Dis-Owning It

I recently asked a friend if she’d like to be on my podcast. On it, school librarians share a lesson, activity, or program they’ve done so others can add another tool to their kit.

She replied, “I think my every day is barely average for most of my school library peers.”

I disputed, and continue to dispute, her self-assessment. But her demurral got me thinking about my own self-assessment.

Low S.O.

As the great philosopher and punk vocalist Henry Rollins once said, “I know the self doubt that runs inside your mind; I know the self doubt that treats you so unkind.”

I wouldn’t say I have a low self-opinion, but I cannot take a compliment. And I mostly think that if I can do something, it can’t be that difficult. In fact, I usually figure I am the last person to come to a conclusion or implement a program. 

Overall, I think of myself as a pretty average person. So I’m taken aback when other people seem impressed by something I’m connected to. 

Recently, I ended up creating a biography. Listing out my accomplishments, experiences, and skills felt like bragging. But seeing the page start to fill up made me pause for a second. We are the sum of our experiences; and these days, I seem to have quite a few experiences to sum up. 

“Who, me?”

When asked to co-host a webinar about civil discourse and news literacy in the classroom, I thought, “Who, me?” 

Sure, I wrote and taught what was essentially an information literacy class for several years. In that same course, and across more than twenty years of being an English teacher, I worked with students on having thoughtful, polite discussions. I’ve presented on and shared those lessons at several states’ conferences. But if asked, I wouldn’t call myself an expert. 

And yet, that’s what I’ve become through the experiences I think of as pretty mundane.

What’s Everyday For Me Is a Revelation for Someone

I am usually more excited by building on past successes and getting to the next thing, rather than focusing on those successes themselves. As an example: 

  • For the first time since 2018, my middle school students have a physical library space in September. (I actually started the space in January of last year. Up until then, my students were unable to access the physical library space, which was at the connected high school. Our online catalog let students browse, and I served as the runner, bringing holds to students.) 
  • In the first week of school, we checked out more books than we did in all of the previous September. 
  • In the first two weeks of school, we checked out more books than in our best month last year. I have students spending time in the space, where they not only browse books, they also work on schoolwork and hang with friends. 
  • Our daily Puff Poll (a “Would you rather…?” question, often from a student, where students vote by taking a one inch fabric puffball from a center bowl and dropping it into one or the other canisters sitting in front of the answer choices) has used up all the puffs nearly every day since school started. 

By most objective measures,  I am currently winning at librarianing. And yet, despite these successes, I am currently thinking about how many things I haven’t gotten done. 

“It’s Not Bragging, it’s advocacy!” -A. Jones

My principal has to practically twist my arm before I will take pictures to share with our social media person or share library information in the parent newsletter. When I do, I feel embarrassed, like I’m tooting my own horn. 

But as my principal keep reminding me: If no one knows all the good things going on in the library, they’re not going to care whether or not there’s a library.

Amanda Jones puts it even more succinctly: “It’s not bragging, it’s advocacy!” 

New (School) Year’s Resolution

It’s with all of this in mind that I’m resolving to “own it” this school year. 

I’m working on accepting compliments. I have set up calendar reminders to take regular pictures and journal to document what’s going on in the library. 

I specifically stopped what I was doing at one point the other day to get a picture of the first student using my new Marble Maze Maker Station, where folks are invited to build a LEGO maze on a baseplate, drop in a marble, and try to maneuver from one end of their maze to the other by tilting the baseplate. 

Each of these accomplishments is only a pebble. But as I accumulate more pebbles, I can mix them together with data and documentation and pictures to form them into stories about my program. Each starts to take on a shape. Eventually, I’ll build a robust, thriving library program with a thousand thousand pebbles connected by a thousand little accomplishments.

And I’m going to try to take pride in every one of those pebbles. Because if I hadn’t gathered each one, they wouldn’t be there for my students and staff. That means I’m doing good work. 

So pardon me for a moment while I give myself a pat on the back.