Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Why blog?

Well, I’m not even sure. I have found that I spend too much time in my head and my ideas vaporize before congealing. And maybe getting back to writing will help me see my thoughts through to some kind of completion. I’m weary of the internet forum. There are some merciless souls out there. And yet. I have to wonder what kind of voice I will develop if I know I will be posting.

I don’t expect to post everyday. I wonder how bloggers with full time jobs and families do this. I get up at 4 AM most days just so I can get in a couple of hours of work while the house is quiet and I can think straight, only to go to work and have my day fly by with one class after another, the inboxes on my desk stacking up repeatedly with work to be graded, students lingering after class with dogtags to be signed, requests and questions to be addressed, bells ringing, and thirty minute lunches inhaled, afternoons alternated with faculty meetings and after school tutoring, endless parent phone calls and then hurrying home to my own children who have requests and questions to be addressed, meals to made and laundry to be done, dogs to be walked and lives to be lived. To not become task oriented and to, oh yeah, not have the life sucked out of me, while of course trying to keep a joy for living and a little bit of my creative self intact.

My “New Year’s Resolution” this year is more a trying to adhere to some positive life styles, same as last year. Taking care of myself physically, emotionally, spiritually. The fact that I am planning to use this writing forum to be a critique on things I find irritating is not the paradox one would be inclined to think; by getting these thoughts down in writing I plan on seeing them through to some kind of fruition - clearing my head of them a little bit (that’s the theory at least).

Things that interest me enough to write about:

The politics of SPED. I know the intentions. But how it actually gets played out is something else entirely – sometimes ludicrous to the point of becoming comical. I have a deep rooted belief that the general public - especially the parents of the regular ed students – have no idea.

“Rigor, Relevance, and Relationships.” The new 3 R’s of education. Great in theory or the hands of a talented teacher having a good year, but usually misinterpreted into a surreal oxymoron.

American pop culture – especially movies and the media.

Difficult parents of difficult students.

Alternating positioning myself between my role as a public school teacher and the parent of two public school students.

Random topics that capture my attention.

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