Throughout my career, I bounced back and forth between being a classroom teacher and holding educational technology jobs. Both have been challenging and rewarding. Building a community of learners and helping them grow in academics, social skills, and character has been an honor and a delight. When the long hours of being a classroom teacher wore me down, it was energizing to switch to educational technology. When the meetings kept me away from teaching, I switched back to the classroom.
Now, I am back in the US after spending 21 of the past 23 years overseas. It is time to make another leap. This time, the library calls to me. School libraries allow library workers to see children grow through their years in that division. Reader advisory is a particular delight of mine. I read over 100 books each year, a chunk of those are middle grades and young adult books, giving me many options for new and older books to share with patrons. Crafting my classroom library was a point of pleasure and pride. My library needed to provide windows and mirrors for my students, especially during the pandemic when they had little access to the school library.
Revamping my teaching/ed tech résumé for library jobs is proving challenging. This fall, I will start taking library sciences courses. In the meantime, there are many resourse to explore on my own. This MARC records course is a useful resource that covers the following topics:
Deciding which type of library certification to undertake is my current dilemma. Being a school media specialist is a special interest of mine. Unfortunately, many schools in my area no longer staff that position. Some districts have media specialists running between multiple buildings each day. That is challenging and doesn’t allow the media specialist to collaborate with the building staff. I could pursue an associate degree from Minneapolis College, a media specialist certificate from St. Cloud State, or a full master’s degree from Saint Catherine’s. I already hold a master’s degree, so I am less likely to pursue that option despite that being an excellent program.
Do you have any words of wisdom to help guide my choices?
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