Author offers advice to educators at the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers annual conference.

The author once called the “Aesop of the 20th century” summed up the challenge facing today’s teachers.

“We’re in the 21st century now,” Jane Yolen told a packed Sentinel High School auditorium Thursday at the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers annual conference. “I’m about to lose my badge of modernity.”

And the effort to keep current or ahead of the needs of students is a never-ending one. Despite having published more than 250 novels and stories for children over a 40-year writing career, the education world offers no chance to rest on your laurels, Yolen said.

“It would be nice if books lived forever,” Yolen told the audience. “But an author who does not learn from each book, who does not grow, is going to become a bad author.”

And in some cases, that means adapting to a publishing world that values product predictability over literary quality. Teachers and librarians have lost the power they once had, when they purchased nearly 90 percent of the new titles coming out of children’s publishing companies for their students.

By ROB CHANEY of the Missoulian

Full Story: http://missoulian.com/articles/2005/10/21/news/local/news03.txt