Dear friends,
It's been almost a month since my last post and that time has given me a little room for reflection. It started with a conversation with a good friend of mine, who also happens to be my former teacher and someone who has spent 30+ years in the classroom. When we got to talking about her experience of No Child Left Behind I was smacked in the face with two huge failings in this forum, which almost led me to abandon it.
One was the unique blend of arrogance and ignorance which is oh-so-DC. I was mouthing off quite loudly and taking pot-shots at people I didn't know, because I was convinced that I knew what was best. In particular I had an immature attitude towards people like blogger Dan Brown, who despite supporting policies I believe to be counterproductive, has something I don't: he is in the classroom working with disadvantaged students. In particular I would like to have a more respectful attitude toward the teachers of America, without compromising my ability to speak unpleasant truths. It is much easier to snipe from the sidelines than to do. In an effort to have more humility and civility I have changed some of the link titles on my Blogroll. "Dan Brown's misguided blog" will know be linked with "Dan Brown's blog, with which I strongly disagree. Similarly "You know who I hate? Gerald Bracey." will now be titled "You know with whom I strongly disagree? Gerald Bracey."
Besides arrogance, the other failing I became aware of was my irrelevance. My first post is still my best, largely because it was longer and provided substantive analysis backed up by research and data. But soon after posting it to widespread approval, I discovered that I could not post articles of that length and depth with anything approaching the speed and regularity of most blogs. I quickly transitioned to the newsreel/op-ed approach to blogging , simply so that I would have a regular stream of posts. But I began to despair of the dumbing down that this fast-paced approach brought with it. Does the world really need another vaguely opinionated webpage forwarding service? Of course it does not.
But I think it does need more substantive analysis that is created in dialogue rather than in academic isolation. And my feeling that this is something I can offer is what has brought me back to the blogosphere. I will still throw up some interesting news if I think it's not getting mentioned elsewhere. But I've decided that his blog will be fundamentally about more lengthy and meaty analysis, even if that means I will never gain a wide readership. I would rather provide a forum for thoughtful dialogue with a few interested readers than an endless stream of not particularly useful sound-bites. So if you'd like to be a regular reader of this blog I suggest you check it about once a week, rather than at typical blog-rate i.e. whenver you are bored at work. At least once weekly I hope to be able to put out something original, insightful, and substantive. And if you are the kind of reader who finds that more valuable than typical opinion and news on the run, than I welcome your comments, questions and suggestions.
One last note: the tags on this blog are no longer organized according to topic, but instead according to type of post, so that different readers can go to the kind of info they find useful. "News" is primarily events in education worth knowing about in 1 line to 1 paragraph; "Opinion" is me mouthing off in about op-ed length pieces; "Research" is the insightful and relevant studies from academia or the organization world, sometimes just linked to and sometimes digested into more user-friendly bullet-points; and finally "Analysis" will be the hallmark pieces of the blog, my attempts to go deeper than most of what is out here on the blogosphere and come up with something truly original; these pieces may be several pages long if the subject matter merits it.
I hope my new approach to blogging will be a useful contribution for those types of readers with a little more patience who are looking for something more substantive. And as always I am grateful to Monique Enos, my teacher, my friend, an inspiring example, and often a useful reality check.
Best wishes to you all.
