Our Libraries in Schools Program (LiS) provides age appropriate books to children through a weekly library session in schools. We use storytelling and various story related activities to encourage reading, thinking and literacy. These sessions include grade appropriate books for browsing, discussions, songs, story related games, read aloud story time, story linked extension activities and borrowing and lending of books. Typically, a team comprising four persons goes to schools on any given day to conduct these sessions with two resource persons per class. Usually, one of the two resource person is the lead story teller who conducts the entire session including the read aloud, songs, story related games and extension activities while the assistant is in charge of the lending and borrowing of the story books by the children, supporting the lead in class management and during the session. One such recent occasion required the lead resource person Deepali Pitre Correya to travel out of station and the assistant Sakshi Sunil Mayekar was asked to substitute and lead four classes, two classes each from two different schools on two consecutive days. Below is an interview conducted by Deepali Correya (DC) with Sakshi Mayekar (SSM), encouraging her to recount her experience as a Lead Resource Person.
DC – What was your first thought when you were asked to substitute the lead resource person for four sessions?
SSM – I was nervous. I started thinking about how this session will happen, whether I will be able to do this or no.
DC – What preparations did you do?
SSM – The story was already selected but then I decided to observe Stephie and Deepali in Auxilium School, Caranzalem. This would give me an idea about how to do these sessions as I was going to do these same stories. I read both the stories a few time, went through the lesson plans, wrote these plans down, thought about how I will do it, what I will say and prepared myself thoroughly.
DC – How did you feel during these observations? What thoughts came in your mind?
SSM – I watched them and felt confident. I felt that I can surely try to do my sessions as effective as possible.
DC – What happened when you entered the class?
SSM – Surprisingly I was not nervous at all. There were no specific reactions from the children well. They already knew me as I had been to these classes for a couple of previous sessions.
DC – Any exciting incident occurred during any of these sessions?
SSM – At one point, I actually started losing patience with my assistant as I felt the borrowing was happening very slowly, so I took charge there and helped the children to finish their borrowing faster.
DC – How did you feel after the sessions were over?
SSM – Relaxed!!! It was like a sword hanging on my head. I had not even slept well during the night and kept waking up throughout thinking about how the session will happen.
DC – What were the things that you had to do after the sessions were done?
SSM – I had to write reports on each session. I had to first write it down on paper and then type it and submit the report again, I was worried about this but this went smoothly too.
DC- Did you have to do these tasks otherwise?
SSM- No, my tasks included helping put the required resources back in their respective spaces and preparing for the next sessions.
DC -What do you feel about this whole experience of taking leadership and conducting a session?
SSM – I have become a bit more confident about taking this responsibility. I might be able to take the responsibility of leading sessions but only sometimes and that too only to substitute someone from the team. Not on a regular basis as I feel I am not so good in English.
The team has noticed that there is a certain air of confidence around Sakshi after these sessions. And if she puts her heart and mind into it, she can surely be a good library educator.