Week 31 Interdisciplinary Connections

At the beginning of Week 31, my understanding of the area of interdisciplinary connections was not quite in focus.  Is it all about the relationships we develop throughout our practice or, as Barton and Smith contend, addressing content from several subjects simultaneously?  As the week has progressed, with time and further reading, it is now crystal clear that it actually means both of these things.

As a wannabe teacher (I start my training next year), I can see that an interdisciplinary approach in the classroom certainly provides the potential for learning to be more authentic, to reflect real life, to be more individualised, and to give students more choice about their learning.  The curriculum areas are, in reality, all interconnected, and if we want to ensure that our children gain the skills they need for the future, their learning needs to be based around real life and relevant problem solving.

The same can be said for my practice within the school library - it takes a lot of interrelated connections to ensure that we have a library that is meeting the needs of its stakeholders.  In the words of poet John Donne, “no man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main”.  Slam dunk, Mr Donne!

When I look at my own interdisciplinary connections map, I see that I interact with a wide range of people and organisations, and each of those relationships offers particular skills, resources and knowledge, along with differing styles of communication, thinking, problem solving and collaboration.  

I’m in an interesting place in my library at present. Buildingworks have put pressure on our school site and the library has had to move, temporarily, to make way for a couple of classes to use it as a classroom.  Of course, my initial reaction was one of horror - how will the children access books? More importantly, how will they access the books that they want to read, that speak to their hearts and minds? How do I pack up 8,500 books into boxes whilst maintaining a high quality of service? How will this affect the strong relationships I have built through regular contact with the children?  Now, a couple of months down the track, in a classroom that’s aching for renovation, surrounded by boxes of books and the varied detritus of my old premises, my mind is racing with the thought of what I can do this term, freed from the routine of class visits.   I know I need to deal with new books and old, put together a strategic plan, and further develop resources for teaching our children information literacy skills.  But I must also maintain the delivery of reading material to support the curriculum and to engage the children.

There is a lot of thought, work, research and heart that goes into ensuring that the kids are excited about reading, and I don’t want to lose the momentum that has been so hard-earned.  I may be out of my space for up to a year, and my current abode is for only one term.  Then, who knows where our library will be?  So, my near future goal is to ensure that whilst our library services are limited, the children are still getting just what they need to feed their love of books, and the teachers have access to books that support the children’s learning.  As Lyn Barrett (2010) has pointed out, numerous studies have shown the positive correlation between both an effective school library and student achievement, and also between reading enjoyment and raised student achievement.  It’s important not to drop the ball.

To do this, I will need to draw on a number of my interdisciplinary connections, all of which have a vested interest in finding solutions.  

• Firstly, the teachers at school, both to keep me informed of their curriculum and student needs and also to ensure that they continue to grow a love of reading in their children, my mission in life!  
• National Library offer a great service in supporting school librarians, and they have many resources, ideas and advice for just this sort of situation.  
• I will also call upon my Community of Practice, and the online community in offering their ideas, experiences, support and resources.  
• The District Library will be able to fill any gaps that I can’t and I will continue to push their BorrowBox service which offers children free audio and ebooks on loan.  
• I will also call upon some of my personal connections to build three ‘tiny libraries’ to enable the children to share and exchange books whenever they want to.
• Lastly, I will need the help of the children, who truly love their library, most particularly my student librarians and library leaders, to help me to get the books out into classrooms, moving them around, and being active promoters of the library, despite its temporary ethereality.  

This exercise has been of great value.  When you are neither a teacher nor a teacher aide, nor work in the school administration, working in the library can sometimes feel quite isolating. But one look at my interdisciplinary connections map, and I see that there are connections galore.  The benefits of capitalising on these connections are tremendous - relationships strengthened, an increased sense of a community contributing to a worthy goal, strong collaboration and cooperation drawing upon the varying skills of many, joint problem solving and therefore a shared vision.

I’m so glad that no man is an island!

References

Barrett, Lynn. (2010): Effective school libraries: evidence of impact on student achievement School Librarian 58,3 (2010), pp.136-13.  Retrieved from http://www.stratfordcollege.ie/content/files/sla-effective-school-libraries.pdf

Barton, K. C., & Smith, L. A. (2000). Themes or motifs? Aiming for coherence through interdisciplinary outlines. The Reading Teacher, 54(1), 54-63.1.  Retrieved from https://app.themindlab.com/media/32978/view

Donne, John. (1624).  No Man is an Island.  Retrieved from

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/no-man-is-an-island/

Images retrieved from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/