I seem to be thinking about the intersection of teaching and libraries a lot lately, and it keeps appearing in my classes. The need to understand the basic principles of learning even appears in the ALA's Core Competencies. I've been thinking about how libraries are great for self-education (and that's a thought I've been having for most of my life) but more than that, I've been thinking about the fact that increasingly, librarians teach as an integral part of their careers. I'm now one semester plus a few weeks into grad school and a library job, and I can say with relative certainty that I want libraries to be my career, teaching included. I enjoy teaching people about information resources. However, I have never wanted to be a teacher. I admire those who do, but it was never the career for me. And so, the news as brought by Kristin that librarians are teachers...even though they're not always trained to be (Operational Assumption for the class) gave me pause.
There are lots of reasons for the increase in teaching in librarians' job descriptions among them shifting roles in libraries, a shrinking reference desk with fewer, more in-depth questions, an emphasis on showing patrons how to research, rather than researching for them. None of those are reasons I have an issue with. I like in-depth questions. I like showing library patrons new-to-them patrons library resources even more. Really interesting queries can stay in my head for weeks. This is all teaching. So, why did I never want to me a teacher?
I suppose I never wanted to stand in front of a room of people, many of who didn't want to be there, and be in charge of their learning. This is the model that many of my K-12 classes held to, with some rare and wonderful exceptions. As we discussed in class, my education up until college was broadly a coverage model, determined by what the teacher had talked about rather than an understanding model focusing on what the student has understood. Not all of my classes where like this all the time- I actually got an excellent education- but it was what teaching looked like to me. Which is rather sad, if you think about it.
Which leads me to the question: are libraries any different? Ideally, yes. Librarians and information professionals would love to have everyone show up at the library of their own accord, eager to learn. However, the reality is that we also see the seventh-graders whose proposal for the science fair project is due on Monday (and it is 4 pm on a Sunday). We see the parents trying to find the parenting book suggested to them by their pediatrician while their toddler makes a break for the stairs. We see patrons who are not interested in how copy and paste works, just so long as they don't have to retype their email. In short, a lot of our interactions are with people who do not want to sit down and learn something new. Which might be why librarians need to learn how to teach. We need to learn about acquisition (the taking-in of knowledge), and making meaning, and transfer (how something learned in one setting can be applied to another setting) so that we can better assist the patrons who did not come in with the goal of learning something new. Librarians are teachers, even if we have classes of one in fifteen minute increments all day. Even if our classes are college students sent to the library by their professor to learn about information literacy. Even if our classes are the under-2 set and their parents and we sing about Old McDonald- it's still teaching. If being a teacher is also going to make me a better librarian, then I will learn to be a teacher.
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