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Hello, welcome to the careers for kids podcast for kids to learn careers.

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This is Maxo Valencia and Henry Morrison is like not here today, unfortunately.

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And today we have Margaret Pastel, a youth librarian.

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Hello Miss Pastel.

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Hello, thank you for having me.

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No, no, they have problem.

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Like thank you for spending your time to be on careers for kids.

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We hope we have a great interview.

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Now let's get started.

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So tell us what you currently do right now.

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Well, I'm the youth services librarian at the Westport Library in Westport, Connecticut.

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So I work with children from ages birth to eighth grade, with most of a focus on kindergarten

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to 14 years old.

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And I have two major responsibilities, one of which is mad managing the graphic novel

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fiction collection, and the other is providing introductory steam, science, technology, engineering,

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arts and math programs for students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

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But wait, there's more.

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I also help with pre literacy programs for younger children.

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And I do readers advisory for everyone.

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Wow, that's a lot of things.

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It's cool that you're helping like lots of like people in the younger ages.

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Yeah, that's kind of my wheelhouse, I think.

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So tell me about your career and how you got to this position.

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Sometimes I ask myself the very same question, how did I get here?

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So it might take a little time to answer.

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And this is what I actually consider my third career.

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The first was in arts education, where I worked as a program manager and fundraiser for groups,

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nonprofit groups that provided education in music, dance, theater, you name it.

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Then change of my life, I became a professional mom volunteer.

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So I led Girl Scout troops and Cub Scouts, I did the PTA thing, I do Sunday school and

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any other volunteer activity that came up.

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So finally, when I had more time for myself, I decided to head back to school and get my

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Masters of Library Science and work in a library.

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And the common thread through all these careers was I lifelong love of learning and doing

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things, whether it was crafts, storytelling, science, the natural world, you name it.

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I enjoy that.

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And I love sharing it with others.

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So I was able to combine all these passions of mine into one position and lucky enough

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to be accepted as an intern at the Westport Library Makerspace, which started my library

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career.

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That's amazing.

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That's like a long journey.

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It is a long journey.

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Anybody ever sees me on the street, they would probably look at me and say, oh, yeah, that

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was a long journey with all my white hair.

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But it's never too late.

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Yeah.

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Like, it's never too late to do things.

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Right.

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Or define your passion.

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What is my passion?

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Yeah.

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What is your passion?

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I like many things.

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Probably like economics and like technology.

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So like financial technology called FinTech.

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Bitcoin?

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Cryptocurrency?

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Yeah, I'm not a fan of cryptocurrency, but you know, I can like look at it sometimes.

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Yeah, that makes sense.

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Those are two pretty diverse interests, but I'm sure you'll be able to find a pathway

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with them.

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There is a big demand.

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I know like technology is like one of my favorite things.

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I use technology every day and I always wonder like how it works.

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Yeah, it was interesting.

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One of my children's was a physics major and is now doing primarily coding in his career.

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That's cool.

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Yeah.

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But he has a wide background so he can go in and address issues in different areas,

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not just his coding issues.

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So that's pretty good.

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And what part of your job do you enjoy the most and dislike the most?

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I enjoy interacting with the children the most, fostering their creativity, connecting

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them to the right books, teaching them new skills, and developing a love of learning.

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Also the librarians in my department are absolutely wonderful.

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The most difficult thing I have is fitting all I want to do in the hours I have available

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to work.

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Oh, you must really enjoy your work.

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I have the best job ever because it's as you said, I love what I do and I have the opportunity

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to share my interests with others or to find new things.

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So I'm constantly on the lookout.

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I can't go anywhere, whether I'm on vacation or whatever, without seeing somebody thinking,

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oh, I can make a program out of that.

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Like it's better though.

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It's really good that you can have a job when you wake up and you're like, let's go, I have

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a job.

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I can do my work.

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I can have fun.

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Yeah, I really think people should have a job that they look forward to doing.

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And if you're not in a position that brings you some sort of satisfaction, actually, if

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it's a wrong fit, it can even affect your health.

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So it's always a good idea to keep looking, even if you're not interested in doing something

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yet, but just being aware of what's out there.

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Like step outside your comfort zone is one thing that I hear a lot here sometimes.

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This is true because you don't know the connections or the skills that you might bring to another

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position.

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So you think so maybe your tech skill is only tech, but actually your tech is also a problem

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solving skill that you have and you can apply problem solving skills to a variety of different

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types of situations and jobs.

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So there's always a connection to making what you do and how you might do it somewhere else

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or in something else.

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So was this a dream job you imagined yourself when you were a kid?

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As a kid, boy, I really remember wanting to do a lot of different things.

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Primarily, I didn't want a job that would do the same thing day in and day out.

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So in that respect, my current job is my dream job.

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And sometimes I say if I had to do it all over again, I would have gone into library

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sooner or else I'd be a national park ranger.

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That's cool.

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I love being outdoors.

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Makes sense.

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So who were your main idols when you were younger?

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I think mine.

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I can't say I had any real idols, but I had people that inspired me, like my parents,

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what they did.

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And there's people I always wanted to meet like Einstein and Gandhi, Arturo Rubenstein,

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James Galway, Leonard Bernstein, even Madeleine Albright.

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But that came later because she was the first female secretary of state for the United States.

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And I always wondered how she got there and how she could cope with that job because it's

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groundbreaking for a lot of women to go into politics like that and achieve such a high

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level.

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So like, further like deeper, why did you pick this specific job, like elaborate on

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it?

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I was very lucky that this job picked me.

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So as I mentioned earlier, I went back to school for my library science, masters of

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library science, and there was an internship opportunity that came up.

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And because of that, I applied and I got it.

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And it was at the Westport Library Makerspace.

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They got a huge grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Sciences, the IMLS.

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And they were looking for students who could be in the makerspace.

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And making was a brand new area for libraries to get involved in.

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And if you know a makerspace, that's where you can go and do coding or 3D printing.

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You can do circuitry.

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You can do building of all sorts.

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It all depends on the focus of the institution.

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So I was in the makerspace, starting to do some of these programs, buying into the whole

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idea that hands-on learning, experiential learning was very important.

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And it was a pathway to learn new things.

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And I finished my degree and I knew I wanted to be in children's.

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And I wasn't focusing on, I wasn't using my degree in the makerspace.

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So I was preparing to find a quote unquote real job and brought my resume over to the

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manager of the children's department.

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And she was kind enough.

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And I asked her to look it over.

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So I said it was good enough for me to send out and possibly get a job as a children's

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librarian somewhere.

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And she looked at it and she said, well, we just might have a position that you could

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be interested in.

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And we talked some more.

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I found out it was the position I was interested in.

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It let me use my skills developed in the makerspace, my lifelong learning, and also added on the

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reading component and readers' advisory.

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So I, as I said, the job kind of picked me rather than me picking the job.

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It's awesome.

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Yeah, that's perfect.

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Like, it's amazing.

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And like, I know, like you mentioned your career before this, but what made you move

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on from it?

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What made me move on from my career before this?

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I think it was just a cycle of interests.

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The more I became involved with libraries or using libraries, the more I saw and read

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about libraries being a crucial, they call it a third place, a place that's not your

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home and not work, but where you can meet and new people develop ideas, et cetera, to

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give you a break.

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Sometimes it's like a coffee house, like a Starbucks.

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People go there to work and chat and stuff, but the libraries are a living entity.

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They change with whatever the community needs and they provide services, good times and

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bad to people who need them and might otherwise not be able to, say, afford to buy books on

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Amazon all the time.

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So it just seemed, it just seemed the right thing to do at that time.

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And again, what I said earlier about looking for where my skill set might be, I was kind

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of thinking outside the box when I went back to library school to say, what does interest

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me?

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So that's how I got there.

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That's perfect.

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That's really cool.

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It's like, nice.

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And what was the biggest highlight of your career?

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That's hard to answer.

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I'm kind of an under the radar, back room sort of worker.

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I love to get things done.

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I love to be the person that makes an event happen, but I don't necessarily need to be,

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to get the credit for publicly.

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I just need to know people where I am working, understand what my contribution is.

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So at this point in my life, I am most excited about a summer program called Camp Explorer

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at the Westport Library.

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It's for kids ages 11 to 14, and I was able to mold it into hands on explorations of different

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steam areas with really good presenters.

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A professional artist did a painting workshop, a professional animation person did an animation,

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stop motion animation workshop.

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We have technology experts that worked with different types of coding or building programs,

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makey makeys.

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You just name it.

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And we even had a jewelry making one.

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So I try to do a variety of summertime, try something new or get a deeper understanding

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of one of your passion sort of program.

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And it has gone like game busters.

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It's really exciting.

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I think that's one of my highlights.

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So what are the biggest challenges that you think can be solved by my generation that

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you would want us to solve for you?

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I kind of have two of those.

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And the big one is just all around us right now.

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Climate change.

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Taking the steps necessary to slow it because we only have one earth.

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And there's an Indian saying, I think it goes something like, no, now I'm going to, it just

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went out of my head.

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But it basically says you don't own the land.

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You are holding it in trust for your children.

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So our land is in trouble.

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And if it's not this generation that will fix it or slow down the changes or find solutions,

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it's going to be up to you kids because we all need someplace to live.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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I know it's like, I don't think there's any planets that will have the same climate or

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same habitats as Earth can.

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You need like a certain place.

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Yeah, or to actually get there if they find one.

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Because following space.com and NASA's educational website and stuff, there's occasionally information

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about planets people have found that are similar to Earth.

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They think, but they're so far away.

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So getting there would be a real big issue.

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And that's what's so cool about to me about science fiction and fantasy.

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Because if you think way back to one of these authors called Jules Verne, he wrote in the

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1800s and he visualized submarines, 20,000 leagues under the sea.

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He had a submarine.

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He envisioned all these little things.

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Even back further in history, you have Leonardo da Vinci who thought up airplanes.

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He didn't have the means to build it, but he thought it up.

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So people would say, oh, Leonardo, you're crazy.

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This is just your imagination.

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It's fantasy.

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And reality comes sometimes out of science, fantasy, out of fantasy and becomes science

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fiction and then becomes real.

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There's so many steps to discovering new things.

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You just have to be able to be the type of person to imagine it, which is again why I

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like my STEAM programs, because the focus is on creativity.

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And you have to, as you said earlier, think outside the box sometimes.

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Yeah.

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It's always good to like think and imagine, but what do you want to change?

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What would make people's lives better?

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It's always great.

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It's just stop and think.

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And it's even better to use those thoughts and execute them, like work hard to make those

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thoughts come to reality.

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Yes, yes.

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Which is kind of like a second thing.

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It would be really nice if your generation could build up tolerance for other human beings.

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Fewer wars, more social good.

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It's a big order.

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So if someone wants to follow in your footsteps in your careers, what would you tell him or

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her?

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Basically, that one size career does not fit all.

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You have to be up for challenges of what's changing in your job or what's changing in

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you that makes you want to find a different career path.

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So to do this, I would focus on the skills you have, what you enjoy doing, and then see

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how they apply to different fields or areas or activities that might interest you.

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And from there, you might build a network to try something new somewhere else.

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Talking specifically about librarianships, libraries are crucial institutions.

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As I said earlier, they provide services to people who may not be able to access or afford

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them otherwise.

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They are also dynamic institutions that change and respond to their community needs in good

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times and especially with that.

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So unfortunately, as nonprofits, they don't always have the budget for a lot of full-time

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people, but you can always cobble together some part-time work.

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So the pay isn't necessarily always great, and finding full-time jobs can be difficult.

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However, the rewards of doing a job in any field that you love doing and you believe

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has an impact on other people's lives or the future, that usually wins out over pay.

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What is your main life advice for kids listening to this podcast?

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I think my previous answer pretty much answers this question.

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Be up for challenges and don't be stuck.

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I will add that if you spend 40 hours a week in a job that for your sanity's sake and for

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the sake of the people that you work with, you might as well enjoy what you're doing

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and the people you are doing it with.

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Otherwise, it'll be a battle every morning, like you said, every morning to get up and

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get out the door and get to work.

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Yeah.

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Just to wake up and be like, oh, I have to work today, is this good?

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I'm just going to take a toll on your emotional and mental health.

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Yeah.

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It's sometimes like going to school, right?

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Yeah.

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I like school though.

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I kind of like school sometimes because I also love learning.

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I love to learn things and try new things.

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I'm just like a fan of school.

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But I know many people have to wake up and like school today, shucks.

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Yeah.

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Well, you have to remember too, sometimes you need the steps to get to where you're

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going.

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So if you put in your time at say school, you might have the ability then to move on

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to something bigger and better and what interests you most.

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I have life surprise for everyone who's in these projects.

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Like school is pretty important for us.

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Like math is important in many fields.

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Science is important in many fields.

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If Elon Musk didn't know science, he definitely wouldn't be where he was today.

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Even math, he wouldn't be where he was today.

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And history and social studies helps us learn about the world around us and language arts

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helps us write.

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Like my dad has to like write so much for his work.

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He wishes he got more time spending on like English.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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Again, you never know what skillsets you're going to need for different jobs.

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This is one of the reasons I really like the liberal arts education because while you can

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always get your technical skills, the ability to problem solve, to think things through,

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to make the relationships between writing, having to write grants or directions or blah,

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blah, blah, whatever you want to say, and the ability to actually do the project.

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You have usually a better trained mind to make those jumps in associations.

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So there's a lot in the news that I disagree with about going to college for just skills,

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for just jobs like that, tech training.

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You have to be able to lead people if you want to get further in your career.

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You have to be able to troubleshoot.

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You have to be able to determine what's good and what's bad, not just what is right.

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I mean, there's a joke with a lot of us laypeople when we're reading manuals for new technology

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that the manual was written by the programmer and not by the end user because the directions

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would be totally different.

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Thank you so much, Ms. Parcell, for allowing us to interview you.

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Yeah, my pleasure.

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I'm sure more kids will be inspired by this interview.

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And whoever is listening, thanks for listening to the CareerStreetKids Podcast.

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We hope you enjoyed the episode and we will see you in the next episode.

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Bye.