Thoughts After Completing Topic One

I have finally completed all the readings for Topic One and have come to some personal and educational conclusions.
* I really NEED to organise a study timetable ASAP! Between work, family, friends,building and study commitments I have felt like I was drowning at times these last few weeks - and it's only the beginning! BALANCING everything is the challenge I have set myself.
* I need to learn to say NO more often so that I don't feel so inundated with projects - though painting the School asphalt so that the kids have some crazy games and murals to look at and use will be fun:)
* I need to STOP being so concerned and critical of my study skills and accept that this is a learning journey that will have ups and downs (hopefully more of the first though!)

* The PERCEPTION of TLs by some teachers, executives and parents has astounded me! Many people believe that TLs do very little within a school because they don't have a designated 30kids with parents attached to look after. In fact when I have told some people that I am studying to be a TL laughter has been the overwhelming response followed closely by "are you sick of teaching?"
A TLs knowledge and skills as information experts, not to mention amazing ability to cater for all learners regardless of age goes un noticed. In fact, having spent some time with our very own TL at School and hearing some of the "horror" stories of ridiculous (and at times non existant) budgets, minimal admin time, dismissing the importance of tching info skills to chn as a waste of time because "they'll learn it anyway given the number of electronic gadgetry available", reducing the TL time in the Library and reallocating them back into a classroom as an Exec Relief tchr etc has really opened my eyes to the challenges that will face me.
As Robert Munsch was quoted in The Crisis in Canada's School Libraries " Teacher -librarians have nutured and watered school libraries. Not as many are doing the watering and nuturing now and, like plants, our libraries are slowly dying." - What a TRAGEDY :(

* Some of the Readings within this Topic emphasised the LINK between an EFFECTIVE TL with a well resourced Library/Info Centre and IMPROVED academic achievements. I particularly noted in the article by Haycock The Crisis in Canada's School Libraries that standardised scores tended to be at least 10 - 20% better. I linked this with the discussion about RBT vs RBL.
* I loved the quote by Haycock " ...policy makers grope around for novel tactics to solve literacy concerns - when there's a tried-and-tested solution close at hand." (sorry if the ref isn't right - I'm still learning)It started me thinking about all the different approaches to Literacy particularly in reading that I've had to implement over the years and how each by turn is replaced by a "newer" and "even better" strategy and yet we are still left with chn struggling with dvping good literacy skills.
* The emphasis on COLLABORATION btwn TL and other Staff was another idea that jumped out at me. The importance of TLs having good communication skills, extensive knowledge of Curriculum, be PERSONABLE, well developed ICT skills, be RISK TAKERS, be LEADERS etc was both enlightening and challenging.

There's so much more I could say - Roy was right - once you start it's hard to stop! But I have 3 hungry boys to feed looks like it's PIZZA TONIGHT.