It had been a long time since I let myself be vulnerable in my career. When your job is merely a way to make ends meet, and survival relies on keeping the job, you have no choice but to hide any perceived weaknesses lest you appear less capable than those competing for your position.
Three years ago, however, things changed. I began my first Teacher-Librarian role which - although a highly competitive field - demands vulnerability. In order to have inspiring ideas, to keep up to date with emergent technologies, to ensure my students are engaged and interested, I need to let myself be vulnerable. I need to put myself out there every day, whether I like it or not... and it is hard. It is hard to reach out to colleagues requesting collaborative opportunities, knowing that they might not reply. It is hard to spend hours, days or even weeks on a project to excite students, knowing that there is a chance that you might be met with eye rolls and the tops of foreheads whose owners are absorbed in Fortnite tournaments. It is hard to communicate new ideas to those around you and ask for their feedback, as there is a very real chance of being criticised. Being creative is hard because it makes you vulnerable.
"Child Children Kids People Life" by Prawny (2015). Licensed under Pixabay License. Retrieved from https://pixabay.com/illustrations/child-children-kids-people-life-1099770/
But what happens when we stop being creative? What do we risk if we, as educators, stop trying new things in fear of making mistakes, wasting money or because we don't see the point? I recently shared a blog post on social media regarding 3D printing in library makerspaces. A couple of teacher-librarians commented on the post, stating that they didn't understand why there is such an obsession with technology in libraries. They shared that they believe the priority of teacher-librarians should be books, and that makerspaces and other technological innovations merely distract us from our main responsibility - i.e., the provision of reading materials.
Is that all a library is though: a storage space for books? What about other library concerns such as: Closing the digital divide? Or the equitable provision of diverse learning resources (including but not limited to books)? And what about 21st century skills? Law number five of Ranganathan's Five Laws of Library Science is "the library is a growing organism". As society evolves, so too libraries must evolve in order to successfully cater to the changing needs of their communities. If our children need access to productive technologies, digital resources, digital literacy and digital safety skills, then it is our responsibility to provide as many of these resources as we can. In order to successfully teach our students these skills or offer our students these services, we must dive into the proverbial deep end and learn these technologies for ourselves. And that is hard to do because we have to be brave and creative. We have to be vulnerable. - BJK
Read below for Brene Brown's take on the crucial role vulnerability has in the process of creativity.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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