The American Association of School Librarians published its new Standards for the 21st-Century Learner last week at its conference in Reno. AASL president Sara Kelly Johns said, "AASL hopes that these standards will provide a foundation for a strong library media program in every school, where our students will research expertly, think critically, problem-solve well, read enthusiastically and use information ethically."
The standards have clear parallels with ISTE NETS*S, the Partnership for 21st c. Skills Student Outcomes, and other standards sets that shift from content knowledge to critical thinking. See the AASL Standards here.
Johns says the AASL standards are the backbone of a strong library media program, but I think their applicability goes beyond. With districts moving away from even minimal staffing for library media specialists, my question to AASL is: Without LMS agency, how do you share these important standards and help teachers and administrators put them to work?
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I see the standards as a guide for librarians and as an advocacy tool for strong school library programs. There's an implementation task force, a learning assessment and indicators task force, a program guidelines task force and an AASL promotion and marketing task force...we DO have work to do, for sure! And then there is the SKILLs Act we're working on...you are very right, you can't implement standards without a library media specialist in place.
Thanks for shedding light on the inner workings of AASL. With those task forces at work maybe there is reach into the teaching force?
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