check out time is pretty short. I understand the rush, but definitely need to review the proper way to treat a book.

My principal has also asked if I would be willing to help with specific students who need one-on-one time or short breaks from their classroom environments. I eat lunch with one student every day, and play games for short ten-minute periods with a couple students throughout the day. This gives them a unique opportunity to bond with someone in a fun way and lends a helping hand to teachers who would normally be providing the breaks. I’m very happy to help with these, though the sporadic timing can make it a little difficult to complete other tasks. A small price to pay.

As far as classes go, teaching is definitely getting easier! Students are starting to recognize that I’m someone they actually need to listen to, and so are more likely to be respectful. This is certainly not always the case, however. Fifth grade is especially adept at undermining my attempts at creating a learning environment, though they’re also the group I’ve interacted with the least. They’re scheduled on Mondays, which is the day of the week where we most consistently don’t have school. The other challenging group is first grade. They have a particularly tough group that consistently creates conflict and have trouble listening. However, I had some assistance with them last week by a veteran teacher and she let me know afterwards that even with all her years of teaching, that is a hard group. The comment definitely made me feel a little better about my struggles.

I like to think we’ve done some pretty fun assignments! I’m finding a lot of free cool ideas on Teachers Pay Teachers. They’ve done lots of coloring for things like Halloween costume design, bookmark creation, and learning related to books we’ve read. I try to save these assignments for class periods where they check out, because it gives them something to do while waiting their turn. When we have more time, students have done stations (Legos, magnet tiles, blocks, etc.), genre bingo, T/F library rules, cryptid creations, and more. In the future we’ll do scavenger hunts with call numbers, small research assignments, and continue to read aloud in addition to whatever else I can find. These are things we would have barely had time for if teachers hadn’t agreed to additional check out times. Again, I find myself very grateful.

I’ve also enjoyed doing some rearranging and decorating around the library. My dad helped me hang up some old pictures we found of Curious George and similar children’s book characters. I hung up and framed some genre posters on the fiction wall, as I remember how much I enjoyed looking at those when I was in school. Additionally, there’s an ongoing push for libraries to modernize their book arrangements (of which I completely understand, but still somewhat push back against because of my love for the traditional setup). However, students aren’t looking for books by author, they’re looking for them by subject, group, or picture. Many school libraries are setting up small bins on their shelves that group books together for kids to leaf through, pushing them to look at each cover before selecting their piece. I understand the reasoning, but it’s tough to want to give up the easy-to-find traditional organization. After all, a misplaced book in a bin will be very difficult to find. However, it doesn’t matter what I think! I’m a sub and my job is to make life better for students and the library more enjoyable. If this is what works, then I’ll do it.

I’m enjoying this job. In comparison to other jobs I’ve had, this one requires a lot less…work? I’m always doing something and constant student connections are taxing, but my actual duties remain fairly limited. Most of what I’ve gotten myself into is self-imposed. I’m interested to see where this goes and if they’ll hire an actual librarian at any time this year. I know this isn’t my career goal, but it’s a journey that will certainly help get me there. Happy reading!