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I'm in school! All of my previous college credits transferred except one, and that one was a statistics course that I don't need for my intended degree, so no big.
I only need six more courses to fulfill all the core requirements for the teaching degree, then I'll transfer from the junior college to UAB and go straight into the TEP (teacher education program).
I do have some work to do on my GPA, it's about three tenths of a point below what will be needed to get into the TEP, so I need to do well in the junior college courses. I have long since given up chastising myself for the stupidity that overcame me when I was 19, heck I was a different person. And I can make good on it now.
I am so excited I can't stand it! I tried to enroll in the October mini term, but my advisor told me there is nothing there I need, and I would be better off waiting until January.
UAB has a 5th year program, that will get me my master's in education, then I can go to U of Alabama for the master's in library science, and it won't even be a full program, because many of the courses I need for the master's in Educ. will also count for the MLIS.
I was offered a job I had to turn down, and I felt like crying because it would have been wonderful - a storyteller for the public library system. I would have been responsible for coming up with storytelling sessions, and developing reading lists, and traelling to several different libraries to tell stories and work with kids. But, when I told my friend that I had to turn it down because I was going to school to finish up and get my certifications to be a school librarian she was very happy and excited.
Their entire school system has unqualified librarians. They have teachers, without library certification doing it because they can't find enough qualified librarians. That results in a lot of paperwork for the principal, because under NCLB, there are particular requirements they are supposed to have, and they have to send in stuff to the state dept. of ed to allow them to temporarily hire non-class A librarians.
When I graduate the MLIS program, I'll have my Class A.
The reason they can't find any? Pay. It pays the same as a teacher's salary, but requires more schooling. In fact, when I told my husband what the current salary for a school librarian was he told me that I wouldn't be able to pay our income taxes. How nice. Guess no one can say that I am doing it for the money!
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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Dag, I was initially worried about it, didn't think my personality was cut out for it.
But, I've found that one of my greatest passions is working with kids and books. I mean, my six year old Emily, is learning to read now and I can't remember feeling more wonderful that I do when I'm sitting down with her and helping her sound out words, and watching her face light up when she realizes she read an entire page without my help!
My oldest is gifted, and practically taught herself to read. She needed very little help from me. I never thought I would have the patience to work with a child that struggled, but reading doesn't come naturally to Emily and I have found that I enjoy nothing more than helping her.
I also do a lot of storytelling and puppet shows, and things like that with kids at church, and they actually request me now! Sharing stories, sharing reading, sharing books with kids is what I want to spend my life doing.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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quote: The reason they can't find any? Pay. It pays the same as a teacher's salary, but requires more schooling
Yeah -- there was a gal in our local school who was librarian for years, but without certification, etc. She went back to college and got her librarian degree/certificate, and they refused to pay her a dime more than she had been getting uncertified. So she quit. They just hired in some other poor, uncertified and non-degreed person to do it instead. It was too bad -- she was really good.
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Congratulations Belle! That is really fantastic. Kids and books are fun. I always liked to be the one to teach my own kids to read. It was a door that I wanted to be the one to open for my kids.
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Congratulations! My high school librarian was one of my very favorite school authorities. (I cannot say teacher because she did not teach a class, just helped students out.) Whichever school you end up working for will be very lucky.
Posts: 1364 | Registered: Feb 2003
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AHA!!! I've always suspected that librarians were lusty elven wenches in disguise.
Congrats on your decision. I am sure that you will make a WONDERFUL* librarian, and will transfer your love of reading (and writing) to the children who visit. Who undoubtedly will be many: your imagination will create attractions that few if any could resist.
I do hope that you will continue to fill your few spare moments with writing. Of all people I have met online, you are the natural storyteller. That rhythm and style are gifts that few authors have, or achieve. Don't let the academics crimp your grace.
* Wonderful in the old sense of the word: filling with wonder. And the children who come under your influence will leave with more curiosity about the wonders of their World than they had when they came in.
BTW -- School librarians are amongst the lowest paid. Corporate librarians top out at more than a quarter million dollars per year. Setting up and maintaining data mining resources is an extremely high stakes business. And likely to get become ever more so as the amount of raw research to be gathered&collated increases exponentially. So the shortage of librarians doesn't look likely be filled anytime in the forseeable future. It's always nice having the upperhand in the employment picture.
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That's wonderful, Belle! Good school librarians are sorely needed; I know many kids will come to love reading under your influence Posts: 2711 | Registered: Mar 2004
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Vera, I used to work at UAB, I'm well familiar with the parking situation!
Aspectre, you brought tears to my eyes. Thank you! I do love telling stories, whether through writing, or audibly. I'm still doing some writing, a lot of it is focused on kids more and more (surprise, eh?) I also find that I read YA literature a lot more now, and I love it.
Kids are so much fun to share things with. I'm volunteering to work with our 4th-6th grade group at our church, and I like that group.
I told my husband after visiting our elementary school library that if I were ever given free-reign by a principal, I'd certainly change the looks of an elementary library! I'd get rid of the table and chairs lined up in a row. I'd bring brightly colored cushions and make reading nooks out of every corner I could. I'd take down all the institutional looking posters and put up huge framed corkboard where I could change out artwork done by the kids themselves.
I'd bring in Cherie (the artist of the family) to paint a huge mural along one wall - straight out of Where the Wild Things Are
There's be puppets, and stuffed animals. Computer stations, and shelves full of puzzles.
And, when all my kids are old enough, I'd like to run an after-school care program in the libary, so kids can come there between school letting out and their parents picking them up. I'd have older students serve as homework helpers and mentors to the younger ones.
Of course, most of this is a dream - I am sure I'll never be able to do it all. But man, I'd like to do as much as I could.
Posts: 14428 | Registered: Aug 2001
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we had many of those things in my elementary school's library, murals not just from "where the wild things are" but from many children's books, comfy pillows, a story room with tape lines on the floor to create rows, whenever you looked at a book you put it on a table to be reshelved, dozens of parents and grandparents that volunteered hours just checking out and reshelving books. Three times a year we would get a free book from the RIF (reading is fundemental) program. The librarian was amazing, this was a fundlacking county school. I volunteered there my senior year, with the new librarian everything was very organized in set up, kids weren't allowed to sit on the floor, they had tables and a few comfy chairs, the reading room had chairs, the posters on the walls were very boring "read" with michael jordan or madonna or something on them, the librarian does all of the checkouts, though she is nice (very young, 26) she just seems stricter and much more scared to follow rules less innovative. They still have the rif program. When the old building was torn down this spring the old librarian and the music teacher (my favorite teacher from there) went and got the old muralized concrete blocks, as well as the corner stone of the building, a piece of limestone that was dug from the site of the building in the 40s.
(wow I just went on and on )
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YAY Belle!!!![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Way to go!
