Force Field Analysis and Strong Library Programs - Essay Example

The teacher-librarian must be allowed to play the role of a proactive team player. Within the school environment, a school librarian promotes cooperation through constant advocacy of social modification, particularly through appreciating people and stirring their confidence in the librarian’s functions. Improved student learning requires librarians who are respected and admired by both the students and the faculty.

What happens if no action is taken on the current situation?
For any school, the administration’s role in the development and maintenance of strong library programs is inevitable where improving student learning is the main objective (Haycock 83-84). However, without the recognition and support of librarians and teacher-librarians, the attitude of the administration, teachers, and students change to view librarians as sources of distress. Consequently, the school librarian will not be viewed as a crucial aspect of students’ lifelong learning. Other negative consequences include a lack of staff commitment to teaching, poorly managed library services like lack of up-to-date collections, low or lack of individual student library use besides class visitation, lack of integration of information literacy instructions into the curriculum, and rare collaboration with teachers among others (Hartzell 12-13).

Driving forces

Forces that encourage collaboration between school librarians and teachers (Haycork 25-27)
• Cooperative planning
• Administrative support
• Flexible and supportive Scheduling
• Team teaching
• Scheduled meeting plan
• Mutual understanding between partners
• Universal understanding of curriculum goals
• Persistence between partners
• Inclusive objectives
• Flexible and resilient partner personalities (Brown 13)
• Readily adaptable, and orderly teacher-librarian
Restraining forces
Forces that inhibit collaboration between school librarians and Teachers (Haycock 85)

• Limited administration understanding
• Stereotyped librarian perception
• Lack of cooperation
• Inadequate resources
• Devalued interpersonal sharing
• Lack of time and scheduling issues
Priority Driving Forces
• Administrative support
• Universal understanding of curriculum goals
• Readily adaptable, and orderly teacher-librarian
In my opinion, a collaboration between school librarians and teachers requires administration support since this allows librarians to experience role expansion allowing them to deliver supplementary and critical services like research support that identifies crucial information for use in improved administrative decisions (Haycork 27) Additionally, administration support allows librarians to support targeted students including special needs, new teachers and counselors. This is possible only when the librarian is adaptable and flexible and when the teachers understand curriculum goals. These forces can be strengthened if teachers and librarians are persistent, f flexible, and resilient, and where planning is cooperative to ensure that meetings are held at convenient times when partners are available.

Priority restraining factors
• Limited administration understanding
• Stereotyped librarian perception
• Lack of collaboration
Despite understanding the crucial role of librarians in research skills training, principals underestimate their value and fail to classify them in similar categories as classroom teachers. Consequently, librarian fails to implement their roles as program advisor, staff developer, instructional partner, information specialist, and curriculum consultant (Howard 87-92). The result is the stereotyped perception of librarians by teachers and students resulting in a lack of collaboration. These factors can be improved through effective planning, appreciating librarians’ competence and knowledge, and promotion of a culture that perceives librarians as talented, professional, and reliable. Read More