Hello to those of you who are back on deck. This is going to be the year for school library advocacy, I can feel it in my bones! Here's a great way to start your year. Share this Principal's blog post with your Principal on the first day back.
The writer is a school principal who makes it his business to walk the talk of literacy. He is a reader, knows it and shows it, and expects his teachers to be readers, too. How can we expect kids to be readers and life-long learners if we don't ALL model those behaviours every day?
If literacy is identified as a priority in your school, you could use a blog post like this to get the conversation started, and perhaps ask that your Principal supports you by choosing something from this list that he or she could do. It might be that you make the approach by having an outline of the ways that you model your commitment to literacy and ask the Principal's advice on how that might be extended to staff, using the examples from the blog post. Or you might approach it by creating your own list of suggestions, and ask that the Principal, your TLR or a literacy leader in the school works with you to explore ways to bring staff and the school community on board.
Maybe you could use this example as a template for the first of your regular contributions to the school newsletter, offering families some ideas about how they can support literacy at home. This is the perfect time of year to explain to families that, unless their children spent time reading over the summer, they will have lost ground on their reading scores - again, the perfect start to a conversation.
Any of these methods would allow you to present yourself as a leader in your school, which is the best first step in library advocacy. So put your shy and modest self back in the closet, and choose the new, assertive, confident and professional version instead. L'Oreal says it best - You're worth it. Now show the world what you have to offer.
All the best for 2012
Our year of advocacy
Donna Watt
