Tell Your Story Every Day
Course
Tell Your Story Every Day [4:36]
Get out there, one voice, one ear, every day, five minutes, five fingers, whatever it takes to make your elevator pitch, you need to get the word out to all of your constituents, build your pyramid, and make it work for you on your campus, your district, and across your state.
Don't forget the importance of both the red arrow on the left of the associations and the green arrows that show all the conversation levels that we hope are happening over there on the right. Every day you want to work to speak out to one of your allies and/or one of your challenging not-yet-allies about what you do in the school campus library that is important to student achievement. Really, you already have these conversations. Just strengthen what you say with stories, examples and simple asks the concrete item you'd like help to improve today. We all hope you won't hit a crisis, a day you learn there will be no librarian or library funding on your campus next year or that your aid has been cut. There's no silver bullet, but practicing every day advocacy along the outlines of this pyramid will go far to ensuring that stakeholders know what you do and why it matters. There can still be hard conversations, but if you've been in conversation before, now you can push for a creative solution that goes as far as possible to supporting student access. Even if you're confident there's no chance you'll ever be in crisis, everyday advocacy is still your best approach. It not only keeps your program safe, but it contributes to the strength of other library programs across the district and state. Other librarians need to be able to point to successes on your campus that are directly tied to the strength of your library, as they advocate for improvements on their own campus.
The best insurance against a crisis is five minutes-five fingers. I read an essay about this a few years ago for American Libraries called Making Progress by Fives. The idea is five minutes a day in an elevator pitch format, the five fingers are how you remember the five points you want to make. You can do it orally, you can make posters, you can put it in your newsletter, you can put it out there in professional development context, whatever works to keep you center front in thinking about student achievement in all of your community and that probably means several different elevator pitches because even though the core content remains the same across all these audiences, the tone and the vocabulary do have to change a little bit, but you already know that; you just have to remember it and your five fingers are going to help you figure out how to voice exactly what you want to say to each community.
Librarians think it's obvious, but others don't want to accept that librarians are more essential now than ever before. You need to explain by your daily actions as well as your speech, why this is true and how you can help. ASL did put out a digital magazine and an info graphic, both titled School Libraries Transform Learning, and that is our mantra, we all live by it every day and we work hard. We're very frustrated when we're not recognized.
I hope that these lessons offer you ideas to improve your situation and to help your colleagues. I also know that there's a part of the bibliography that is more general and not attached to any one lesson, but I think you'll find those resources as valuable as other. s. So get out there, one voice, one ear, every day, five minutes, five fingers, whatever it takes to make your elevator pitch, you need to get the word out to all of your constituents, build your pyramid, and make it work for you on your campus and your district across your state.
This lesson revisits the layers and interactions illustrated in the Advocacy Pyramid. Conversations about the library program drive advocacy, and green and red arrows in the pyramid demonstrate these dialogs. If you're not yet having (or facilitating) some of these conversations, use the materials and ideas in this workshop to begin. Every conversation counts, so it's critical to begin now.
Take the 10-question PD Certification Quiz found in the left hand course column listing. How did you do? If you had to name one key point from this workshop to share with a colleague, what would it be? Why?
MLA Citation
Morris, Rebecca J. "Tell Your Story Every Day: Quiz Time!" School Library Connection, September 2017, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1987180?learningModuleId=1987183&topicCenterId=2247903.
Entry ID: 2128163
Additional Resources
About the Author
Dorcas Hand, MLS, is Director of Libraries at the Annunciation Orthodox School in Houston, TX. She earned her master's in library science from SUNY Albany. She is editor and co-conspirator of the www.studentsneedlibrariesinHISD.org website, an advocacy site in support of Houston ISD librarians. Hand is also editor of Independent School Libraries: Perspectives in Excellence. Her work is available on www.strongschoollibraries.com.
MLA Citation
Hand, Dorcas. "Tell Your Story Every Day. Tell Your Story Every Day [4:36]." School Library Connection, ABC-CLIO, November 2015, schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1987180?learningModuleId=1987183&topicCenterId=2247903.
https://schoollibraryconnection.com/Content/Course/1987180?learningModuleId=1987183&topicCenterId=2247903
Entry ID: 1987180