If I were in charge: another way to resolve the teachers' dispute

The way is not in the sky.  The way is in the heart.  

Buddha

After reading my last blog post about why I am opposed to the teachers’ strike, my daughter Katie said it was good – with that particular inflection that lets you know there is a ‘but’ coming – but when you disagree with people about their action, it’s just annoying unless you at least outline a concrete alternative. What would you do right now, she said, if you were in charge?  

  

If I were in charge, Katie, I’d start by seeing this as an opportunity instead of a problem. There is no doubt that teachers are dissatisfied. They are repeatedly saying that they cannot do the job they love adequately anymore. They are demanding change. This dovetails perfectly with the Ministry of Education’s expressed desire for change. The current system, the introduction to the new BC Education Plan argues, is good (you can almost hear that inflection), but built on skills, practices and models of a previous century. To become great, “we need a more nimble and flexible one that can adapt more quickly to better meet the needs of 21st century learners.”

If were in charge, I would begin by seeking nimble, flexible and innovative ways to approach the current dispute, rather than inflexibly repeating refrains about affordability zones and fiscal plans. I’d begin by finding a way to orchestrate an agreement with teachers that not only fits a plan for the future, but lifts it from words to action. 

In the BC Education Plan, five key elements are identified to move our education system from good to great. One is quality teaching and learning: “A great teacher has always been the key to creating outstanding educational experiences.” Yet teachers today are saying that, given the working and learning conditions they face, they can no longer do great work. It's hardly surprising since, for years, teachers have met 21st century expectations in a 20th century model. If the government really plans to change the education system, then now is a perfect opportunity to take a real step forward.  Indeed, it may be the only opportunity: if the strife and acrimony continues, meaningful change will be thwarted by broken trust. How can we work together toward change in the future, when we can’t work together at this important crossroad today?

So if I were in charge, I’d begin by setting aside the endless back-and-forth about numbers, scarcity, limits, deadlines and deficiencies. I’d say, let’s think about possibility instead, about what needs to change in changing times so that together we can transform education, the stated purpose of the Education Plan, and embed those changes into a new agreement for working together. 

How? I’d start with dialogue. Yes, we have already been “talking” at the “table” but a dialogue is something else. Indeed, dialogue is distinguished from debate in one of the Education Plan documents: “a debate assumes there is one right answer (and you have it) and attempts to prove the other side wrong” while in a dialogue “you assume that others have pieces of the answer and you attempt to find common ground.” A dialogue is surely exactly what we need right now. Our debates have gotten us nowhere.

Who will engage in this dialogue? Anyone who wants to participate. That might seem unwieldy but so far a handful of men and women at the bargaining table have not been the answer. We live in an age where mass participation is possible; if teachers are dissatisfied, even anxious, about teaching and learning conditions, there is nothing more important than hearing them and using that information to revise the system. Who knows better than they, after all, what is necessary to move us from good to great?

The process for dialogue the Ministry used recently to engage people to review the Plan – World Café – would work for our purposes. Café conversations, as the co-originator Juanita Brown says, “are designed on the assumption that people already have within them the wisdom and creativity to confront even the most difficult challenges.” Can you ask for a more magnificent assumption? In the café process, a facilitator gathers a group of people for conversations around questions. The ideas are recorded.  That’s it. It’s that simple. 

Cafés could be held in every local, co-hosted by representatives for the government and BCTF members. In addition, people unable to participate in face-to-face sessions could join a digital session. The information could then be organized for a final “harvest” of all the ideas from across the province. To what end?  Margaret Wheatley writes, “We need many eyes and ears and hearts engaged in sharing perspectives. How can we create an accurate picture of the whole if we don’t honour the fact that we each see something different because of who we are and where we sit in the system? Only when we have many different perspectives do we have enough information to make good decisions.” I’m convinced that from the harvest key trends and alternate ideas would emerge to illuminate the path to an agreement that is a win for both sides, for the many other sides who have been losing in this strike, and for the future that is always created by our actions today.

The only thing left to do is to consider which questions to ask. Peter Block says, “Getting the question right may be the most important thing we can do. We define the dialogue and, in a sense, our future through the questions we choose to ask.”

We could start, I think, with ones already designed by Ministry staff to help them think about how to effectively implement the Education Plan.

• What do teachers need to feel supported and valued?
• What support and opportunities might be provided to teachers to improve their practice and ultimately the learning experiences of their students?
• How do our schools and school districts need to change to support more flexibility and choice in student learning?

We could consider others:

• What’s possible now that we've agreed to try this together?
• What issues do people keep returning to? 
• What can we do to reduce suffering? 
• What are we doing right?
• What’s my contribution to the difficulty I’m experiencing?
• How else can we create the resilient, nimble and flexible organization that we require? 

If I were in charge, Katie, I would get us off the treadmill of winning and losing and begin again with dialogue. Certainly it would be difficult. Certainly the media mud-slinging, the broken agreements, the bad-faith bargaining and many years of strife stand between us. But what other options do we have that allow us to move from continued hostility to a hopeful future? If I were in charge, I would begin by listening to the passionate educators who are yearning to be heard. I have enormous faith in my colleagues; I know that, as they talk and listen, as they share their convictions, and hear those of others, they will seek a peaceful conclusion to the teachers’ strike that will, more importantly, stand as the beginning of a new way, which is, after all, already here in our hearts, of working together beautifully for our children.

Finding another way to resolve the teachers' dispute

The easiest thing in the world to do is agree. It’s a way to be invisible. No one really notices the people who nod and go along. Disagreeing makes you stand out. Some people, of course, love to be noticed. They disagree, as the saying goes, just to be disagreeable. You notice them.

I hate being noticed.

I had hoped, in fact, to be largely silent on the ongoing strike. I am deeply opposed. That puts me in disagreement with the majority of my colleagues. Disagreeing is difficult enough; disagreeing with people you admire and respect, especially disagreeing with them on a topic of strong, even impassioned conviction is painful.

However, my silence implies that I agree with what is happening or that I am indifferent. Neither is true. Although I can soothe my conscience by the thought that my opinion is insignificant, that one dissenting voice in a sea of consent is irrelevant, Martin Luther King’s words ring in my mind: “Our lives begin to end when we are silent about things that matter.” This matters.

I am opposed to the strike.  This is why.

The moment you decide on a strike or lockout (and both are in place right now) you go to war. You divide into two camps, setting up an enemy, demonizing the other, and destroying the possibility, even into the future, of co-designing peaceful options. The longer the war goes on, the more firmly entrenched each side becomes, sitting on their side of the line day after day, whipped up by the propaganda of their leaders, not to think deeply about alternate options or better ideas, but to dig in deeper, to chant derisively about the other as though we are not, ultimately, on the same team.

All that is left is a possibility of “bargaining in good faith” as though that is a good dearly to be wished for. The important issues are left behind. We can only compromise and focus on numbers: wage packages, class size limits, composition requirements. The best we can hope for is the possibility of a “settlement," neither side satisfied and the third way – not my way or your way but our way – obliterated.

Once you wage war, it is almost impossible to turn back. Once you have suffered losses for your cause, once you have marched and chanted and carried signs, once you have slung accusations across the divide, once you have built the camaraderie of shared struggles against a common foe, it takes extraordinary courage to say – perhaps we were wrong. You have to believe that your actions counted, that your losses led to victory.

We lost, the minute we decided to go on strike, the opportunity to re-imagine our work. It isn't as though I don’t think the working conditions for teachers are increasingly untenable. It isn't as though I don’t think teachers need a wage increase or reduced class size or adjustments for class composition. But adjusting the numbers won’t transform education. These issues are not the problem; they are the result of years of losing our way in changing times.

Here’s the one simple change we must make: we can no longer put teachers in isolation in a classroom with many children, not if our purpose is to educate each child beautifully. Reducing the number of students by one or two or five will help but it won’t transform the classroom. Finding a formula for class composition, even if it were possible (children notoriously defy categories) may help some of the time, but it won’t make the difference we need. Adding educational assistants and specialist teachers will help, but it isn't enough. Paying more money to teachers simply acknowledges their contribution. It will help, but it won’t change practice. Truly, you cannot pay teachers what they are worth. The longer we haggle over wages, the more likely it is that teachers will work less. Who gifts their time and more important, their commitment, when they are under-appreciated and, even, during this war, despised and scorned?

Now what? A “fair deal” in the “affordability zone” may get us back to classrooms, but it isn't enough.

We need to start again differently. We need to stop advocating and start listening. We need to remember our shared purpose, to reflect on what matters to all of us. We need to ask some common questions to jump-start conversations that re-imagine education. We need to roll up our sleeves to work, think, dream, create together and find a path beyond numbers and deals and zones to where the children are.

If educators cannot find peaceful, imaginative, transformative solutions to complex problems, who can? And if we don’t, what hope can we offer for the future, which we hold in our hands with the hearts and minds of our children?

To Kathie McGregor: A Great Teacher

Perhaps I didn't say this to Kathie when I could. I hope I did. I hope she knew how much I admired her, how grateful I was for her energy, passion, commitment, willingness to learn, lead, share, pitch in. Kathie embodied the learning teacher: she always questioned, wondered, explored, applied new ideas, struggled to understand, engaged in hard conversations; she was always willing to join in, to jump into a study group, to lead learning sessions, to try new things. Her work using literacy strategies in socials studies, her experimentation in peer editing and assessment, inquiry, historical thinking and technology infused teaching have played a significant role in transforming practice in our community. She was a passionate advocate for public education.

I have been looking through my pictures. Her work is woven through the fabric of my professional life. I have dozens of pictures of Kathie - leaning forward, intense concentration, listening hard or deep in conversation, standing in front of kids to connect them to big ideas, sitting beside to them to encourage next step thinking, working with colleagues to assess or share ideas or lead conversations. Or laughing. Learning and laughing, I think, should go together like salt and pepper. They did for Kathie.

I often worry that we only notice the big and noisy things, that the extraordinary work of teachers like Kathie passes almost unseen. I suppose it doesn't matter, really. I see it. Her students and colleagues know. Her friends and family. She worked passionately, individual to individual, changing lives, changing the way we teach, changing our path. Our lives are richer for walking with her; our possibilities for the future are brighter for her committed action. Kathie was a great teacher.

When am I volunteering and when am I teaching?

The current labour dispute between BCPSEA (acting for the government) and the BCTF (acting for the teachers) has escalated to rotating strikes and a partial lockout. Teachers are locked out of the school at lunch hour, recess and may only be at school 45 minutes before the first bell and after the last one.  Unless we are volunteering. For example, although I can’t help my students with math at lunch, I may coach the football team.

At first, I was confused by priorities. Why are exceptions made for extra-curricular activities? Are they more important than the curriculum? But the priorities are simply political, I realize. Technically, we aren’t paid to volunteer. The reason for the lock-out, from what I gather, is to justify the wage cut that is part of BCPSEA’s efforts to return pressure on BCTF in retaliation for the rotating strikes. I understand that. Tit for tat. It’s the sort of thing I deal with constantly in my grade 7 classroom. Don’t hit. He hit me first. It doesn't solve anything, I say. But no one remembers that lesson, even as adults.

I remain confused, though, by what it means to volunteer in my role as a teacher. Teachers, we are told, are welcome on school property despite the lockout to support student extracurricular programs and other voluntary activities, but not for paid work. To me, this is an imaginary and unhelpful line. As teachers, we contribute our strengths in whatever way we can. The colleagues I know who coach, for example, extend the lessons of their classroom to the field or court, helping students to lead, learn, do their best. They know that if students have success anywhere, they can help them translate that success to math, to writing, to disciplined effort in the classroom. When my colleagues offer after-school drama or lunch-hour chess, they know that rich and diverse experiences help connect students to school, especially those who struggle academically or socially. Once connected in one place, they can begin to weave more connections around the student to support them in the classroom. Teachers who “volunteer” know that they can’t teach students they don’t have a relationship with. They build the relationships in any way they can. Near the end of the basketball season this year, one of my students said, “You've never missed one of our games, have you?” Of course not. More than a dozen of my students played on the team. I’m their number one cheerleader. Is that volunteering? I don’t think so. For me, it’s teaching. That doesn't mean I think watching students play basketball should be required of every teacher. It means that this year with these students it works for me as part of my plan to support them in the best way I can.

I'm even more puzzled by this: when does my work that is directly related to the classroom become volunteering? Here’s an example. For art, as we review the elements and principles of design, we’re applying what we know to the creation of our yearbook. To facilitate this, I've been spending hours at night organizing pictures and then putting them into student folders. Although it’s extra time for me, it means we can spend more class time thinking about design. First, I sorted the pictures that had been taken of them over the years. Now they are taking their own photos that use line in interesting ways, that experiment in perspective, light and shade; they've used an online editing program to play with colour and shape. Each day, I upload and sort these latest photos, so the next day we’re ready for another lesson.  Next we are going to choose photos to insert into the page layout they designed. None of this extra preparation is required.  I could give students a handout on the elements and principles of design. They could copy notes, study them and take a test. Done. I am paid in both cases, but currently I am spending more hours for the same (reduced) pay. Am I volunteering my time?

I worry about a lot of things as this dispute continues. I worry about the disruption and tension for children. I worry about the erosion of public confidence in education. I worry about the disrespectful attitude of the employer and the long-term effects it will have on employee work. I worry about bitterness between teachers as individual values clash with collective goals. But here’s what worries me most. When we begin to count teaching in hours, as if we were widget-makers in a factory, when we outline the tasks that count as teaching as if teaching can be slotted into a fixed set of activities, when we prescribe the methods for teachers as if one-way-fits-all, then I am sure that we might as well shift to online education. The infrastructure to make it happen is ready.

What makes teachers impossible to replace with machines is the “voluntary” part, the part that is a unique teacher using his or her strengths and passions and observations-in-the-moment to meet the right-now needs of children. I hope we won’t forget that.

Why we keep wasting money in education and how we can stop

Budget time is always illuminating.  If you follow the money, you begin to get a clear picture of what we value.  In education, for example, even when millions of dollars need to be cut, there is always money for new positions: in our district we now have “Instructional Coordinators” whose job it is to implement RTI, a new method – not a program we are repeatedly reminded – to assist students who struggle with learning.  In previous years we've had Literacy Lead teachers; in other districts they have technology integrationists or learning catalysts or curriculum support teachers.  In each case the purpose of these new positions is to apply and spread a “new and improved” method for teaching.

It’s understandable when you consider that, as a society, we are infatuated with “new and improved” (we put these words together as if they belong in a pair like “salt and pepper”).  Despite our criticism of the factory model in education (kids in rows with a teacher churning out the same lesson with the same worksheets to be completed in the same way by all children), our values continue to be firmly industrial: we believe in constant improvement, that everything can get better through the application of scientific principles. We don’t even ask the question – do we want to continue to improve what we’re already doing? Improvement is good.  And “new” is so tangled with “improved” in our mind that new is good.

Why do we need a new position for these new ideas?  Couldn't we simply introduce them to the existing staff?  That’s connected to another value: we want to improve quickly.  The industrial ideal sets great store by immediate results – quick profit.  We have no patience for the traditional understanding of time, of nurturing, of patience, of slow.  This value, applied to education, is revealed in our obsession with data collection to “prove” that our methods are yielding results, as though learning can be manufactured, as if it occurs in tidy lock-stepped increasing increments that can be neatly charted, as if, like big agriculture, we can find the equivalent of grow lamps and fertilizer to maximize our yield. We don’t question speed.  “Fast,” like “new” and “improved,” is always good.

But how do we get all teachers to learn, understand, accept and apply new methods quickly?  Learning, at least learning beyond rote repetition, is a slow process as teachers know better than anyone.  Teachers can “learn” new methods sufficiently to put up the posters, use the vocabulary, rearrange their classrooms - but to apply them takes time and deep understanding. A quick solution is a work-around: create a new position and hire people who already know how to use whatever method we are espousing as the “fix” for education. These new people will then inspire others by showcasing the new methods and train the rest of the staff over time.

  

It sounds like a good idea.  After all, the results should yield new and improved fast.

The first difficulty arising from this solution, however, is the budget: to afford the new positions, we need to eliminate some traditional ones. The second is that times change again. There are always newer new things. Then what?  Eliminate that new position. Create a new new one. Rehire.

  

That’s when the cost of change begins to balloon. The continuous destabilization of staff causes collateral damage. “Reorganization” always pits one group against another, strips the commitment and passion away from those who are deemed unimportant and sets them against the new group. What’s more, the new position is usually in the charge of the school district (another work-around to allow districts to rehire who they deem appropriately versed in the new and improved methods) rather than based in schools where the students are. Unfortunately, no matter how research-based our methods, in the end, it is only in relationship with children that learning happens. Every cut to schools and classrooms is a cut to student learning.

But in true industrial fashion, we might dismiss these costs if the benefits outweigh them.  Are the people in these new positions able to effect the change they are hired to implement?  Do teachers change their practice?  

A few do, of course. However, they are the ones who are already teaching in a similar way: the new method is just a variation easily adopted. For the rest, I've rarely seen it. First, learning happens in relationship. That is true for adults as well as children. Yet these new positions are set up in opposition to the rest of the staff, set up as “special,” created at the expense of some other position or program, created, in fact, because management doesn't believe teachers can change or learn without “special” support, set up, because teachers need to be fixed and aren't worthy as they are. No matter how powerful these “special teachers” are, they are put in an untenable position.

And the children?  Does all of this reshuffling of resources change their learning? No. Not one bit. As our education budgets focus on “new and improved,” students receive less and less support, since money is syphoned out of schools to pay for a constant round of changes.  And a hidden cost: teaching is an emotionally draining position. (This is very easy to understand. Simply imagine yourself in a room with 30 children for six hours five days a week.) If the environment of the teacher is stressful, negative, and frustrating, their reserves are reduced. It’s harder to remain positive and patient. And to learn, children need both in limitless supplies from their teachers.  

Despite continued failure, we still believe that new and improved ideas will fix education so that each child can learn faster and better. We simply need to do more (another industrial value). We now have “Principals of Innovation and Change” in a number of school districts (as though we can manufacture innovation). We know that teachers are the fulcrum for whatever idea we espouse, so all plans center on reshaping teachers to fit the ideas. It hasn't worked. We are now considering putting more pressure on teachers to make them more pliant. Look to our neighbours to the south. It won’t work.

   

What we need is a shift in values.

Every year we are reminded that most of our budget goes to pay staff, the biggest portion going (unsurprisingly) to teachers. What makes most sense, then, is that we value our richest resource: teachers. That doesn't mean we don’t need and want teachers to learn new methods. It means that the process starts with teachers, whose expertise and understanding of the teaching context in their school is our most valuable asset.

Here are some simple budget strategies based on valuing teachers, which at the same time, provide opportunities for learning new ideas.

• Eliminate the budget line for new positions designed to teach new methods as well as the one used to fly people in from around the world to spend an hour or two telling teachers how to teach in new ways. Instead, use the funding to provide release time in schools for teachers to learn together about what they need to know when they need to know it, to follow their curiosity, to discover, to challenge themselves, to explore together. When our learning is connected to the problems we are facing we are motivated not only to learn from others, but to create new ideas that directly meet student needs.
• Provide a budget line for what teachers want to learn. Ask them. Use that information to develop (with teachers by teachers) after-school, evening and online workshops, do-shops, making and sharing sessions. When we are part of the planning and engaged in the experience, when it matches what we need, we are excited to attend, even after a long day’s work.
• Organize meeting opportunities for people teaching the same courses – grade 7 teachers, for example, or Math 10 –  and people who are passionate about the same idea – using technology to meet the needs of diverse learners, let’s say. Do not use the time to tell them what to think. Instead, provide time for teams to co-develop lessons and resources that meet curricular objectives, to share ideas and to build a strong network of support across the district. When the experience is directly related to our work or our passion, our commitment sky-rockets, our contribution doubles.
• In the current paradigm of changing and fixing, discouragement drives shut doors and passive non-compliance. Instead, spend money gathering, organizing, sharing and celebrating the extraordinary work of teachers in the district. Not only will the school district have valuable resources and inspiration for all teachers, but simply being appreciated for the long hours, the hard work, the deep commitment, is a strong motivator to continue to do excellent work.  

Even adding the small costs that I've suggested, the savings would be enormous. The results, I’m confident, would be impressive. Not immediately, though. It would take some time. There are no quick fixes for important things. But imagine the strength that would come from not squandering the money spent on “improving” teachers.  Instead of telling them what to do – constantly retraining them to fit into some factory teaching design using the same method in the same way – we would ask them what they can contribute to our common goal, which is always the same: to educate children beautifully.

I’m not against new ideas in education. On the contrary. But in valuing ideas first, we run roughshod over people and the ideas die. If we value people first, the best and strongest ideas can spread from person to person and grow to meet the needs in schools for children.  

Imagine the power.

Waiting for the Trustees’ Decision - by Kate Girard

Guest blogger Kate Girard is a teacher-librarian in SD68.  She is a change-maker and a passionate educator who inspire kids - and me. 

“Every person deserves a place furnished with hope.”

                                                                    Maya Angelou

What do you do when you’re waiting to hear if your job is going to be cut?  Panic, talk to others in the same boat, seek the support of colleagues and family, rail against the system, defend yourself, despair?  Yes—all of these.   As a secondary teacher-librarian in the Nanaimo-Ladysmith school district, I’ve been through a gamut of emotions in the past few weeks.

But about a week ago, I made a choice:  I would not let the decision of the school board define my work.  I think of the words of the Canadian writer Alastair MacLeod who died on Easter Sunday.  MacLeod’s son Daniel recounted at the funeral his father’s advice when times got hard:  “He’d say, ‘Well, I s’pose we’ll all have to keep going.’”

MacLeod was also famous for writing the last sentence of a story when he was about half-way through:  It acted as a kind of lighthouse, he said, to guide him to his destination.  Well, I too know the last sentence of my story as a teacher-librarian.  I know where I’m going.  And I suspect most of my colleagues do as well.

Libraries are in the midst of radical change.  The technological era has transformed not just the nature of library materials but the very way we all interact with knowledge, stories, and each other.  Schools too are on the edge of a revolution in learning.

This past week, I was excited to read a presentation by Stephen Harris, founder of the Sydney Centre for Innovation and Learning in Australia.  Called “Factories No More,” it is a 2013 slideshow that suggests most schools are practicing a 19th-century model of learning.  (You’ll find the slides on his Tumblr blog called Imagine Learning.) In the factory model of education, the teacher stands at the front, dispensing knowledge and controlling the activities of students arranged in rows.  Whether a Smartboard is behind the teacher or iPads are on every student’s desk, the basic relationship of teacher-learner is unchanged.

Harris argues we have to “disrupt” this model.  He quotes Alvin Toffler: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn” (italics mine). How can we teachers unlearn the paradigm of the factory model and relearn a new kind of interaction with our students?  Harris proposes we re-design our learning spaces so we cannot revert to old roles and methods.

His own school is a flagship of modern design for 21st-century learning.  In fact, I used several photos of it when the Barsby Learning Commons Vision Team went through our initial design process.  At that time, we imagined a space that would support us in “disrupting” our pedagogy and at the same time welcome all who entered it.

However, as we know, funds for re-design are short right now.  Our process was stalled as I tried to find ways of paying for a renovation. But last week, my hope was rekindled when I saw some photos near the end of Harris’s presentation. These images showed an empty parking garage transformed into a learning commons, furnished with piles of reinforced cardboard boxes, with spaces defined by paper-covered walls.  This learning commons was created for the 2012 Sandbox Global Summit in Lisbon.

When I saw these pictures, I knew our team at Barsby could follow our vision.  We too can be creative and design a space that will challenge us to learn in new ways.  It might not be fancy, but our library can become a true learning commons—a place created by all of us, for all of us, and for the best of education for our students in the coming decades.

That’s what I’ve been thinking about as I wait to hear if my job will be cut.  I want this vision to come true, whatever happens to my teaching position.  In these hard times, I’ve decided, like Alistair MacLeod, “we’ll all have to keep going.”

We Need Teacher-Librarians Now More Than Ever

Every year for the last many in our school district and many others across our province, librarians have been on the list of “fat to be trimmed” at budget times. Perhaps it’s because the idea of libraries and librarians is connected to the past, to hushed spaces and painstaking research copied out of aging encyclopaedias.  They no longer fit in the 21st century. We have technology now. Research? Students can Google it! Books? They can download them. And the books we still have in libraries? Check them out electronically! Indeed, our district proposes streamlining the business of libraries to a half-time district librarian to order books and organize digital resources, the purchase of a new library system to allow students more flexible electronic access to all our libraries and a library clerk to open the doors, oversee students and re-shelve the books. Who needs librarians?

We do.  More than ever.

You would think that we've had enough time to learn that technology in and of itself changes nothing. You need people to think of ways to use the technology in meaningful ways, to apply their deep understanding of pedagogy and curriculum to technological possibilities. Developing a collection of digital resources, for example, is as complex as curating a physical collection. Finding relevant, stable and accurate resources, keeping them constantly up-dated and organizing them to meaningfully support curriculum and classroom teachers in a way that is easy and consistent is not a task that can be done by an assistant. It can’t even be done by district personnel. Each school, each teacher, develops unique curricular perspectives based on their students need, their own expertise and passion, and what's already available in the school. Gathering resources to meet the individual needs of teachers and students in classrooms – and oh, how important this is! – is the work of teacher-librarians. Now, with the diversity in our classroom demanding a range of resources on every topic (in shifting proportions every year), with yet another change of curriculum looming in BC, with cuts to district resource centres and classroom budgets, we need teacher-librarians. More than ever.

And because of technology, we need them to support student research more than ever. In schools with ready access to the technology, we are moving toward personalized, passion-led student inquiries, student choice and big ungoogleable questions rather than “find and record” research. We are moving from the inevitable essay to videos, websites, and digital presentations through a variety of ever-changing tools from Prezi to Voicethread. How can a teacher alone support this transition? How can they ensure students have the skills and strategies necessary? Yes, technology has changed the game in libraries, but not so we can eliminate them; we need them now more than ever. Their lessons on citing resources have morphed from correct punctuation to discussions of creative commons, how to acknowledge video clips and what music you can use for your presentation and where to find it.  They have had to be on the front line of learning about technology tools, about digital safety and cyber etiquette, about credible sources and how to help students find relevant information – the needle in the proverbial haystack of cyberspace. In our current budget proposal, library skills would now be the responsibility of the enrolling teacher. Of course. I’m just curious to know when and how they are going to learn all of these new things along with continually updating materials and pedagogy in their own subject areas. Because one thing is certain: kids need to learn these skills now more than ever. Just handing students laptops and telling them to “do research” is like giving a ten-year old the keys to a car to pick up milk at the supermarket. We definitely still need teacher-librarians. More than ever.

But it is perhaps the traditional role of the teacher-librarian that is most important now more than ever: putting the right book in the right hands at the right moment. The just-right resource (today we include, of course, a vast variety of carefully chosen digital artifacts as well, which expands the role of the teacher-librarian rather than shrinking it) can make a profound difference, moving a student inquiry from frustration and disengagement to excitement and passion, connecting students to a complex topic, inspiring new thinking and – this might seem like hyperbole, but I've seen it with my own eyes – changing lives. I have watched teacher-librarians coax even the most reluctant reader, showing him first one book, then another, watching carefully for his eyes to light up and then pouncing, stacking similar books until a match is made. I have watched them go to the bookstore in the evening to buy the next book in a series if they've caught the imagination of a reluctant reader. “Look what I've got,” I hear them say to these students who, over the course of a year or two or three, with the teacher-librarian setting the bait, become hooked at last on reading. And reading, we all know this, changes lives. But this work can’t be done by an assistant or district personnel or a new electronic library system. This is the intimate, personal (personalized) work of teacher-librarians, quiet behind-the-scenes life-changing work. And it’s more important than ever as the attention of children is seduced by the many, many choices that technology offers.

I heard someone say, and I can’t remember who now, that librarians are stewards of important things. It seems ominous that we are proposing their elimination. In this rapidly changing world where new things flash and fade continuously and abundance threatens to bury us in trivia, we need teacher-librarians. More than ever.