Student Mind, Blogger's Mind

This year students and educators around the country will be blogging, or starting to do so. Wrapped up in this blogging is the axiom of "teachers as lifelong learners." In the midst of learning what embedding, tagging, quoting, and auto-posting are, perspective can be obscured or even lost. Here's a recommendation; get help - join a community. It's quite common to see millennial or digital native students posting pleas for help on a variety of sites. If the students now are becoming more comfortable asking for help so should their educators. Any activity that requires the educator to simultaneously become a learner gains an additional level of credence. 

Kelly Tenkely has a great post on the necessity of blogging for educators. Here's a money-quote: 

Blog posting is good for teachers. It keeps us humble, reminds us of how scary it can be to "speak" in front of the class. It reminds us of what it feels like not to have all the right answers. How it feels to get your work back with red marks all over it, exposing your faults. 

It brings back Suzuki's concept of Zen mind being the beginner's mind. If blogging can return educators to a student's mindset, it is compelling evidence for the necessity of blogging in the classroom. 

I Believe...

“I Believe” Then and Now

As a lowly graduate student in a teacher education program this writer had to, along with all other students in the program, complete a list of “I believe” statements regarding education. These statements were hashed out in groups, the subject of discussions, and ultimately typed up and put into a portfolio.

At the time the exercise felt great in terms of the planning and pre-writing; the completed product was something that was reflected upon during the job hunt. This focus promptly was redistributed to the classroom of students that came with said job. But in the midst of getting up the nerve to start this blog these statements came up again. In the spirit of the blog and a sense of transparency of learning both the original “pre-teaching career” statements are followed by a revised version.

I Believe That...

All human beings can learn.

Education is a noble and challenging calling.

Change is not to be feared; only stagnation. 

Students must use knowledge more than merely possess it. 

The answers to all the really interesting questions lie somewhere between the confines of black and white.

Praise is a public matter while personal criticism is a private one. 

Motivation in the classroom is a symbiotic relationship. 

The expression of the human condition is not limited to one form or text. 

Students will not love me all of the time; nor are they required to in order to learn.

This list will always require revision.

It was nice of me to leave an “out” for myself there at the end wasn’t it?

The Revised “I Believe” Statements for the ‘10/11 School Year

Prufrock at the Moulin Rouge.

And then, one not-so-very special day, I went to my typewriter, I sat down, and I wrote our story.

Christian ~ "Moulin Rouge!"

So here it it is, everything changes; or everything is change. After a lifetime of consuming media it is time to add a verse to the powerful play going on all around. It is time to dare to disturb the universe. Later posts will deal beliefs, learning, writing, and media. But for now, this is a beginning.