Sharing What We Know

I've been thinking alot about teaching and learning over the past few years. I've been lucky in both this job and my last one to work with former teachers who bring an always more rigorous and interesting perspective to work with kids. And I've been lucky to have supportive management and mentors who have encouraged me to teach and share.

I felt encouraged to blog, to develop and present lots of workshops, presentations and webinars. Recently I took a big step and started teaching as well - first as an adjunct and then as a CE instructor.  I find the teaching I am doing now to be deep and challenging in a whole new way. It makes me question everything I do in every way and hold a lens up to my work as a youth librarian.

But, this teaching isn't unique to me. We are all teachers. I believe this in a deep-bone way.

With the kids and families we work with, we are constantly teaching and sharing - tips on great books, series and characters; literacy tips; ideas on how to find favorite books or discover a different kind of reading.

We do the same with our colleagues we work with every day - whether within our youth area or in our library - teaching a new approach, or a new blog or a thing that helps us work better.

We teach our managers. We teach our board. We teach our funders. We teach our colleagues in other youth-serving organizations.

We teach on Twitter and in blog posts. We teach on listservs (ok, well, some just rant there) and Facebook groups and Google circles. We teach in articles and books we write. We teach through webinars and workshops and at conferences near and far.

I love to see how much youth librarians are generously sharing with each other.  Because as much as we teach, we learn.

We each have a unique approach that we bring to our sharing and teaching.  That is the most fun. I love the learning and the special ways each person approaches their subject. And I get excited when I discover another colleague sharing their knowledge or attitude or perspective. It keeps us wealthy in knowledge and pushes youth librarianship ahead.

So if you are hesitant about starting that blog or speaking up in a Twitter chat or submitting a speaking proposal for a conference/webinar/workshop, let me encourage you. Just do it. We're waiting to hear YOUR voice and learn all you have to share!

Graphic courtesy of Pixabay