It is the responsibility of the media specialist to make sure that the media center serves ALL students and this would include all populations: boys and girls, special needs students of all abilities, all students whether English is their primary language or not, and all races. One of the best things about this program for me personally is to discover that this is a responsibility to be taken very seriously. Even a powerpoint presentation that you will show to students needs to represent all populations. Books that are ordered need to show the diverse population at the school---there should be something for everyone!
One of the classes that I have this semester is the Exceptional Child course. I am taking this course at Kennesaw State and my teacher has a background teaching in elementary and middle school as a special education teacher. This class has been so enlightening. Let’s face it, whether you are going to be a general classroom teacher or a media specialist, you will be having contact with every type of child. I have learned how important it is to do lessons for a wide range of learning styles. The media center is a wonderful place to promote different teaching methods where all students will benefit. During a field experience for this class, I got to see how the inclusion classroom works and how different teachers handle co-teaching with a special educator. Some of these students use the Alpha Smart hand held computer for typing in answers and printing out class work. Some of them need to be constantly challenged in order to stay on task. I think that as a media specialist, we are in a very good position to offer options to teachers to help all students—collaboration techniques, help with understanding how technology can benefit some of their students, giving support to the regular AND the inclusion classroom teachers.
At my mentor’s media center, there is a very small area designed to help students with ESL issues. I think this is also something that we can promote more at the media center. I believe that all students need to learn and be very functional in English, but the fact remains that many of our students will come ill-prepared to do all work and reading in English. I like the idea of having an area of simple books and Spanish language books; I even like the idea of promoting technology tools that can help these students online.
We wear many hats as media specialists. I think we all should be vigilant in looking at the media center as a place that welcomes and serves ALL populations.
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Excellent points! The media center is like a "hub" for all learners. It is important for media centers to include all groups when ordering books, giving presentations, and any other activities that coincide with the school and media center. I hope that our school will embrace the ESOL learners more in the future. I suggested the morning announcements include a Spanish version because of our growing population, but the MS did not want the "extra" work- very sad. When I am a MS I hope I can take suggestions from patrons and make the media center a wonderful place for ALL students.
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You are so right. As a LMS we have to wear many hats. We have to consider gender, race, special needs, and ESL learners. You mentioned when placing book orders, and my mentor told me how our school has changed. Now because of the high Hispanic population at our school, she orders more soccer books instead of baseball for example, and high-interest low-level readers for this population. She keeps a list of how often certain magazines are checked out, and our Hispanic magazines like "La Teen" are checked out more than others. As an ESL teacher for six years now I know some great ESL resources/websites: Dave's ESL Cafe at www.eslcafe.com, ESL Resource Center, and ESLgold.com
ReplyDeleteWhen I spent a full day at our media center recently and the special needs class came in, the LMS gave lots of hugs and the clerk read them a story. It is important to take time to do these things with students.
I agree that it is the media specialist's responsibility to build a collection that meets the needs of all the students and teachers in the school. Our school has a small, but growing, population of ESL students (mostly Spanish-speaking). Do you believe that Spanish-English books should be in a separate location which makes them easier to find, or should they be shelved with all the other books? I have heard this debated in one of my classes, and since I may have to make a decision about this in the future, I would like other media specialist's and teacher's opinions.
ReplyDeleteMy school does have a large population of special needs students. Most of them are inclusion, so they come to the media center with their homeroom class, but at the request of one of the special education teachers I have taught small groups of special needs students. It was an interesting and rewarding experience. I hopes that she asks again.