Help! Literature in Education

I am starting a new subject at uni called "Literature in Education" and I'm putting out the call for help.

What children's literature is in your school library? How is children's literature being used to enhance the education of children at all levels of schooling?

I am looking specifically at Contemporary Realistic Fiction for my first assignment. What are the current trends and themes in this area of children's literature? Can you suggest any current examples that are popular, relevant, and used in schools?

I appreciate your help! If you can post a link to this blog entry on your blog, or tweet a link to it so it gets to as many people as possible, that would be wonderful :)

Thanking you in anticipation.

Josh is a Good Citizen - Values in Education

My gorgeous boy Joshua received a "Citizen of the Month" Award today at school.

Here he is proudly showing off his certificate.

In the second photo you can see the badge he received pinned to his shirt.

Citizen of the Month is something that Josh's school does in response to the Australian government's push for values education in all schools. The nine values for Australian schooling are:

• Care and Compassion
• Integrity
• Doing Your Best
• Respect
• Fair Go
• Responsibility
• Freedom
• Understanding, Tolerance and Inclusion
• Honesty and Trustworthiness

Josh received his award for Fairness - "Pursue and protect the common good where all people are treated fairly for a just society."

If you want to find out more about Values in Australian Schooling, head here.

What value do you think schools should teach?

And, for my overseas readers, a special treat! Here is a close up picture of the spider Josh and I found outside when we were taking the photos.

I'm having a really lousy morning. My 8 year old son cried his eyes out as he left with his sister and grandparents to go to the zoo because he wanted me to come with him. That's pretty bad.

I guess I am supposed to use this blog to organise my thoughts about the role of the teacher librarian. So far I haven't done much of that.

To be honest, before starting this course I thought of the TL job as quite peaceful. I imagined it as lovely to have my own domain and be able to potter away at relaxing tasks like reorganising bookshelves. I'm a little disappointed (to say the least) that the vision for a modern TL is so dynamic!

Having said that, though, I can't help myself from feeling a little bit excited about the possibilities for collaborative teaching and using innovative technology and methods in teaching. (Once an idealist, always an idealist.) In my teaching experience, I never had the opportunity to collaborate with others, share ideas, teaching materials and support one another. It was my biggest disappointment, and probably the main reason why I didn't last too long in the classroom. I had a lot to give, in terms of enthusiasm and ideas, and other teachers would have been lucky to have me to collaborate with. Their loss, but also mine, because I never felt happy as a teacher.

I also never taught in a context that allowed me to experiment with different methods and resources. It was just not done. The first priority was always keeping your classes under control. The second was getting them to pass tests. I used to be scared to even pass out compasses in geometry lessons for fear that the students would stab each other, and I could not be myself with students because they did not respect a smiling, young, female teacher.

Wow! It feels good to get this stuff off my chest. As a teacher, I never once even spoke to the teacher librarian or visited the library. (As a maths teacher that's possibly easier to understand than if I taught some other subjects.) I don't remember anything at all about the libraries from either of the two schools that I taught the longest at. I wouldn't have a clue what their collections were like, or what wonderful resources, help and support I passed up by not being involved with the TLs.

Might post again later today with more...

Just a quick post to suggest checking out http://www.andrewsproject.webs.com

This is the school project of a classmate's of my daughter.

I have noticed quite a few things about my children's school projects:

• the teachers try to allow children to present their knowledge using a range of techniques and tools
• children are rarely given information about what is expected from them
• the children's products vary considerably, especially in standard
• the children are not explicitly taught any skills or processes to use when working on their projects
• my daughter doesn't enjoy research
• my daughter likes everything to be quick, neat and easy.

Ok, so I've actually started writing my first assignment - hooray for me! My daughter competed in a ballet eisteddfod today and got third place for her classical solo - hooray for her! School fete was on today, managed to make an appearance during the lunch break of the eisteddfod. Will be back there (at the eisteddfod) tomorrow, then off to the doctor on Monday...things have not been conducive to study lately.

A lot of people seem to be asking a lot of very detailed questions about the assignment on the forum. It makes me feel like I'm not worrying about it enough. But I have to follow my own instincts and answer the questions in the way that I think is best. I can't be swayed by what other people are stressing about. I have a sneaking suspicion that no matter what, I'll have a mad rush at the end. There's nothing like a deadline!

Interestingly enough, while working through the assignment, which deals with the resourcing requirements of a unit of work, my mind is constantly turning to the teaching of the unit. I keep getting great ideas for activities and start feeling enthusiastic about it. But I'm not even a classroom teacher at the moment, and don't have any desire to be one! I guess I'm really putting the T into the TL. I hope that because my mind is firmly on the actual teaching and learning of the unit, I will be able to be very insightful about the resources that will and won't be suitable. Already I've found heaps of great books; more than I can include in my assignment. My biggest worry at the moment is all the books and other resources that I haven't looked at yet.

The Real World...

Had an interesting weekend...While at a friends house, he commented on his daughter's maths homework. (I'm a maths teacher, people often tell me about their children's maths homework.) She had an assignment to complete which involved her researching a particular type of "special number". She had a list to choose from: Square numbers, Pascal's triangle, the Fibonacci sequence etc, and had to produce a poster with a definition, any special properties or applications of these numbers and any other interesting facts she could find out about them.

See what had fallen into my lap? A real world example of "inquiry based learning"! From chatting with her father, hearing about her approach to the task and seeing her finished product, I am able to make the following statements.

1. This task/topic was not at all motivating to this student. She had not engaged with it at all.

2. The expectations for the product of this task were not clear enough. (Her product would not pass at all under my reading of the task description. However, she and her parents seemed satisfied with the result.)

3. The methods and skills for completing this task were not explained, taught or modelled. After completing the task, the student knew nothing about the Palindromic Numbers she had chosen to study, and had no idea how she would go about finding more information if she wanted to. (She didn't.)

4. Parents are often ill-equipped to help students complete inquiry based tasks at home. These particular parents were happy to help but really didn't have the skills to do so. They also didn't have a clear understanding of the expectations of the task. (Did anyone?)

I can appreciate that this task was a well-meaning attempt by the teacher to depart from the "chalk and talk" and exercises from the text of a normal maths lesson. But I don't think the execution has been very successful.