Here’s the amazing thing about blogging for me. When I go home to my family or talk to friends, noone really wants to talk about education, or my ideas, or drop out prevention, or student achievement. My standard response to “how was your day?” is “great” and that’s about it. But I still have my students, school and it’s challenges swirling around in my head a substantial percentage of the time. So now I find blogging and it’s an instant connection to others who are interested in the same thing.
My primary responsibility at work is to solve problems. Some small, some big. And I don’t have all of the answers. Some days I wonder if I have any of the answers. But I now have a place to post the questions and amazingly, answers come back to me. Thoughtful, helpful answers. How great is that?
With a minimal budget for my own professional growth, I now have an ongoing source for creative ideas and I don’t even have to leave school. Now if I can just think of ways to get my teachers hooked, building their own professional learning communities. And then if I can think of ways to get my students hooked, where they actually care about what they’re writing and get excited about the responses.
I’ve been blogging for about a year now, and I can attest to the value of blogging as a tool for professional growth. In particular, I subscribe to dozens of news feeds (RSS feeds) relating to K-12 education, technology, and public relations (I am a communicator). Checking these news feeds every couple of days has led me to some really helpful sources of information that I can use on the job, not to mention meeting some kindred souls out there in the world.
Blogging as Professional Growth.
Since my blog does focus on this topic, amongth others, I’d like to invite Hebrew readers to read it.
The link to my blog is: http://israblog.nana.co.il/blogread.asp?blog=266004
continuation:
It was the Giuseppe Verdi’s opera: Rigoletto!
Thousands of people gathered in an amphitheater. Many of them were “refugees” from our northern settlements.
This was a very exciting & special evening!
I am very proud of the the people in my country!
This comment isn’t relevant to your topic: “Blogging as Professional Growth”, but I wanted to share this
experience with you.
As you wrote: “I’m blown away by this connection”…
Let’s keep it.
Ilana
Hi Kimberly,
Would you and your fellow bloggers believe that this evening, in the midst of war, the municipality of Tel Aviv has organized a huge production: I’ve been there, it was
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Hello,
I am a new Israeli blogger & I must admit that I feel exactly like you.
I wish you could read my blog…it is written in Hebrew.
I am responsible of an information center in a public library.
My 40 volunteers + me help citizens & try to solve their problems. Sometimes those problems follow me home…
My new blog is sort of therapy…especially now, that we struggle for our existence in Israel. It helps me share my thoughts, feelings & also is a working tool..I use it in order to empower the information center.
Thanks for your time.
Ilana
Kim, even as a retired teacher I can absolutely empathise with your notions that the big world is not really intersted in what has happened during your school day. And blogging really does make a difference, just to let off steam.
Kim – You are right – most “non-teachers” really don’t connect with teaching well enough to understand all you’re going through both the good AND the frustrations/disconnects. They mean well (and I’m sure this is true of many jobs) but after awhile you’re just whining and who cares that Johnny had a pencil AND paper today and got to work right away!? I’m lucky my wife also teaches and this coming year we will both be teaching the same grade – 4th – she at one of the highest income schools in our district and me at one of the lowest income schools in the district. We always have interesting stories for each other and some great comparing goes on – she has to set an upper limit on how many parents can go on a field trip (8 to 14 depending on the trip) and they have to sign-up on a first come basis – whereas I sometimes have no parents going along and almost never more than 1 or 2.
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It strikes me that as adults we realize we rarely have ‘all the answers,’ but when we’re students we’re used to adults having all the answers.
I guess I wonder how empowering (or enlightening?) it would be for high school students to realize that adults have to sometimes wrestle with their decisions and deal with the issue of not always knowing if their decision was the ‘right one’ even though the expectation is that “adults have all the answers.”
I see the potential in blogging for kids to see a different side of teachers and administrators. Perhaps a less guarded, and even more vulnerable side. The question is whether or not that’s a bad thing?
I guess I’ll continue to wrestle with that one. Thanks for your thoughts Kim!
I really appreciated your post. I also find myself full of ideas. And now, thanks to the blogging world, I feel liberated from an inner (only) focus.
Thanks for including me in your thinking.