It’s embarrassing.  One, that I’ve taken such a long sabbatical from this blog.  Two, doggie paddling, especially when I know that I am an excellent swimmer.  In a year of personnel cuts, increasing student populations, loss of work space, additional responsibilities, and “all that jazz,” I have felt quite often as if I am simply treading water to stay afloat.  Treading water allows a person to keep from going under, but it also keeps them relatively in one place.  Now that I stop to think about it, I’ve not been stagnant.  I have been moving forward, even if at the pace of a doggie paddle rather than a full-fledged freestyle stroke.

When we are asked to do more with less we often feel stressed, overwhelmed and perhaps even resentful.  We also have the option to sink or swim.  We may not be able to get accomplished all that we had planned prior to the budget/personnel/program cuts, or we may not be able to do things to the high quality that we are accustomed to, but we can choose to do our best in the midst of any less-than-ideal situation.

I strongly believe that facing such changes first and foremost requires a positive attitude.  This does not mean that there won’t be days when you want to have a pity party, or that you can’t get frustrated or angry.  Rather, it means that we must hold our heads high, pull up our bootstraps, perhaps even put on  our big-girl panties and face the challenges head-on.  Secondly, we must “clear our plates,” by figuring out what commitments, responsibilities, tasks, etc. we can let go of.  It means we must determine what are the most important aspects of my job, what has to get done, what must I continue to do because it greatly impacts student achievement.

Facing a year without an assistant, in a school with a growing student population, and having to share my workspace with the parent community and other staff members (both personnel and materials), I have had a challenging start.  I choose to take the challenge in stride, to be as pleasant and flexible as I can, to use this as an opportunity to grow (although I admit that I’ve had a few “Viola Swamp” moments).  I have figured out that I can rely on volunteers to shelve books, make copies and set up displays, that displays do not have to change every two or three weeks, that running overdue notices does not impact student achievement, that I don’t have to answer the phone and that I can’t do it all.  Instead, I am focusing on doing that which impacts students the most.  I have continued with my plans to increase teaching and collaboration by filling my “flexible” schedule to the point that in the first month of school I taught an average of 85% of the school day, leaving myself with a 25 minute “planning period” (which I used to check email, my mailbox in the office, visit the restroom and such) and a 30 minute lunch break (which usually ended up being 20 minutes by the time the last class left 5 minutes late and I needed 5 minutes before the next class to get set up).

There have been days when I feel overwhelmed -  like when there are 20 students in at the moment for open circulation, parents are wanting me to set them up for volunteer registration, the PTA ladies are in my office, a teacher has sent a student down for help with the LCD projector or their overhead bulb has blown, I have 5 minutes before my first class of the day comes and I realize I’ve not fixed my cup of tea or visited the restroom, the phone is ringing off the hook and I’ve just received an email from the principal requesting something for which I have no information or time in my teaching schedule to manage.  But . . . when I see students using the media center, finding new books, hear teachers say how much they like the lessons I’ve been teaching, I know that I am doing what I am meant to be doing.  And, when I meet with my two professional learning teams with other school library media specialists, mentor displaced media specialists, continue my involvement with my professional organizations, get asked to write articles for professional journals, I realize I am moving.

I am not treading water.  I am doggie paddling.  I may be moving slower than I used to, slower than I’d like to, but I am still moving forward.