Family Background:
I was born an only child to Bob and Glenda Haggard thirty-five years ago in Macon, GA. My parents were very young, newly married, and had to work extremely hard to make ends meet. My father traveled with a telephone and computer company most weeks so it was mainly just my mom and I to keep each other company. She is definitely responsible for instilling in me an early love for literacy and learning. We loved to read "Little Golden Books" each night and if I was good at the grocery store, she'd buy me a new one rather than a cheaper toy or piece of candy. I also remember singing all the time in the car with her and reading and singing to my book and record sets on my "Happy Days" record player at home by myself. Being an only child, I had lots of time to myself! When I wasn't dancing, twirling, singing, or playing kickball in the cul-de-sac with my friends, I was curled up reading a new book. My dad's mother, my granny, also sang and read with me regularly as I stayed at her Lake Sinclair cabin for weeks at a time during the summers while my parents worked. She would push me on an old wooden swing singing, "Me and My Shadow," and read books with me before bed. I had never really thought about the positive impact all of these early experiences with literacy had on me until now!
Now, I'm a mom myself! Coming from being an only child, it is still amazing to me that I now have three sons! D.J. is 9, Ty is almost 7, and Cam just turned 3. Cam was actually conceived and born during the time I've been trying to complete my school library media master's degree (he is actually the main reason it has taken me so long)! Although I always imagined myself having daughters and taking them to dance recitals and cheerleading practice, I feel truly blessed every day to have sons. They work hard, play hard, and fight hard but, they love "hard" too:). I try to read to them faithfully (although late evening baseball games often get in the way) and I pray that I can raise them to love reading, learning, and life the way that their father and I do!
Educational Background & Unique Characteristics:
Most of my formal education took place in Snellville, GA near Stone Mountain where we lived for most of my life. I attended R.D. Head Elementary, Shiloh Middle, and Shiloh High School. I enjoyed school although I often felt very awkward around other children my age. This often led to frequent trips to the school library to "lose myself" in the life of a character more adventurous than me! I recall having a book with me ALWAYS! I think I even used to read at lunch (which remembering back on this makes me realize what a "nerd" I probably was:). One of my favorite books as a pre-teen was "The Secret Garden" by Frances Hodgson Burnett. I often fantasized that there were secret gardens behind every rotting brick wall I passed, hopeful that an adventure was waiting for me just around the corner!
I was an active dance, baton, and acrobatics student all of my life as well. My mother originally enrolled me in dance classes because I was flat-footed and the doctor had recommended that dance would strengthen my ankles and feet. I have fond memories of years of classes, recitals, parades, and competitions. Being successful at baton and dance gave me more confidence in other areas of my life and helped me become more outgoing. Since my baton instructor used to be a UGA majorette, she was always taking us to "Band Day" where younger band and auxilliary students could perform at halftime. This was a phenomenal experience for me and I set a personal goal that someday I would be out there for real! My senior year of high school I was accepted to UGA in early fall and tried out for the majorette line in January. Out of almost a hundred girls trying out, only my friend Venus and I made it! It was the best day of my life up until then and I still remember it fondly. I was proud that I had worked hard and was able to accomplish this goal. This success helped me feel other dreams in my life were possible!
At UGA, I declared my major as "Early Childhood Education" because I had taught baton and dance classes and camps to young children all throughout high school. Teaching was really all I ever imagined myself doing and I was often praised for my patience and ability to explain complicated things in simple ways. My father was concerned about me choosing education as my career because he told me there was not much money in it. He just wanted me to not have to struggle with finances like he and my mom had since they had not been able to go to college. I really enjoyed my classes but honestly, I was not a very good college student because I was having way too much fun twirling in Sanford Stadium on Saturdays for the Bulldogs and socializing with new friends to study! When I started my practicum in an elementary school my senior year, I quickly realized that I should have paid more attention in my classes. I felt completely unprepared to plan lessons to teach to real kids! I was miserable being at the school every day and was terrified that I had made an incredible mistake with my choice of career! Thankfully, I improved in my competence and confidence and made it through to graduation.
At the time, I briefly considered staying at UGA one more year to get my master's (mostly so I could twirl one more year!) but my husband to-be and I were engaged and anxious to start our lives together. I'm grateful now that I did not. If I had pursued my master's back then, it would have been in early childhood education instead of school library media since I was completely unaware this existed! It's funny to me now looking back, that my absolute favorite class at UGA was instuctional technology (I'm not sure it was even called this back in the 1990's?)! We spent a whole quarter learning how to create lessons using overhead projectors, film projectors, opaque projectors, laminators, and duplex machines. I actually even remember wondering to myself if there was a degree I could get in this field, but I wrongly assumed there was not because it was just too much fun to be true!
So, my husband Derrick and I were married on Saturday, August 7, 1993 at Madison Street Baptist Church in Commerce, Georgia. We both started working the Monday after we were married! He went off to summer football camp and I traveled to south Georgia to finish teaching majorette camps. We were full of energy and new ideas and anxious to make a name for ourselves in the "real world!"
Experience:
In the fall of 1993 Derrick took a position as a P.E. teacher and coach at Peach County High School in Fort Valley, GA. Although I interviewed for a position at the neighboring elementary school in Byron, GA, there were none available at the time. So, I started my career in education working at a daycare program in the 1-2 year old room! Little did they know, I had NO experience with babies or toddlers since I had no siblings and no nearby relatives that had ever had infants for me to care for! I had really never even baby-sitted because I was always too busy evenings and weekends with baton and dance classes. It was very overwhelming but before long I was changing diapers, serving meals, singing songs, playing games, and of course reading books to my class. Thankfully though, Byron Middle School called to let me know they needed to add an extra exploratory teacher at the end of October!
Although my degree was early childhood, I was able to teach 6th - 8th grade on a provisional certificate that year. At this time, I was also able to easily add middle grades certification to my certificate after teaching middle school for one year, taking 1 staff development course in middle grades education, and passing the teacher certification test. I taught a "connections" class called "Life Skills." I had a cart with all of my materials on it and pushed it to each of my classes to educate students on self-improvement skills like positive self-talk and good self-esteem. It was scary at first to teach older kids when I had not even had good experience teaching even young kids in the classroom up to this point! With lots of advice from my colleagues and friends, I tackled it well however. I came to enjoy the position and felt effective at providing some guidance to the confused adolescents I taught. Though, I longed for my "own" room where I could make bulletin boards and organize things like I wanted!
The following year I got my wish! A fourth grade position was offered to me at Byron Elementary which was good since funds for the "Life Skills" class were taken away. I spent weeks over the summer organizing my room, creating interactive bulletin boards, and writing effective lesson plans. When the first weeks of school came and went, I realized that nothing I had planned, worked! Fortunately for me, once again, I had caring colleagues nearby who helped me get back on track! This first year was probably when I definitely realized that I could not do my job alone. I began to understand that it literally takes at least two brains working together on a classroom problem or plan to make progress. It was this year that I also started looking at the media specialist and thinking what a fabulous job that would be! I wondered what kind of degree one needed to get the position, but never really asked anyone to find out? So, I continued teaching fouth grade, somewhat more successfully, four more years before my husband took a position a little closer to our favorite city, Athens.
We moved to Banks County in Homer, GA close to the Commerce outlet malls. I was initially depressed because having grown up in Gwinnett County, Homer appeared to be the smallest town I had ever seen! I accepted a position teaching third grade at Banks County Elementary. I enjoyed teaching the third grade curriculum much more than fourth since we actually had time to integrate some creative projects into our plans. I met some of the most wonderful, fun friends that anyone could ever expect to meet and developed a close friendship with the principal as well. I team taught for two years with a brilliant teacher and friend, Shannon Gasaway. We worked so well together that we constantly finished or started each other's thoughts! She taught me so much about relaxing in the classroom and just having fun with my teaching. We continually collaborated on almost everything we did since together we were much smarter than we were alone. When she left Banks County, I moved down to teach second grade - literally to escape the upcoming CRCT testing stress of third graders failing third grade if they failed the CRCT. I disagreed with this tactic whole-heartedly since being a bad test-taker myself, I knew that I could only do *so* much to help my students pass. I kept looking and watching the media specialists at each school I had worked at so far. I was intrigued by the position and often imagined the kind of things that "I" would do if I were a librarian. I was so busy raising my boys and grading millions of papers each week to even consider trying to go back to college, however, so I kept putting the idea of becoming a school librarian on the back shelf with a long list of things I wanted to do but couldn't.
My following three years teaching second grade at Banks County Elementary and one year at Banks County Primary were difficult because the students were not nearly as independent as I was used to. I collaborated often with my best friends and colleagues Stacy, Becky, and Donna! Although they were always close by for support and friendship, I still rarely felt successful with my job. It was while I was teaching second grade that my principal and friend Travis Moon, brought me a brochure that changed my life! It was information from UGA announcing their first flexible delivery school library media cohort. I had talked with him on previous occasions expressing interest in the media center so he knew this program was for me! The flexiblility of going to class online and Saturdays would finally fit with my busy family life. I was so excited about this and my husband was extremely supportive so I started right away getting organized to apply to UGA. Unfortunately, the GRE slowed me down. I had not taken any advanced math in high school or college so my first attempts we dismal:( I also obsessed incredibly about the 2-page paper that needed to accompany my application! I wanted it to be perfect! Finally, after 2 years of studying for the GRE, re-taking the GRE, and sending off my application, I found out I was accepted to Cohort 3 of the SLM program:)!
The media specialist at Banks County Primary decided to retire about a year after I started SLM classes at UGA. Many people applied for the position that already had their degrees so I was elated after I was told by the principal that I got the job! I started as the new library media specialist of Banks County Primary in July of 2005. I walked into a center that had hundreds of items in the collection that either needed cataloging or discarding! Also, the teachers were used to visiting the center on a fixed schedule which the principal told me not to change. It was a difficult first year for my media clerk and I trying to tackle backed up work that needed doing in addition to present work, along with teaching 8-10 classes each day. But, it was the best year I ever experienced out of all my 11 years teaching! I loved that every day was different and that I had a chance to make a positive impact on every child in the school.
My second year as LMS for the Banks County Primary School Media Center this past fall brought with it new challenges and concerns, but I still enjoy every day! I feel much more confident and able to make site-based decisions independently this year. In addition, I am slowly but surely making progress cataloging and processing crucial materials that our school has not had access to for many years. Thankfully, I am also better this year at delegating tasks for my media clerk and media committee and having the courage to ask parents and staff to volunteer for special events like the book fair. Finally, I also now recognize and appreciate the fact that in order to do my job well, I will need to continue learning and growing personally and professionally for the rest of my career!
Future Plans:
In the future, I first plan to join and become more involved in school library media professional organizations like ALA, GLMA, and GAIT. Although I attended GaCOMO this past fall and GaETC in November, I want to be a member of these organizations so I feel involved and educated about how I can be more of an advocate for the media profession. I am increasingly more concerned about legislation being passed like "the 65% solution (deception)" that insinuates that media specialists are not teachers. Also, systems that are moving towards having one media specialist coordinator for the county while paraprofessionals run the individual school centers is disheartening. The threat of not being able to work in this new-found field that I love after all the work that I have done to get here makes me scared. I feel that the public and politicians are just not educated about the many crucial roles we play in the school! My own husband still doesn't understand all that I do. He thinks if all the books are on the shelves, then I can go home:)! I realize that I have to become a more vocal activist for this job I now hold so dearly.
I also plan to eventually pursue a position as a high school media specialist. I thoroughly enjoy working at the primary school, but I think I would also enjoy collaborating with high school teachers on projects that involve more research and writing. Teaching first and second grade students to use magazines, newspapers, reference books, and databases to answer questions is extremely difficult since most of these resources contain high level vocabulary and small print that they cannot read! I like the process approach to both the "Big 6" and the I-Search and feel it would be an interesting new challenge to work with older students and teachers on this. As my boys get older, I also want to be closer to them so "I" know who "they" know:)! Before they were born, I used to instruct several high school majorette and dance lines. I really miss this and would love to get involved with it again and working at the high school level would help this be easier to accomplish as well.
On a personal level, I plan to someday travel to faraway places then make my home by the sea like the character from my favorite book, Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney! I hope along the way, I can also do something to make the world more beautiful..."But I do not know yet what that can be!"
