Maintaining Connections

I've been pondering social networking and its use in maintaining connections. Much has been made in the press lately on privacy concerns and young adults shutting down pages. I wonder what the impact of social networking will have as seniors graduate and move on to the next phase of life.

I've drawn a line in my own network that I won't friend a current student, but I do have several former students as "friends". This week, one of my seniors talked about staying in touch after graduation. After 25 years in education, I know their plans to come back to visit, stay in touch and continue to be connected to high school and their former teachers dwindles away as time goes on. But with social networking tools, has that dynamic changed? Will it be easier to stay connected?

I enjoy reconnecting with former students via Facebook and finding out where life has taken them into to their 20's and 30's. Weddings, babies and jobs are all shared and I get to see what small influence I may have had in shaping where they ended up. That's a powerful thing for an educator when you often don't know what impact you've had...

The Year End...

My library has been closed more often than it's been open in the last two months due to various testing needs. It's often frustrating, but the reality is the library is one of the only large spaces with tables and chairs available. Today, we reopened for regular business...whatever regular looks like in a school library. Classes working on research projects, students hanging out in their "spot", "study hall" students assigned to the library. I had the chance to catalog some books that had been shelved but not cataloged.

But we begin the countdown to the end of the year. 19 days of classes left and there is so much to be done. End of the year report to write up, last minute projects to assist students with, final purchase orders to be closed. An inventory project that is underway but may not be finalized, but for three years the catalog and the shelves don't match.

So much undone, that collaborative project on creating book trailers that the teacher and I ran out of time for, that creative activity I wanted to try with another group...how come there's never enough time?