6 - Working with Students

Summary

Webb and Powis (2005) commented that ‘One of the most distinctive features of the teaching undertaken by information professionals is that we most often work with strangers, running one-off and impromptu sessions.’

School librarians rarely achieve the continuity with classes that our teaching colleagues enjoy, which makes it more difficult for us to work productively in teams with students. In this chapter we will explore some practical ways to overcome the barriers we face in engaging with students. It is useful to consider other differences between teachers and librarians as this gives an understanding of our ways of communicating. As we discovered in chapters 3 and 4, our style of interaction with others can influence the response we receive from others. While both school librarians and classroom teacher communicate with students, our approaches, format and emphasis may differ depending on our role and responsibilities. Librarians explain library services to students in whole classes, small groups or at an individual level in lessons and leisure time. We focus on explaining how to find resources for reading for pleasure or information and teach them research skills. Hence, we impart knowledge that tends to be informational and advisory. In contrast a class teacher works with a specific set of students, and in secondary schools on the content of a particular subject in the curriculum. So, a teacher's communication style is more directive and evaluative than that of a school librarian.

Although school librarians play an important role in supporting student learning, we may face some unique challenges in communicating with students owing to the nature of our role and the library environment. These might include:

• ■ limited time with individual students, as we need to serve large numbers of library users and at the same time manage the library's resources and services

• ■ communicating with a diverse student body with many different backgrounds, abilities and learning styles

• ■ limited subject expertise in comparison with a classroom teacher, making it more difficult to provide information and support on specific curriculum topics

• ■ limited control over the learning environment as the space is more fluid than a classroom and used in leisure time, which can make it more difficult to maintain discipline and manage disruptive behaviour