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• Sense of self: Embracing your teacher identity

  by Carrie Donovan

  August 19, 2009
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  Wel­come to another guest post at ItLwtLP. This time we bring you thoughts from Car­rie Dono­van, an instruc­tion librar­ian at Indi­ana Uni­ver­sity Bloom­ing­ton. Enjoy!

  

  #307: Authen­tic­ity by ass­bach / CC-BY

  Once upon a time in libraries, you could call your­self a good teacher if you spent more than 30 min­utes plan­ning a les­son, if you wowed stu­dents with your search savvy, or if nobody fell asleep dur­ing your pre­sen­ta­tion. With the growth of instruc­tional ini­tia­tives and influ­ence across libraries of all kinds, how­ever, expec­ta­tions for librar­i­ans to develop teach­ing exper­tise have height­ened. Librar­i­ans who teach now find them­selves faced with the demand to con­nect with stu­dents, to make libraries and infor­ma­tion lit­er­acy knowl­edge mean­ing­ful, and to cre­ate learn­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties that are mem­o­rable and long-lasting. Such a shift in expec­ta­tions calls for teacher behav­ior that is pur­pose­ful, mind­ful, and rooted in the self. Trans­for­ma­tion of this sort does not come easy, nor does it hap­pen mag­i­cally. For those in search of a true teacher iden­tity, authen­tic­ity will serve as the best guide.

  In order to cre­ate the dynamic and engag­ing envi­ron­ments that are becom­ing the norm among library instruc­tion and infor­ma­tion lit­er­acy pro­grams, librar­i­ans rely on the par­tic­i­pa­tion and inter­est of their audi­ence to co-construct learn­ing. This type of dia­logue requires an open and hon­est class­room envi­ron­ment in which the librar­ian is a facil­i­ta­tor and guide for learn­ers as they dis­cover the world of infor­ma­tion. In ask­ing stu­dents to be present and par­tic­i­pa­tory, we must respond by bring­ing our own pro­fes­sional and per­sonal wealth of knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence to the con­ver­sa­tion. Putting away the “per­sona” of teacher and dis­clos­ing more of the per­sonal will allow for mean­ing­ful inter­ac­tions with stu­dents, increased stu­dent involve­ment, and mem­o­rable class­room expe­ri­ences. From Roger Schank (1990), we learn that keep­ing up our end of this dia­logue means intro­duc­ing our expe­ri­ence and our emo­tions into teach­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties in sur­pris­ing and story-driven ways. Based in real-world expe­ri­ences, sto­ries allow us to share with each other, while also mak­ing sense of the world around us as we inter­act with it. The Schankian appli­ca­tion of sto­ry­telling to cre­ate a direct con­nec­tion to stu­dents’ dynamic mem­ory can also be use­ful for teach­ers in the quest to become more per­son­able and approach­able to students.

  The Para­dox of Teaching

  Talk­ing about bring­ing your real self into the class­room is one thing, doing it is another thing entirely. Espe­cially when one con­sid­ers the fol­low­ing para­dox: as teach­ers, we employ many of the tech­niques of actors, but in order to be most effec­tive, our teach­ing must not be arti­fi­cial. For any­one who teaches reg­u­larly, it’s easy to rec­og­nize the aspects of teach­ing that are sim­i­lar to act­ing: the prepa­ra­tion, the prac­tice, the warming-up of vocals, the nerves, the sweaty palms, and the vul­ner­a­bil­ity that comes with set­ting one­self up for approval or dis­ap­proval. In addi­tion, teach­ers, like actors, often sum­mon a charm or dynamism from within, in order to exude a pres­ence and author­ity over the pur­pose and direc­tion of the con­tent for their audience.

  After library instruc­tion, I’ve had stu­dents say to me, amazed, “Gosh, you really *love* the library, don’t you?” Okay, so maybe I’m a much more enthu­si­as­tic per­son when I teach than I am oth­er­wise, but I’m hope­ful that my teacherly self, while a slightly more dynamic ver­sion of myself, still comes from an authen­tic place. If I can sur­prise, intrigue, or engage stu­dents because I present the shiny side of myself when teach­ing, I’ll do it. Becom­ing the most spe­cial and charm­ing ver­sion of one’s self takes some prepa­ra­tion, of course, one can­not just go into the class­room cold. You have to warm up, just like actors and ath­letes. For exam­ple, I had a rit­ual with my for­mer office-mate that entailed jazz hands and dance moves as a pre­cur­sor to teach­ing. Nowa­days, my grad­u­ate assis­tant and I joke about putting on our “instruc­tion face,” which usu­ally involves eye­brows up and a big smile. The con­fi­dence and gid­di­ness that comes with these warm-up activ­i­ties can help quell the nerves and fears that some­times haunt teachers.

  Most librar­i­ans, even those of us who are devoted to teach­ing, will admit that many of the same chal­lenges that actors face in terms of stage fright also plague teach­ers from time to time. After ten years of teach­ing in libraries, I almost always feel anx­ious and fright­ened prior to any type of instruc­tion. To over­come my fear of pub­lic speak­ing as a novice teacher, I started using sar­casm as a cop­ing mech­a­nism. Sar­casm, I have dis­cov­ered, does not trans­late well to the class­room set­ting and put me in com­plete oppo­si­tion with my authen­tic self. Let­ting go of this crutch has not been easy, but it has been nec­es­sary to the suc­cess­ful devel­op­ment of my teacher iden­tity. With­out that bar­rier between myself and the stu­dents, teach­ing and learn­ing expe­ri­ences have become more open and egal­i­tar­ian, so that now we share in the vul­ner­a­bil­ity and the anx­i­ety, as well as the ben­e­fits and oppor­tu­nity that come with it.

  While I still rely a lot on sar­casm out­side the class­room, I no longer use it to appear fear­less. In fact, I think fear­less­ness among teach­ers is highly over­rated. It’s the adren­a­line that comes with my stage fright that is almost like a drug to me, it keeps me com­ing back into the class­room. Hav­ing acknowl­edged that it will most likely always be a part of my teacher iden­tity, I can now use the rush and the moti­va­tional force of my fear to become bet­ter at my craft. R.W. Han­ning (1984) com­pares the expe­ri­ence of step­ping into the class­room (the start of the per­for­mance) to step­ping over a thresh­old and in doing so, we must face our fears and meet the chal­lenges that await us.

  Although there are many ele­ments of teach­ing that are sim­i­lar to act­ing, that is not to say that we should seek to be enter­tain­ers. Neil Post­man warns us about this in his book Teach­ing as a Con­serv­ing Activ­ity (1979) as he dis­cusses the use of mul­ti­me­dia and tech­nol­ogy in the class­room. While librar­i­ans have some of the best tech­nol­ogy tools to teach and to aid in our teach­ing, we can be true to our teacher iden­ti­ties by rely­ing on our pri­mary instru­ment, our­selves. We should never be phony or rely too much on props or per­sonas, but instead, we should strive to find the authen­tic place within from which to direct our teach­ing. That authen­tic­ity will evolve and change depend­ing on the topic, audi­ence, and sit­u­a­tion of the day. As teach­ers, we should be will­ing to accept the risky nature of this activ­ity and embrace the ten­sion that exists between teach­ing from a place of author­ity, while also shar­ing of our­selves in such an authen­tic way that we become vulnerable.

  Becom­ing Authentic

  OK, so, how does one do this? Can authen­tic­ity be learned? The answer is both yes and no. We’ve all had great teach­ers and mem­o­rable learn­ing expe­ri­ences that shape our con­struct of what good teach­ing should be and what it looks like. What makes authen­tic­ity in teach­ing so elu­sive and slip­pery is that we can­not sim­ply adopt those approaches as our own and expect them to work just as well. Instead, we must know our­selves well enough to iden­tify our own per­sonal qual­i­ties and wis­dom and allow those to shape a unique approach to teach­ing that is true and rel­e­vant for us, that comes from a place within us that is real.

  Teacher per­son­al­ity has been iden­ti­fied by sev­eral stud­ies as a pow­er­ful com­po­nent to effec­tive teach­ing, more impor­tant even than intel­li­gence, in some cases. When asso­ci­ated with per­son­al­ity traits, Laursen (2005) mea­sured authen­tic­ity by look­ing at the extent to which teach­ers view stu­dents as fel­low human beings, whether or not the teacher hides behind a detached per­sona, and how often/much teach­ers view them­selves, as well as stu­dents, with inten­tions, emo­tions, and inter­ests that are uniquely their own.

  The dif­fi­cult truth that must be acknowl­edged is that some teach­ers have a charisma and, as Mal­colm Glad­well labels it, with­it­ness, that is innate; thereby giv­ing a nat­ural spark to their teach­ing. For those of us who are accus­tomed to expect­ing results from hard work and prac­tice rather than tal­ent or per­son­al­ity, good teach­ing is also achiev­able, but it may not come as eas­ily or inher­ently. But for those who want to try, the rewards are immea­sur­able. Just watch any film about teach­ing to under­stand what I’m talk­ing about.

  In his book, The Courage to Teach, Parker Palmer (1998) dis­cusses iden­tity as the evo­lu­tion of all the forces that come together to form a per­son, includ­ing: back­ground, cul­ture, expe­ri­ence, and any­thing else that shapes the self. Rec­og­niz­ing that we bring all of these aspects of our­selves to every­thing we do, includ­ing our instruc­tional activ­i­ties, is key to find­ing your teach­ing iden­tity. Librar­i­ans have pur­sued neu­tral­ity for a long time in their pro­vi­sion of orga­nized and acces­si­ble infor­ma­tion and knowl­edge, but this phi­los­o­phy does not serve us well in the class­room. As teach­ers, we must acknowl­edge that neu­tral­ity is unre­al­is­tic and unat­tain­able, and by seek­ing it we are only doing a dis­ser­vice to our learn­ers. If we define learn­ing as the abil­ity to think for one­self and infor­ma­tion lit­er­acy as the knowl­edge and skills to be thought­ful con­sumers and cre­ators of infor­ma­tion, then we should embrace our teach­ing as an oppor­tu­nity to help learn­ers rec­og­nize, under­stand, and ques­tion per­spec­tives and ide­olo­gies that they encounter in infor­ma­tion seeking.

  Crit­i­cal the­ory, as described by Pow­ell, Cantrell, and Adams (2001), pro­vides an excel­lent frame­work for inte­grat­ing one’s teacherly iden­tity into instruc­tion in order to cre­ate oppor­tu­ni­ties for enhanced stu­dent learn­ing and empow­er­ment. Let­ting go of the notion that infor­ma­tion is neu­tral and that we should teach infor­ma­tion lit­er­acy or library instruc­tion from a neu­tral posi­tion will allow us to pro­vide a con­text to our teach­ing based on expe­ri­ence, per­cep­tion, and mean­ing. For teach­ing to be mem­o­rable and mean­ing­ful, it must come from the true self and from a will­ing­ness to share the beliefs, val­ues, and per­spec­tives that shape it. Espous­ing this type of behav­ior in our­selves will encour­age our learn­ers to exam­ine what shapes their iden­tity, thereby cre­at­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties for learn­ing sur­round­ing the ques­tions and curiosi­ties that arise as a result of self-disclosure, self-awareness, and self-examination.

  Patri­cia Cran­ton, author of Becom­ing an Authen­tic Teacher in Higher Edu­ca­tion (2001), presents strate­gies for under­stand­ing the “Self” in order to arrive at a per­sonal and pro­fes­sional iden­tity that inter­sects at teach­ing. In addi­tion to remind­ing us of all the attrib­utes that are indi­ca­tors of great teach­ers, Cran­ton offers step-by-step approaches for iden­ti­fy­ing ways of dis­cov­er­ing and dis­clos­ing your authen­tic self in the class­room and how to live with the ben­e­fits, as well as the fall­out. Some of these steps include: under­stand­ing val­ues and expe­ri­ence, merg­ing self and teacher, telling your story, con­nect­ing with stu­dents, and know­ing your crit­ics. I like Cranton’s text as a com­ple­ment to Palmer’s, as it is less inspi­ra­tional and more prac­ti­cal. Some­times librar­i­ans need that.

  Sounds easy enough, right? To be authen­tic, just know your­self and be your­self! Right! How­ever, there are many ways that this can go wrong. Stu­dents may not be accus­tomed to hav­ing teach­ers who are forth­com­ing with the per­sonal aspects of them­selves. They may mis­in­ter­pret a teacher who is approach­able as some­one who is attempt­ing to “be a friend”. Suc­cess­ful teach­ing still depends a great deal on relationship-building and stu­dents may feel annoyed or alien­ated by teacher self-disclosure. As with any rela­tion­ship, teach­ers and stu­dents must seek a bal­ance through trust-building and nego­ti­a­tion that allows for a teacher’s iden­tity and author­ity to co-exist with stu­dents’ learn­ing expec­ta­tions and goals.

  Despite the dan­gers and dif­fi­cul­ties, it has been my expe­ri­ence that most stu­dents are open to rec­og­niz­ing teach­ers as being whole peo­ple who pos­sess knowl­edge, expe­ri­ence, and inter­ests that extend beyond the realm of the acad­emy. I was pleased to see this cor­rob­o­rated in two stud­ies. In 1994, Gold­stein and Benassi looked at in-class par­tic­i­pa­tion by stu­dents and the effect of teach­ers’ self-disclosure on it. Upon exam­in­ing stu­dents’ par­tic­i­pa­tion in class dis­cus­sion, the num­ber of ques­tions asked, and the will­ing­ness to express opin­ions and feel­ings in class, the study con­cluded that teacher self-disclosure was pos­i­tively cor­re­lated with the amount of class par­tic­i­pa­tion by stu­dents. Sim­i­larly, a recent study con­ducted by Mazer, Mur­phy, and Simonds (2009) looked at teacher self-disclosure in the social net­work­ing site, face­book. These researchers found that instruc­tors who strate­gi­cally share per­sonal infor­ma­tion (e.g. pho­tos, inter­ests, quotes, sta­tus, etc.) pos­i­tively influ­enced their stu­dents’ per­cep­tions of the teacher’s cred­i­bil­ity, specif­i­cally com­pe­tence and trust­wor­thi­ness. Allow­ing stu­dents the oppor­tu­nity to rec­og­nize sim­i­lar­i­ties between them­selves and their teach­ers, in addi­tion to see­ing teach­ers as peo­ple, with lives beyond the class­room, could con­tribute to the cre­ation of the types of open, hon­est envi­ron­ments that encour­age dia­logue, par­tic­i­pa­tion, shar­ing, and ultimately – learning.

  Beyond Teach­ing

  Know­ing and incor­po­rat­ing one’s authen­tic self into other areas of work can also result in great suc­cess. In lead­er­ship, librar­i­ans who stand for some­thing and com­mu­ni­cate their val­ues demon­strate integrity and cred­i­bil­ity. Robert Evans, in Edu­ca­tional Lead­er­ship (2007), describes the char­ac­ter­is­tics of authen­tic lead­ers as: vision, per­sonal ethics, and belief in oth­ers. Just as when you think of great teach­ers you’ve had, you can prob­a­bly also think of great lead­ers you’ve worked with who not only have a strong sense of self and inner direc­tion, but also share it openly with those around them. This aware­ness and dis­clo­sure of self estab­lishes a cul­ture of hon­esty, trust, and fair­ness that is cen­tral to cre­at­ing a com­mon vision and shared com­mit­ment in any organization.

  Down to You

  Authen­tic­ity. Some­thing that is so cen­tral to the suc­cess of one’s craft could take an entire career to cul­ti­vate, with­out ever truly reach­ing the pin­na­cle of achieve­ment. But, librar­i­ans out there, if you’re any­thing like me, you revel in your teach­ing escapades because they are the one aspect of the job that is chal­leng­ing beyond all expec­ta­tion, shak­ing both body and soul, and mak­ing you all-around bet­ter and stronger. If it were easy, every­body would do it. But teach­ing, like so many things that are worth­while, will break you down before it charges you up. It offers up the sweet­est rewards for those who are will­ing to take the hard­est hits. Nobody could do it really well with­out the real­ity and raw­ness that comes with self-disclosure, which can be at times a breath­tak­ing walk on a tightrope and, at oth­ers, a freefalling leap of faith.

  Librar­i­ans who are bold enough to develop their inner teacher will con­nect more deeply with learn­ers and par­tic­i­pate more fully in the learn­ing process. Our authen­tic­ity will extend beyond class­room encoun­ters to influ­ence the teach­ing prac­tices of our library col­leagues and impact the instruc­tional role of our libraries. With the poten­tial to enhance stu­dent learn­ing and increase the rel­e­vance of libraries to the teach­ing and learn­ing con­tin­uum, authen­tic teach­ers have the oppor­tu­nity to guide and lead our pro­fes­sion to new heights. As we pur­sue this path to teacherly iden­tity, let’s be truth­ful, take risks, and fol­low our hearts. Remem­ber­ing all the while, of course, that teach­ing is not about us, it’s about our stu­dents and their learn­ing, as well as our libraries and their future.

  If you’re a teacher who has sought out or achieved authen­tic­ity, please share your expe­ri­ences, com­ments, fail­ures, and suc­cesses. I look for­ward to hear­ing from you.

  Recommended/Further Read­ings:

  • Cran­ton, P. (2001). Becom­ing an authen­tic teacher in higher edu­ca­tion. Mal­abar, FL: Krieger Pub­lish­ing Co.
  • Elm­borg, J. (2006). Crit­i­cal infor­ma­tion lit­er­acy: Impli­ca­tions for instruc­tional prac­tice. Jour­nal of Aca­d­e­mic Librar­i­an­ship, 32(2): 192 – 199.
  • Evans, R. (2007). The authen­tic leader. In The Jossey-Bass reader on edu­ca­tional lead­er­ship (2^nd ed.). (pp. 135 – 156). San Fran­cisco: Jossey Bass.
  • Glad­well, M. (2008, Decem­ber 15). Most likely to suc­ceed: How do we hire when we can’t tell who’s right for the job? The New Yorker, 36.
  • Gold­stein, G. & Benassi, V. (1994). The rela­tion between teacher self-disclosure and stu­dent class­room par­tic­i­pa­tion. Teach­ing of Psy­chol­ogy, 21(4): 212 – 217.
  • Han­ning, R.W. (1984). The class­room as the­ater of self: Some obser­va­tions for begin­ning teach­ers. ADE Bul­letin, 077, 33 – 37.
  • Laursen, P. (2005). The authen­tic teacher. In D. Bei­jaard, P. Mei­jer, G. Morine-Dershimer, & H. Tillema. (Eds.). Teacher pro­fes­sional devel­op­ment in chang­ing con­di­tions. (pp. 199 – 212). New York: Springer.
  • Mazer, J., Mur­phy, R., & Simonds, C. (2009). The effects of teacher self-disclosure via face­book on teacher cred­i­bil­ity. Learn­ing, Media and Tech­nol­ogy, 34(2): 175 – 183.
  • Palmer, P. (1998). The courage to teach. San Fran­cisco: Jossey-Bass.
  • Post­man, N. (1979). Teach­ing as a con­serv­ing activ­ity. New York: Dela­corte Press.
  • Pow­ell, R., Cantrell, S.C., & Adams, S. (2001). Sav­ing Black Moun­tain: The promise of crit­i­cal lit­er­acy in a mul­ti­cul­tural democ­racy. The Read­ing Teacher, 54(8): 772 – 781.
  • Schank, R. (1990). Tell me a story: A new look at real and arti­fi­cial mem­ory. New York: Scribner.

  Rec­om­mended Viewing:

  • Dead Poets Society
  • Emperor’s Club
  • Find­ing Forrester
  • The Karate Kid
  • Mir­a­cle Worker
  • School of Rock
  • Spell­bound

  I would like to thank Emily Ford for invit­ing me to reflect on my teach­ing iden­tity in order to write this piece and for being an inspi­ra­tion to rad­i­cal librar­i­ans every­where. Also, thanks to Randy Hens­ley, who first chal­lenged me to tap into my authen­tic self at ACRL’s Immer­sion pro­gram in 2003 and to my friends Jen­nifer & April who have been my instruc­tional sup­port sys­tem (and cyn­i­cal touch­stones) ever since that time.

  Spe­cial shout-out goes to all the IU-SLIS Instruc­tion Assis­tants and stu­dents in S573, past and present, who make teach­ing and dis­cus­sions sur­round­ing teach­ing a pure joy (espe­cially Rachel Slough for her end­less enthu­si­asm and will­ing­ness to serve as my reviewer on this project).

  This post is ded­i­cated to my mom, Glo­ria Dono­van, the most authen­tic teacher I’ve ever known.

  
  

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  Tags: authenticity, identity, information literacy, instruction, leadership, librarians, librarianship, libraries, teaching

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• « We're Gonna Geek This Mother Out Outreach is (un)Dead. »

21 Comments

• Emily Ford says:

  August 19, 2009 at 12:48 pm

  Thanks for a great post, Carrie!

  In read­ing this a few times now, I keep com­ing back to the ques­tion of library school edu­ca­tion. We have to learn to be authen­tic, but we also have to, in library school, learn how to teach. This is some­thing that I think can get lost in the process. These days librar­i­ans are teach­ers, even if we present no for­mal classes. But how do we learn to be such?

  Dur­ing grad­u­ate school I noticed when I had classes taught by grad­u­ate stu­dents (my peers, mind you) that I was frus­trated by lack of teach­ing ability.

  I won­der if you can offer some thoughts on edu­cat­ing librar­i­ans to be teachers?

  Reply
  • Heather Davis says:

    August 19, 2009 at 5:32 pm

    This brings about ques­tion of what should be com­bined with a tra­di­tional library edu­ca­tion. I have heard var­i­ous things such as, “I firmly believe today’s library degree needs to be com­bined with _____” (here you can enter mas­ters in busi­ness admin­is­tra­tion, teach­ing, dual mas­ters pro­gram, IT, etc.). I have heard from teach­ers and fac­ulty that not hav­ing an edu­ca­tional foun­da­tion in teach­ing is an impair­ment. I’m curi­ous if a library degree can really be a stand alone degree anymore.

    Reply
    • Carrie Donovan says:

      August 26, 2009 at 11:54 am

      Heather, I appre­ci­ate your com­ment. If you read Mal­colm Gladwell’s New Yorker arti­cle on “with­it­ness”, I think you’ll find it rel­e­vant to our con­ver­sa­tion. The arti­cle describes that the com­mon ele­ment among suc­cess­ful teach­ers (or NFL quar­ter­backs) isn’t the train­ing or expe­ri­ence they have, but it’s that cer­tain some­thing, that spark that really sets them apart from oth­ers in the pro­fes­sion. I do think hav­ing some foun­da­tional knowl­edge of edu­ca­tional the­ory and teach­ing prac­tice that comes from course­work is impor­tant, but it’s not every­thing. I have a feel­ing we will see more oppor­tu­ni­ties for peo­ple to enter teach­ing (and pos­si­bly other pro­fes­sions?) with­out so many of the tra­di­tional require­ments… sim­ply because suc­cess in these fields does not always depend upon course­work alone.

      Reply
  • Carrie Donovan says:

    August 26, 2009 at 11:47 am

    Emily, I think your con­cern is valid and there is much in the library lit­er­a­ture to doc­u­ment the dis­con­nect between pro­fes­sional expec­ta­tions of the work­place and the edu­ca­tion we receive in LIS pro­grams, espe­cially when it comes to developing/understanding our role as teach­ers. I teach a course at IU’s School of Library & Infor­ma­tion Sci­ence called “Edu­ca­tion of Infor­ma­tion Users” and I’ve received good feed­back from stu­dents in the course regard­ing the use­ful­ness of it, for their grad­u­ate stud­ies AND in finding/succeeding at that first job. Like so many aspects of librar­i­an­ship, there is noth­ing that com­pares with on-the-job train­ing for instruc­tion, but I do think a foun­da­tional course in ped­a­gogy and teach­ing prac­tice is essen­tial for future librarians.

    Reply
• Saleem Rana says:

  August 19, 2009 at 12:57 pm

  What a won­der­ful, uplift­ing post, Car­rie. I’m reminded of what Jorge Luis Borges once said about par­adise being some kind of library. It’s amaz­ing how few peo­ple love to read books when the wis­dom of the ages is at our fin­ger­tips. It was also a delight­ful sur­prise to see that your rec­om­mended view­ing tips are actu­ally some of my favorite movies.

  Reply
• Lindsay says:

  August 19, 2009 at 1:53 pm

  Great post! You seem to be writ­ing from an aca­d­e­mic library per­spec­tive and I’m curi­ous how pub­lic library instruc­tors (for com­puter classes, etc.) might relate to this. Stu­dents at a uni­ver­sity tend to be of the same age group, all work­ing towards a sim­i­lar goal of get­ting their degree. But the diverse patrons that take a class at the pub­lic library might have com­pletely dif­fer­ent goals and expec­ta­tions of the teacher. I feel like a pub­lic library instruc­tor might have a dif­fer­ent approach to authen­tic­ity in the class­room with respect to the many ethnicities/religions/ages/etc. that come with a pub­lic library. Any instruc­tors out there who have thoughts on this?

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  • Lindsay_W says:

    August 19, 2009 at 7:53 pm

    Great ques­tion Lind­say–
    I’ve taught in both an aca­d­e­mic set­ting (cur­rently) and a pub­lic library set­ting, and I’ve found that my stu­dents, be they 18 year old fresh­men or baby boomers all appre­ci­ate an open, hon­est and approach­able instruc­tor, as well as some­one who can break jar­gony library-speak, com­pli­cated OPACs or intim­i­dat­ing tech­nol­ogy down into man­age­able bits of infor­ma­tion. Being able to make con­nec­tions for them between some­thing they already know to some­thing new is help­ful as well. Car­rie really hit the nail on the head with this one! Excel­lent work!

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• Molly says:

  August 19, 2009 at 7:36 pm

  What a timely post. With Fall semes­ter in full swing, this is a great piece to reflect upon before the onslaught of library orientations.

  In response to Emily & Heather’s thoughts on teach­ing and library school edu­ca­tion, I have been teach­ing in libraries for seven years now, and every­thing I’ve learned about it has been on the job. That said, I’ve found that story telling is a great method for stu­dent engage­ment, as is ask­ing and using people’s names dur­ing a class, and get­ting as much audi­ence par­tic­i­pa­tion as pos­si­ble. I get vol­un­teers from the audi­ence to be the ‘google jockey’ at the com­puter, so i can run around and point things out on the screen. Giv­ing stu­dents a choice at the start of class is another method: what do they want to learn about the library? (remote access? how to find a jour­nal arti­cle?) and go from there. Estab­lish­ing a dia­log, rather than a lec­ture, goes a long way in engagemed learn­ing. (Most of the time. Some­times you’ll just get stuck with a class full of zombies-usually it’s right after lunch.)

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  • Linda says:

    September 8, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    I have been in a K-12 school for the last 10 years as their library media spe­cial­ist. The first year it seemed as all I did was keep study hall. I was ready to leave as soon as the year was over. After that things got bet­ter. I still spent my time just check­ing in and out books when a teacher made them get one. I am work­ing to change that as the years go by. I was in a room no big­ger than the size of half of a reag­u­lar class room but now I have a new room and some com­put­ers. I am ready to change things up. I am going back to school to learn some more tech­nol­ogy and hope to incor­po­rate it in with the classes as they come in. This is a slow process for we do not have the equipemnt, time or school­ing to do so. I am up for any sug­ges­tions to help get this library up to the point it needs to be in this day and age.

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• Michelle Millet says:

  August 19, 2009 at 9:31 pm

  Car­rie, Awe­some piece! Just in time for the start of the semester.

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• Kiyomi Deards says:

  August 20, 2009 at 2:08 am

  I am cur­rently in library school, but many years ago I was the gen­eral chem­istry lab instruc­tor at a major uni­ver­sity. Although I only taught for one school year I com­pletely enjoyed the expe­ri­ence. I always found that being hon­est with the stu­dents, hav­ing a sense of humor, and being pre­pared made everyone’s expe­ri­ence more pro­duc­tive and pleas­ant. My stu­dents seemed to espe­cially enjoy those times when I related how I had strug­gled with a con­cept, and how some­one had helped me to under­stand it as I was help­ing them. Because I was will­ing to admit prob­lems and mis­takes I had made, when appro­pri­ate, they seemed more com­fort­able admit­ting that they too had questions.

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• Julie Zamostny says:

  August 20, 2009 at 7:57 am

  Car­rie, what a won­der­ful piece to start my Thurs­day. I can really tell how influ­en­tial the Immer­sion Pro­gram was for you and I am only begin­ning to real­ize how impor­tant and inspir­ing it was for me as well. One thing that I really took away from your reflec­tion as well as from Randy’s many lessons at Immer­sion, was that if I prac­tice authen­tic­ity in my daily life, it will become much eas­ier to be authen­tic in the class­room. This is no easy task but it is some­thing I am try­ing to prac­tice each day and only time will tell how my role as a teacher will be affected.
  Thanks so much for shar­ing this.

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  • Carrie Donovan says:

    August 26, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Thanks to you, Julie!

    Reply
• Virginia @ Where You Hang Your Hat says:

  August 20, 2009 at 9:30 am

  I’ve seen Car­rie teach and she’s as inspir­ing in per­son as in her arti­cle. Authen­tic­ity is such an inter­est­ing topic, in and out of the classroom!

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• Shana says:

  August 20, 2009 at 12:41 pm

  Thank you, Car­rie! I’ve strug­gled with the con­cept of being an “authen­tic teacher” since Randy Hens­ley intro­duced it at Immer­sion ’08. Your post has helped me “get it” bet­ter and feel more con­nected to the con­cept. I’ll be work­ing on my authen­tic teacherly-self.

  Now, if only I had a nat­ural “shiny withitness!”

  Reply
  • Carrie Donovan says:

    August 26, 2009 at 12:20 pm

    I agree with you, Shana. It is a strug­gle. Parker Palmer dis­cusses the evo­lu­tion of “self” and how impor­tant it is to be tuned-in enough to rec­og­nize the changes in you and your audi­ence over time. Look­ing at things this way, it makes “self” seem even more elu­sive. Although, I do find it very calm­ing to know that even a vet­eran teacher strug­gles with iden­tity and that for PP, as well as the rest of us, authen­tic­ity seems to be always just beyond our reach.

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• Rachel says:

  August 26, 2009 at 10:35 pm

  I recently took a “Lit­er­acy and Learn­ing” course from James Elm­borg at the Uni­ver­sity of Iowa, and I agree that the rela­tion­ship between teacher and stu­dent is so impor­tant for mean­ing­ful learn­ing to take place. Isn’t teach­ing ulti­mately about a self-actualized per­son who helps oth­ers on their quest to become self-actualized, too? For me, this all ties into being “thought­ful con­sumers and cre­ators of infor­ma­tion,” as you so elo­quently put it!

  After read­ing your post, I’ve been think­ing about my role as a library school *stu­dent*. The librar­i­ans who are teach­ing me are doing their best to present the “shiny side” of them­selves, to be the “most spe­cial and charm­ing ver­sion” of them­selves — shouldn’t I offer them the same in return? I’ve real­ized that, as a stu­dent, I can often come across as defen­sive or argu­men­ta­tive. But your post has reminded me that my per­sona also affects the learn­ing envi­ron­ment. From now on, I will be try­ing to show the “shiny side” of my stu­dent self!

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• fred says:

  August 27, 2009 at 11:57 am

  i work for an orga­ni­za­tion that has often cited itself as “amongst the world’s greatest” — The NYPL — The New York Pub­lic Library. they may once have adopted the nick­name “the poor man’s uni­ver­sity” to be polit­i­cally cor­rect & more accu­rate it really should have always been known as “the work­ing man’s uni­ver­sity” or now more accu­rately “the non-working man’s uni­ver­sity”. i have worked here for 18 years mainly as YA librar­ian and i have always con­sid­ered myself a teach­ing librar­ian.
  in the last 8 years nypl has departed much from it’s ideals. since sep­tem­ber of 2001 a hir­ing freeze was declared. even though the city and the nypl admin­is­tra­tion had expe­ri­enced mainly good finan­cial times dur­ing these years.
  now instead of 7 or more librar­ian at a branch level 5 has been the quota but attri­tion has also been the rule so that many branchs now must func­tion with only 3 – 4 librar­i­ans.
  nypl has increased the amount of com­put­ers with inter­net access as well as the amount of its dvd col­lec­tion. they have weeded print col­lec­tions includ­ing ref­er­ence col­lec­tions all this while reduc­ing the amount of librar­i­ans, clerks, pages & other staff.
  some­thing is wrong here. there is no one to teach or guide patrons because every one has expanded work loads even the free com­puter classes they offer have been scaled back.
  i now dream of retire­ment while back in 2001 i had look for­ward to 15 years more at nypl.

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• Sarah Beaubien says:

  August 27, 2009 at 3:42 pm

  This is so inspir­ing! I agree that expos­ing the authen­tic self can improve teach­ing and learn­ing, but I’ve never really thought about it in this way. Thank you for express­ing it so well. A cou­ple of things I strug­gle with are 1) strik­ing the right bal­ance between teacher and “friend”, as you men­tioned and 2) try­ing to accom­plish mak­ing con­nec­tions with stu­dents in a one-shot session.

  I’m happy to see Karate Kid on your view­ing list — such a good exam­ple of scaf­fold­ing theory!

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• T.S. Eliot was dead wrong « lyndamk says:

  August 28, 2009 at 7:27 am

  […] the lat­est post on In the Library with the Lead Pipe was about teach­ing. Car­rie Donovan’s Sense of self: Embrac­ing your teacher iden­tity is like a mini call to arms for all the aca­d­e­mic librar­i­ans out there about to start the fall […]

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• Wonderful world of blogs … « Market Intelligence for Librarians says:

  October 14, 2009 at 5:55 pm

  […] Sense of self: Embrac­ing your teacher identity […]

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