Welcome, readers!

As I get started on this magical blogging adventure, I thought it might be nice for you to know a little about me and my intentions as I move forward.

My name is Stacy, and I am a current public-school librarian in Northern Virginia, just outside Washington, DC. My school serves over 3,000 students in grades 7-12, so I meet our students (generally) when they are 12, just about to turn 13, and then see them off as they graduate when they are 18. The teen years are the best years, and I am blessed to be able to spend that part of their lives with them.

I decided in high school that I wanted to be a teacher–specifically, a high-school history teacher. I went to Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts, and got my bachelor’s in secondary education and history, with a minor in English, with every intention of gaining a high-school history classroom upon graduation; unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that smoothly. I moved to Northern Virginia, where I worked for a year as a tutor for all grade levels and gathered as many teaching certifications as I could muster. I finally was able to get a full-time classroom teaching position in middle-school math. Although math had not been my initial goal, I had been a strong math student in school, and I thoroughly enjoyed helping my students through math concepts. I spent nine years teaching math in middle and high schools, from pre-algebra to trigonometry, but I missed seeing a wider range of students and being able to focus on the whole student versus my content alone. This pushed me back into a student role as I got my Master’s of Secondary Education, with a concentration in school librarianship, from Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. I began working as a public-school librarian in 2017, and I absolutely love my job. It is, without a doubt, the best job in the school.

There is no one “right” way to library. There are as many ways to library as there are librarians in the world; that’s one of my favorite aspects of the job. We wear many hats throughout the school day, and each person has their particular strengths, preferences, and strategies for each of those hats. For me, I can probably be best described as a social-emotional librarian–I am devoted to my students’ mental and emotional well-being and am constantly evaluating the library space and program for how it feels to users. Do they feel welcomed? valued? safe? inspired? That is my #1 goal. I am also passionate about matching the right book to the right kid at the right time, effectively integrating technology into instruction to increase innovation and student engagement, and incorporating making to support students’ creativity and curiosity.

In my personal life, I love to read middle-grade and ya books, travel, cheer on my beloved Boston Red Sox, and eat soul food. (Mac and cheese is a vegetable, and this is a hill I will die on.) I like jigsaw puzzles and being creative. I am originally from Nashville, Tennessee, and am a proud member of Generation Oregon Trail. I now live with my 2 cats, named Calvin and Hobbes, and my wife, who tries to get me to adult. And, for those who have not already guessed, I am a Huffle-claw (mash-up of Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw houses in Harry Potter).

I am a firm believer that: #1-some amazing things are happening in school libraries all over that other librarians could benefit from, and #2-most librarians feel that they don’t have anything of worth to share. I think library world, and by extension, our school communities and the world as a whole, would be better if every librarian shared what he or she was doing, regardless of whether it’s going well, badly, or just plain oddly. We can all learn from each other. So I am not starting this blog to show off how great I think I am; quite the opposite, actually. I just want to share my thoughts and what’s going on in my library with the hope that it might help someone else and that just maybe, more will blog to share their ideas as well. Because I know I sure need them!