Doug Johnson

21^st Century Libraries and 20^th Century Schools

Head for the Edge, Jan/Feb 2010

The best part about beating your head against a wall is that it feels so good when you stop.

Dear Superintendent Hookworm:           

Thank you for the opportunity to serve as a consultant on library and technology program assessment for your school district*.  I appreciate the candor of your staff when completing my surveys and answering my questions about your schools’ curriculum, methods, philosophy and mission. Your own interest in improving the library and technology programs is commendable.

I hope you recognize the challenge that today’s library consultant faces. Not many years ago a person doing this job could easily find state or national program standards with recommended definitive qualitative measures to be met: the square footage of library space, the size of the print collection, amount of student seating, type of instructional areas, ratio of computers to students, and FTE counts of professional, clerical and technical staff. But these numbers have grown increasingly meaningless as schools systemically commit to information and technology literacy skills taught in all classes, by all teachers.

Or choose not to.

My study confirms that your schools’ administrators and teachers:

• Are content to have their instruction be textbook and test-driven. Given the number of standards in the state-mandated curriculum and the state’s test-based accountability requirements, your staff does not see the need for in-depth study of topics, problem-based teaching, or authentic assessment. Textbooks are meeting the needs of your teaching staff.
• Are unconcerned about providing quality information sources to staff and students. Our findings indicate that your staff does not feel that edited sources of information – books, commercial databases, or reference materials - are necessary when “everything is free on the Internet.” Questions of information reliability and authority were deemed irrelevant.
• Believe students and staff can locate information without assistance. Citing the ability of students to do a search in Google and find pages of information on which the search terms appear, your staff dismissed the notion that more sophisticated strategies and search tools were needed. “Kids can always change their topic if they don’t find what they need with Google,” one teacher observed.
• Feel that the ability to process and communicate information in formats other than print is unnecessary. Students in your schools use standard written term papers as the sole means of communicating the results of research. That they are word-processed was cited as proof of “technology integration.” When asked about having students communicate using audio, video, photographic or visual productions, teachers dismissed these formats irrelevant to preparing students for college.
• Use computers only for testing and as online worksheets. Online testing and computer assisted instruction now uses approximately 75% of your schools’ computer labs’ schedule, leaving little opportunity for students to use the technology for creative work.
• View independent voluntary reading is a waste of time. Strict adherence to the basal readers and reading “skill building” software has resulted in students scoring acceptably on standardized tests. Both administration and teachers are reluctant to “mess with success.” Developing a desire to read is not part of the district’s strategic plan.
• Believe differentiated instruction is just babying the slackers. Providing materials at a variety of levels, in multiple formats meeting the needs of learners with divergent abilities, interests and learning styles was given a low priority by teachers in your schools.

Small classroom book collections that support the reading series and a word-processing lab with access to Google are all that your schools currently require. Since the skills of librarians and technology specialists are viewed as unimportant, the library can be staffed by clerks and by technicians who can keep the student information system running from a hidden location until it is outsourced.

I would really like to be able to confidently state a “Field of Dreams” model library and technology program philosophy: Build it and they will come. But we’re not talking mystical ball diamonds in Iowa cornfields here. Modern library facilities, technology and professional staff come at an expense that must be weighed against other possible efforts made to educate kids.

There is no sense building a baseball field if you are going to play ping-pong. And there is no sense putting a 21^st century library and technology program if you are only going to give kids a 20^th century education.

If at some time your school district decides it wants all its students to graduate having mastered a sophisticated set of IL/IT skills, having learned how to solve real problems creatively, and having experienced the power of global communications and collaboration, please contact me again.  In the meantime, save your taxpayers some money.

Oh, since the local private schools, charter schools, online schools and neighboring schools are seriously addressing 21^st century skills you may want to plan for declining enrollment.

Sincerely,

A. Consultant

*  This report is not based on any actual school, but an amalgam of many schools I’ve visited.

Most of my Head for the Edge columns, updated and edited, can be found in my latest book. Buy it and I might be able to afford a nicer nursing home one day. Thank you.