Teacher Librarian as Leader

"In more than four decades of studying businesses and consulting to organizations on how to implement new strategies, I can't tell you how many times I've heard people use the words "leadership" and "management" synonymously, and it drives me crazy every time. "

VIDEO: What makes good LEADERS

"The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has been working closely with key education stakeholders to develop the Australian Charter for the Professional Learning of Teachers and School Leaders (the Charter). The Charter describes the importance and characteristics of high quality professional learning in improving teacher and school leader practice. "

The success of any kind of social epidemic is heavily dependent on the involvement of people with a particular and rare set of social gifts

This list has been around for some time and is useful in placing the elements in order and the problems associated with them if any are missing.

"This presentation for school library professionals provides an update on what Australian school library professional associations are doing in preparing for the introduction of national professional teaching standards and identifying ways in which teacher librarians need to think differently, act differently and learn differently."

"The Australian Institute for Teaching and School Leadership (AITSL) has a role to establish a shared and agreed platform from which the quality of teaching and school leadership can continue to grow."

Studies conducted over the past two decades show that students in schools with endorsed librarians score better on standardized achievement tests in reading.

"The Learning Futures programme was established in order to find out more about how best to make schools more engaging places to learn. Engaging learning involved good leadership in learning environments. This document is well worth exploring as it positions schooling within a culture of 21c learning

Lisa Oldham, Development specialist for school library futures at Lisa Oldham, from the National Library, discusses the future of school libraries. Lisa describes how school libraries are a great way to achieve the creation of skilled students who are able to navigate in the knowledge economy.

" There are many aspects to the role teacher-librarians. Teacher-librarians are curriculum development leaders as well as a collaborative teaching and planning partners for the classroom teacher. They can be leaders into integrating technology into instruction in the school. They are the information specialists who provide both physical and intellectual access to material through teaching the knowledge, skills and values required to use information and to communicate knowledge ethically and effectively. Teacher-librarians must also be involved in revising and rewriting policies and procedures that are important to meet the needs of the twenty-first century. They are resource managers and must be up to date in reviewing new materials in order to develop their collections."

It seemed that the nature of the challenges that managers were facing were rapidly changing; however, the methods that we were using to develop them were staying the same.

"As a person finally acknowledges that doing the same thing will not bring about a different desired outcome, a reflection emerges as "How do I get unstucked from where I am now?" Donna Howes shares her workshop experience on Dr. Robert Kegan's behavior improvement approach to "Immunity to Change". The good things ahead start with a rigorous adherence to the step-by-step process of recognizing where one is at the moment and where one desires to be in the future. The change process works at the individual as well as at the organizational level. "

"The old-fashioned view of leadership is that leaders are marked out for leadership from early on in their lives; and that if you are not a born leader, there's little you can do to become one."