Children's Literature - ETL402 - the beginning!

This week I started the subject that I have been most looking forward to in this entire course, Children's Literature. I have always had a love of picture books and sharing my favourite books with my own kids has been a lot of fun. We have all come to love The Jolly Postman series by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. Surprisingly though, my love of the Hairy Maclary series (I love the rhyme, rhythm and illustrations) has stopped at me. My son, from early on has shown a love for Pamela Allen and will still occasionally bring home one even though he is nearly 9 and they aren't in his "section" of the school library. My daughter is more of a mystery when it comes to books. Early on she liked any character that she saw on tv that was on the cover of a book, now, at 5 and a half there is no one author in particular she just likes any book about fairies or princesses. 

Some of the readings for ETL 402 deal with the history of children's literature and this, which I thought was going to be quite boring and tiresome, turned out to be very interesting. 
Some highlights are:  
* Middle Ages - stories were passed down orally and acted out in plays
* 1440's - Gutenberg invented the printing press
* 1476 - Caxton introduced the printing press to England
* 1500's - Illustrations began to accompany text
* 1689 - 1800's - The New England Primer, that taught the alphabet and lesson in morality, became popular and is thought to have sold between 6 to 8 million copies
* 1697 - Charles Perrault published French fairy tales titled "Tales of Mother Goose" and children started to read for enjoyment
* Early 1770's - adventure books became popular with Robinson Crusoe (DeFoe, 1719) and Gulliver's Travels (Swift, 1726) being published
* 1744 - Newberry published "A Pretty Little Pocketbook", written and illustrated exclusively to entertain and teach children. Illustrations became coloured, not woodcut.
* 1812 - Grimm brothers published their book of fairy tales
* 1846 - Lear published the first book of limericks and humour, "The Book of Nonsense"
* From 1860's genres in children's literature began expanding with stories about , family (Little Women by Alcott in 1867); animals (The Jungle Book by Kipling in 1894); fantasy ( Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Carroll in 1865); science fiction (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea by Verne in 1870); and poetry ( A Child's Garden of Verse by Stevenson in 1885).
* 1860's - Evans mastered mutiblock wood engraving and colour printing became less expensive and picturebooks for children began being published
* 1906 - Anderson's original fairy tales were published
* Early 1900's - separate divisions for children's literature were created in publishing houses. Children's rooms were created in libraries
* 1920's - Book week was established
* Late 1920's - children's books cost aproximately $2 and were usually onlt bought as Christmas or birthday presents. Simon Shuster began publishing Golden books for 25c
* 1930's - the offset press which developed. This enabled books to be printed in colour, inexpensively and in large quantities
* 1934 - comic books were introduced and crossword puzzle books began to be published
* 1950's - information books flooded the market
* 1971 - Scholastic began to market book clubs to Australian schools
* 1980's - Children's books were linked with popular tv shows and videos and audio tapes were released 
* 1990's - digital books began to emerge

(Information from: Barone, D. M. (2011). A brief history of children's literature. Children's literature in the classroom : engaging lifelong readers (pp. 8-19). New York: Guilford Press and Madej, K. (2003). Towards digital narrative for children: from education to entertainment, a historical perspective. ACM Computers and Entertainment, Vol. 1, No. 1.)

Bogged down ...moving on

Unfortunately I got bogged down in EER500, the reading, the research question, the refining of the research question and the re-refining of the research question that I forgot to add to my blog. Whoops!! Now that Assignment 2 has been handed in I can reflect on my learning. I found it really hard to go through all the motions of the research but finishing it with no real end. For those of you who have done the subject you will know, you don't go through with the research you just write about it. It's a little frustrating and I must admit, I didn't do a thorough job as I should have. By the time I had written 2000 words I was exhausted. There is a lot of reading and justifying of why you would use a particular research method over another. My downfall, of course, the justifying. So by the time I got to the last 1000 words I was checking ever paragraph..am I there yet?? Not good.

I cannot rave enough about our lecturer though. Bev is the first lecturer who made me feel like an actual student and not just a name in the forum. She reached out and was concerned about your progress, she emailed you back straight away, she made herself available for any little query and for that I am very thankful. The topic was hard but the lecturer, the best! I am hoping that I run across her again at some stage but who knows, 5 subjects down now, 3 to go!!!!!!! :)

Research topic dramas

I am a big fan of Bev's policy, "Don't stew" but have found myself doing just that. Honing in on a research topic has been tricky. According to Cresswell (2012), to begin your research you need to identify an educational issue that needs to be resolved. Well, I have a few doozies to choose from. My main concern is that the Teacher Librarian will become a thing of the past, replaced by library technicians or teachers aides. Secondly I am concerned about the NSW government's idea, proposing that the Principal should be in charge of allocating funds at their school. But how to turn these issues into research questions has got me "stewing". With less than a week until this part is due to be handed in, I'm going to have to go with option 3..... to be continued...

The semester begins.....

After losing my study mojo last year, I am back and ready to go!
I must admit that this subject scares me - Introduction to Educational Research. After reading the subject outline, it seems extremely daunting. On the plus side though, the lecturer, Bev Moriarty seems fabulous! I am a big fan of her positive outlook and go-get 'em attitude. Quite refreshing really. This is something that I need to remember myself, when entering a classroom, that positive energy goes a long way towards a great day of learning.
 I am off to tackle Assessment 1 (Part A) due in 2 weeks.... yikes! Wish me luck!

Has anyone fed the fish while I've been on leave??

I received an email today requesting my subject choices for next year. Hmmm. After a leave of absence, am I ready to study again? The short answer is no. The longer answer is, I am still discouraged by the comments made by the lecturer in regards to my assignments for the last two subjects. As someone who wants to be a Teacher Librarian but is not affiliated with a library because I am a casual teacher, I am finding it hard to put myself into the roles of a TL and write about them in explicit detail. (While I am writing this I am being reminded of the second reason I took a leave of absence; "Mummy, I'm hungry." and my favourite, "Mummy, what can I do now?")

So, as someone who takes on challenges with a smile (most of the time) and finishes what they start, I have re-enrolled for study next year. Call me crazy..............oh, well, at least the fish will get fed!

Reflection - ETL504

This has been a long semester for me and after much contemplation I am going to have to take time off to get some things sorted out. This topic has been an interesting one but quite draining and frustrating at times. It is hard when you aren't in a library and you don't see the goings on to envision how things could be better. For me then, Assignment 2 about the vision statement, was quite generalised. I am sure my feedback will be, as was in the first, a good beginning but ..... I was quite disheartened by the grade in Assignment 1 and now, sadly,am just hoping for a pass for this unit. I feel that as a casual teacher with the dream of being a Teacher Librarian, it just isn't enough. Perhaps I should take the information that I have learned from these subjects and be pro-active. I need to volunteer my time in a library. Perhaps that is what I'll do in my 'time off'.

So, what else did I learn from Teacher Librarian as a leader? It all seems to come back to collaboration, having good people skills and showing initiative. The concept of leading from the middle was an interesting one. It taught me that just because others don't see you as a leader, doesn't mean that you aren't one. Being a leader isn't always about telling people how to do things but by showing through attitude, work ethic, flexibility and passion that your job is important and you can help others do their jobs more easily and efficiently. You can lead by example.

The Teacher Librarian is in such a unique position because they have contact with everyone at the school. They can put their own personal stamp on everyone they meet and advocate their roles at the same time. They can use change processes like the CBAM model to help teach others about new technologies and practices. They can work with challenging staff members because they know how to manage different personality types and leadership styles. They can make a difference at their school no matter what the obstacle.

The roles and responsibilities of the Teacher Librarian are many and varied but I can honestly say that I am looking forward to the challenges and the triumphs that await me.