Master of None

"Master one part of the job before going on to the next" 

When I read that quote in a discussion of an article dispensing advice to first-year librarians (Cerasale-Messina,2010) I thought "how is that possible?! Doesn't the whole job come rushing at you at once?!" To which my wise classmate pointed out "I agree - all parts of the jobs are coming at us at once - but I know I have to break it down or I'll go nuts. " (Bergen,2017)

Life comes rushing us all at once, our professional and personal obligations overlapping in our consciousnesses and competing for our attention so perhaps taking this new endeavor one piece at a time is my best path. 

I just had my first and presumably only day of training for my new job as teacher librarian at my coastal Maine middle school school and I very much hope that this "slow and steady wins the race" mantra will take hold before I go nuts. I have no idea what or how much I will remember from the day yesterday because I did not sleep much the nights before. 

My day was spent learning the nuts and bolts stuff that I won't get in a library science classroom like how to use our school's requisition software and how to print barcodes,... but the comforting advice of Cerasale-Messina kept echoing in my muddled brain. Will I ever learn all of this nuts and bolts stuff so that it becomes effortless and I can use my mental faculties instead to be the librarian that I want to be? Maybe if I take it one step at a time, but I want to learn it all now!

In order to carve out that one day of training I had to finish all of my seventh-grade teacher responsibilities a day early so that the dynamic retiring librarian and I could gather on the last day of her thirty years at our school.

I met my goal of getting everything that needed to be done, done for the end of the school year: grading and providing meaningful feedback for the ninety-seven final World Tour Blog projects,  chaperoning a rock climbing field trip to Acadia National park, helping plan and execute field day, writing ninety-seven "kind, specific, and helpful" narrative report card comments, packing up my room and making it ready for the next teacher, and oh yeah, teaching. All of these professional responsibilities had to be done in the foreground of a personal life that included my only child's incredibly emotional high school graduation and all the ensuing blended family drama that ensues as well as some hours at the hospital following my spouse's most unexpected "cardiac event". Add to that a weekend gig on a lobster wharf with my garage band and my new professional and academic obligations of reading, writing, and collaborating for two library science classes (one of which meets until 10:30pm EST), and I was a little bit bleary-eyed. 

I need to learn to take this job one thing at a time or risk being overwhelmed with my ignorance. 

So, here I sit on a plane heading to Charlotte and later to Dallas distancing myself physically and emotionally from the last two weeks and telling myself to take a deep breath and when I get back "master one part of the job before going on to the next" (Cerasale-Messina,2010).

References

Cerasale-Messina, Katie. (2010). Surviving your first year: Strategies and tips that will get you through your first year as a library media specialist. LMC, 29( 1), 30.

Bergen, Katrina (2017) Response to Post 2: School Library Management Discussion, https://sjsu.instructure.com/groups/231037/discussion_topics/3241916 

"Critique and Feedback" EL Education Video Retrieved from https://eleducation.org/resources/critique-and-feedback