[L4L] Learning4Life: 18 Ways to Make a Difference

With the launch of the Learning 4 Life campaign for implementing the AASL Standards for the 21st-Century Learner, the American Association of School Librarians identifies new roles we all need to adopt to ensure success.

Over the next 2 weeks, I will be looking at the 18 objectives presented in L4L and identifying ways that we can all work to support AASL’s rollout of the new standards.

1. Work with the ALA…in promoting the interests of school library media specialists
2. Ensure that AASL members are aware of the new learning standards and guidelines…
3. Ensure that preservice and continuing education school library media specialists are aware of the new learning standards and guidelines through school library certification programs
4. Assist AASL members and others in implementing and advocating for the learning standards and guidelines…
5. Develop a basic implementation kit for building-level school library media specialists
6. Provide opportunities for…training and support to state affiliate coordinators…followed by a high-profile (re)launch of the learning standards and guidelines
7. Profile and target major education and library associations…
8. Ensure that AASL members who attend conferences are aware of the new learning standards and guidelines
9. Review, revise, and develop AASL policy statements, position papers, and award applications based on the principles outlined in the learning standards and guidelines
10. Devote a special issue of Knowledge Quest to the learning standards and guidelines
11. Introduce the learning standards and guidelines to the national educational and school administrator organizations…
12. Have 25 percent of each state’s school library media specialists attend a learning standards and guidelines session (national, regional, state, local)…
13. Ensure that AASL members who do not attend conferences are aware of the learning standards and guidelines
14. Identify exemplary models for implementation and transferable visual products for support…
15. Gather and disseminate research to support the learning standards and guidelines…
16. Introduce the learning standards and guidelines to ALISE [library schools]…
17. Develop a national roster of celebrity, well-known educators and organizations, and public figures as advocates…
18. Develop a publishing plan for the association…

As a coordinator of a School Library System, I have specific tasks that L4L details. It is my job, for example, to coordinate the rollout of this plan with district administrators and other educational groups. I will also be working to “identify exemplary models for implementation and transferable visual products for support for implementation at the local, district, state, and national levels (Objective 14). It isn’t like this is anything new or unexpected being added to my pile; I had already developed and published a “transferable visual product” that I designed to help member libraries in the local system talk about the new standards with their principals.

Your job under this new plan is to continue to do the excellent work that you already do on a daily basis. By providing a model of expertise and leadership, you are “assist[ing] AASL members and others in implementing and advocating for the learning standards and guidelines” (Objective 4). You can also help “ensure that AASL members [and non-members] who do not attend conferences are aware of the learning standards and guidelines by 2012″ (Objective 13). At the pretty easy rate of one conversation per month; that means by 2012 you will have reached over 50 librarians to let them know that there are new standards.

So what else can we do? Over the next two weeks I will be developing a Gorilla Librarian plan to address the L4L objectives. AASL has identified this as a 2.0 plan, but they seem to have forgotten to include all of us 2.0pians when they doled out responsibility in many of the objectives. Where does a 300lb gorilla highlight the new library standards? Anywhere he wants to! And I want to help…

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