As part of the #edublogclub year-long challenge to blog on education. While the official club has ended, they have shared posts to continue the journey through 2017. This week’s prompt was to write an open letter to someone.

This past Monday, my colleague and co-librarian Kristen and I presented to a room full of K-12 librarians about how we have re-imagined our library with English Language Learners in mind.

And then this prompt appeared to write an open letter.

While I have written many small letters to her over the few years we have worked together so far including thank yous, encouragement, and congratulations as she has done for me, I’m taking it a step further and compiling the 10 things I love about her.

Kristen, pictured on right

1. She is an optimist. Every approach she takes and every thought she has is eternally positive which makes it easy to work alongside her.
2. She speaks in idioms. There’s a reason we have an #idiomoftheweek. We use is to demonstrate the quirks of the English language and focus on language development for our English Language Learners and we pull them right from Kristen’s conversations each day. Needless to say, this is entertainment.
3. She’s a researcher. What librarian isn’t? But she gets geeky when she gets to dive deep into research. She spent a week at the Library of Congress over the summer and was over the moon (see what I did there?). For our latest presentation she leaned-in to the work done at public libraries for immigrants and could have spent a whole workshop sharing out the nuggets that she found fascinating and useful.
4. She sees the best in students. Whether it’s a difficult student, a new student, or a student we see every day, she always assumes the best in them and that they can be role models for others and themselves. A cheerleader for sure.
5. She’s a techie. For a few years she was an instructional technologist. She was an early-adopter of Twitter and is an avid user. She thinks in work-arounds and better and easier implementation without losing sight about the larger picture that technology plays in our world.
6. She’s funny. She even makes herself laugh. And then I can’t help but laugh.
7. She is a friend. At every workplace and institution she has gone, she has made several long-term friendships and when she speaks about these people, you know that she cares deeply about them. Plus chocolate helps too.
8. She’s a team-player. We’re a perfect pair, her and I. And it’s her willingness to be a part of the team that is the reason she is involved in activities like our school’s JROTC program, the student help desk, our union activities, and why our library runs like a well-oiled machine.
9. She’s a mentor. She always puts the hat on of a trusted adviser. This might be in doling out some advice from personal experience or her years in education at various levels and in different capacities that she has the knowledge to put it to use for her and others. I’d sit by a fire and listen to her words of wisdom.
10. She’s not your grandmother’s librarian and kicks butt every day. The more I get to know her the more I know her colorful past lends itself to her work every day in our high school library. She’s subversive when she needs to be to get the job done. She’s a librarian super woman. Oh, wait, isn’t there already a librarian superhero? Move over Barbara Gordon, there’s a new sheriff in town.

Research shows that having a work spouse makes you happier and more productive. I can unequivocally say that this is true. End of story, though ours is just beginning! And why, I can’t help but share my love for my work spouse, colleague, co-librarian.