For my field experience, I visit Grayson High School and spent time with one of the school’s three media specialists.

I arrived 7:00 am, before school started. Although the media center does not technically open until seven, there were already students inside. The media specialist says that she generally arrives early and lets them get started if they would like. 

First, she spent the first moments of the morning checking in students and helping them make copies and print things from the computer. Both she and her clerk were very busy until after the bell rang for the first class. She says that her mornings are always very hectic with kids getting their last minute things done before class.  After classes start, we settled in her office and she gave me an overview of what she does and what the other media specialists there do. Then she gave me a tour of the media center and showed me how everything works. Somewhere along the way, she was called for technical assistance on an overhead projector, and we spent some time in a classroom trying to figure out what the problem was. It turned out to be an old bulb, which led us to her electronics room and she showed me around there and told me about the equipment that she has.

After that, we went to the shelves and pulled some books for a few teachers that had requested book carts to be brought to their classrooms for research projects, and then we checked in books. Next, we sat in her office again, and she told me about her selection policy and I asked questions about the various library policies. We talked at length about censorship, book challenges and her experiences with both.  I asked her for a copy of her selection policy, and she gave me one. I thought that it was funny though, the policy that she gave was dated 1981!!!

After our discussion on policies, the media specialist asked if I would be interested in watching the day’s news production, which one of the other media specialists oversees with the Broadcast Journalism class. I sat in on their class period and observed as the students and media specialist produced the broadcast. It was a great experience! The equipment looked difficult to understand, which is definitely something that I want to learn more about… The students were great though. They knew how to do it all, and the media specialist hardly needed to supervise them at all, which was surprising and refreshing. 

Following the broadcast class period, I returned to the main part of the library and helped the media clerk log new magazines and shelve them. By that time, it was nearly 1:00, and time for me to go! I thanked everyone for allowing me to come and learn and then I was on my way.

I think that the field experience was great. For a non-teacher like me, I learned a lot about the ins and outs of the school and how things work. I was able to ask a lot of questions, and everyone was very cooperative and accommodating in answering my questions. I also really enjoyed watching the broadcast production. As a journalism major in school, this is interesting to me and I hope to learn even more about it! It was interesting to be able to ask questions about the subjects that we are discussing in class and to get her perspective as a media specialist.