I have to ask myself that question. After all, the world is filled with education related blogs. What good would another one do? And what do I have to offer that isn’t more than adequately covered at someone else’s place?
At the outset, I have to admit that I don’t know the answers to those questions.
But here’s what I do know.
I know that I think better when I’m talking with others or writing to that imagined other. It’s not that I’m necessarily lazy (though maybe that’s true) and don’t think on my own. It’s that forming words and sentences helps me to form thoughts. Words are stitched to thoughts. As words begin to tumble out my fingers and onto the screen, thoughts get tugged out, too. On the page or in conversation, I begin to make sense of the chaotic world I live in. (And Lord knows the classroom and the world of education is a-whirl with activity and chaos.) Noticing stuff is hard to do in the middle of a tornado. Words help me to notice and name, which helps me to think.
I know that I long for an intellectual community. Though I am in my 50s, I’ve been teaching in the public schools for only just over a decade. When I started teaching I had no idea just how solitary teaching could be. That’s not a criticism of education so much as just an observation at this point. I can think of a thousand reasons teaching is the way it is (and perhaps will explore some of those in future blog posts), but my experience with teaching is that most teachers suffer from a real lack of community on the level of the day-to-day.
I know that I get better as a teacher when I’m thinking about what I’ve done and where I’m going. Certainly that doesn’t mean I avoid mistakes through reflection. I’ve made more than my share, even after thinking about what to do for awhile! But reflection helps me make the next plan better because, as I mentioned above, I notice more of the world around me. So, reflection (and by extension this blog) is a mistake-avoidance tool? Not so much. As a keep-it-alive-and-learning tool? I’m hoping.
I don’t know the answer to why another blog. But I do hope that perhaps this will be “worth it” to me, and to the children that I teach. So, in the spirit of adventure I’m setting my frail craft in the river to begin my paddle to the sea.
Hi, Steve. Every reaso for this blog site – especially because of our need for the caliber of thinking in evidence here. So glad to see you doing this!! I, too, have been reading Gawande – got his book, Better, for myself and a copy for my daughter at UIHC. She’s a bit resistant to a surgeon, but I’m hoping for good conversations soon. I will also check out What Readers Really Do and contemplete adaptations to secondary lit. Hope you are well and having a terrific holiday break. JSD
Jim, Jim, Jim!!! It sure is good to “hear” from you again. The Iowa Writing Project has fed me so much good food as a teacher (and as a person.) Do you know how much your work has meant to people? I sure hope so!
Yeah, I started this teacher blog, in part, because I really liked the BB9 conversations during IWP II this summer. I realized that I think better in conversation with others (or even with myself) 🙂 Sure, a talk face-to-face over a beer is better, but…this isn’t too shabby, either!
I’m curious to see what you might be thinking about with using Vinton and Barnhouse’s ideas in secondary lit. I felt that the alternative to a five paragraph essay that you showed us in IWP II was very much like this kind of inductive thinking, working from details to the bigger picture. As we worked with the Sanders essay, I could more clearly see the thinking that I was doing, and it made it much easier (and useful!) to talk to others about the categories – ideas – connections we found between the details we noticed. To often, we don’t help students learn how to think; we just expect them to do it. Also, I wonder if because we don’t show the value of struggling with details and how they mean by allocating valuable classroom “real estate” (time) to it, students don’t think they have the time to actually play with ideas, bat them around, let them lead them down possible dead ends and on to areas that are important to them and others.
Thanks for stopping by. Thanks for all your good work. All the best.
PS. You’ll probably see the seeds of your comments in IWP bearing fruit in some of my poems. I still have a lot to learn, but the process of learning it is so very enjoyable!
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