Angela Black- Bethel-Hanberry Elementary

 

Blog 4: Angela Black- Bethel-Hanberry Elementary

 



(Bethel-Hanberry Elementary, n.d.)

Angela Black is a librarian at Bethel-Hanberry Elementary. She just became a librarian after being a technology specialist in Richland School District Two for 20 years. The reason why she wanted to become a librarian because it allowed for her to have more direct interaction with students. She stated that she has had her MLIS degree and certification during her whole career. The reason why she chose to take a position as a technology is because she felt it would have some aspects of what a school librarian does. Also, Richland School District Two has technology specialist at every school in the district. Even though she just started being a school librarian, she said that she pursued her MLIS degree because of her love reading. She also knows that reading is so important to students and that school librarian help aid in children reading. Mrs. Black said that she believes that it is “the heart of a school,” and she wanted to be able to create a place for students, teachers, and staff to learn and grow.

 

During my interview with Mrs. Black, we focused on the competency collaborate.

 

Collaborate:






(Discus, n.d., Big Universe, n.d., Capstone, n.d.)

Mrs. Black uses many different strategies when implementing the competency collaborate in her library. She uses AVID strategies that the Richland School District Two has implemented in all school in the district.  She also helps to teach students how to utilize school's library’s website. In order to be able to get classes into the library to teach them these things, she makes sure to collaborate with teachers. She shows teachers many different resources she they can use with their students that can be located on the school library’s website.



 (American Association of School Librarians, n.d.)

 She also sits down and collaborates with teachers to implement lessons that allow students to learn information literacy skills while also supporting curriculum standards. When she is collaborating with teachers and planning lessons with them she makes sure to implement the AVID strategies and other resources such as SC DISCUS, Big Universe, Pebble Go, etc. In the past she has worked with first grade and fifth grade teachers to plan information literacy lessons that support research projects for each grade. During these lessons she taught the students in these grade levels how to use Big Universe as a place to go for their research needs or to complete work in class.

With implementing collaborate in her library, she does find challenges. One of the challenges is being able to meet with teachers. The teachers at Bethel-Hanberry seem to not have time to come meet with her so that they can collaborate. Also, teachers do not have time to get their classes to the library. Sometimes it is hard enough for teachers to their students to the library to check out books, so making time to come to library for a whole lesson is even harder.  She does say that she meets with the school’s literacy coach to plan lessons for school's book club for students in fourth and fifth grade.

Overall, Mrs. Black makes sure to implement collaboration in her school library program. Being a teacher at Bethel-Hanberry, I see first-hand what great things Mrs. Black does to support the school community. I hope to be able to take things I learned from her and use them in my future library.

References

American Association of School Librarians. (n.d.). Collaborate [Image].
     https://standards.aasl.org/collaborate/

Bethel-Hanberry Elementary. (n.d.). Bethel-Hanberry Elementary [Image].
     https://www.richland2.org/bhe/news

Big Universe. (n.d.). Big Universe [Photograph]. https://gg4l.com/product/
     big-universe/

Black, A. (2023, November 17). [Personal interview by C. Smith].

Capstone. (n.d.). Pebble Go [Image]. https://www.pebblego.com/company/
     about-capstone

Discus. (n.d.). Discus [Image]. https://www.scdiscus.org/discus-logos

 

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