Saturday, June 27, 2009

Time to move on...

I titled my last post "It is the best of times, it is the worst of times." The last several days has definitely felt like the worst of times for me personally. My job as teacher librarian at Lindero Canyon Middle School is now over, and I learned Wednesday afternoon that I wasn't offered one of the new media specialist jobs in its place. Having given my all to my school library for seven years and built a program of reading and enrichment and of information literacy, research, digital citizenship, and integrated technology instruction that I believe was outstanding, made that decision feel devastating. As of today, though, I am honestly starting to feel, instead, that it was a blessing in disguise. My future right now is very uncertain --- will I work as a language arts teacher at my school, integrating all my library and tech expertise for my students and continue to enjoy the comraderie of my language arts teacher friends, or will I find a school library position elsewhere where I can begin a new adventure sharing my passion for libraries and all my library and tech skills? That, I don't know right now. However, I now welcome either of those prospects, and honestly believe that either of them will be a better use of my skills than I would have in the new positions where I would have been stretched so thin between different schools that I would have been unable to fully develop the kind of programs I would want to at any of them. If you are reading this, please cheer me on to my new tomorrow :)

P.S. In any case, this summer will include lots of time planning for CSLA as Conference Chair and as incoming Southern Section Chair. I'm so excited about both!