This past summer, administration hired Mia Gittlen as the new teacher-librarian. Gittlen is ready to make the library an integral part of the school community, she said.
“My grandmother was a librarian, and she worked at Detroit Public Library, and so she was the one that took me to the bookstore, took me to the library, gifted a lot of books to me and read to me,” Gittlen said. “And I’ve been in education a long time and been drawn to librarianship, so when I finally took this path around five years ago, it was a real natural place to go.”
Gittlen started her education career in Massachusetts, teaching high school history for four years before transitioning to teaching middle school education for a few years, she said.
“When I first started teaching in Massachusetts, I was so fortunate to have a really thriving library program at my school.” Gittlen said “It was a school smaller than this one (MHS), and they had a full library department of may- be five teacher-librarians, and they were all available to co-create curriculum with teachers. So from there, I just have always had this connection with library and librarians as a resource, and it was interesting when I moved into the role as a school librarian that that wasn’t every teacher’s experience because in California, there have been such shortages and cuts that it’s really rare that teachers have experienced that throughout their career.”
She ended up working in Berkeley Unified School District, with a teacher nonprofit called Q, Git- tlen said. She has enjoyed her time in various parts of the Bay Area, she said. She grew up in Berkeley and currently lives in Oakland, she said. She also studied codingand technology at Foothill College and was teaching in San Jose at the start of Covid, she said.
“I was teaching in San Jose, and the pandemic happened, and a really close friend of mine shared with me that she was enrolling in grad school again, in the library program at San Jose State,” Gittlen said. “And not only is she a close friend, but I had thought about enrolling in that program, so it was like the perfect opportunity to switch gears again. Once I enrolled in the program, I was hired as a teacher-librarian at a private school.”
Senior Kaiya Smith is Gittlen’s first TA, Smith said. Smith met Gittlen on the first day of school when she had no TA class and went to wait in the library where she met Gittlen, and the two have been working on projects together ever since, Smith added.
“She’s just very sweet, very open,” Smith said. “You can have a conversation with her about anything, and she just has input. She’s easy to talk to,” Smith said. “She helps me with a lot of experience with working with library stuff or a lot of books. She’s just made me more comfortable with talking to people older than me. She’s very nice. And I guess over the past six or eight weeks, I felt more comfortable at school be- cause the library just gives me something fun to do.
”Sophomore Marques Cooper spends a lot of time at the library, Cooper said. He has been com- ing in to study over the past two years, and really enjoys the library as a work space, he added.
“I remember my freshman year, the library was pretty boring, other than just being a nice place to have peace and quiet, but as I walked in my sophomore year, I really noticed that the whole vibe had changed,” Cooper said. “With the decorations and everything, it made me feel more at peace. It made me feel like I was in a place where I could relax and just actually enjoy being in there. It’s really fun and there is a lot of great energy at the library.”
Gittlen has already started herplans to help the library program thrive by starting a library Instagram account, launching the “Tournament of Books”, and hosting National Novel Writing Month in the library during November, she said. She hopes to get local authors and illustrators to visit our campus and also get more teachers to bring their stu- dents to the library for scavenger hunts, book tastings, and more, she added.
“A teacher-librarian collabo- rates with the school community to cultivate an inviting and welcoming space for students to engage in the pursuit of information, learning, and knowledge,” Gittlen said. “I’m very excited to be here, and it’s been a real hon- or to reopen this space. So please come. Please visit the library.”