Reflections on Class (November 1)

During this class we discussed what is going on with School Media Librarians. A few weeks ago I had a conversation with one of my old teachers about the difference in the sixth grade curriculum. My old school is very small, there are only about thirty-five students per grade, only one library and librarian serves grades k-12. This year the sixth grade was transferred from the elementary school to the middle/high school. Along with the change in location, an information literacy and typing class was added to the sixth grade curriculum. The librarian teaches a sixth grade class every other day. I found this change extremely interesting. I took a typing class in seventh grade, which I have always found beneficial and I received some sporadic lessons on how to conduct research when a class had a particularly research intensive project, but I never had regular classes on information literacy. I think that this change in curriculum is a definite step forward in the campaign to provide students with good information literacy skills. It is amazing what has changed in schools in the past five years. I am particularly impressed because my old school is not usually a forerunner when it comes to change so it is nice to see positive progress occurring within the school system.