Blackboard Blogging

The Washington Post has the story!

Take a closer look:

The teachers' lounge -- that secretive place where, students imagine, teachers sip coffee, smoke and gossip about them -- has gone global.

The blogosphere is the new lounge where teachers gather to talk about vicious administrators, educational reforms both stupid and smart, marriage, divorce and, yes, students.

Some are gossipy:

I'm going to Portland for all of next week and leaving my children without me. It feels weird to leave them for a whole week. Not to mention the fact that their sub is going to be this guy that reeks -- and I mean REEKS -- of cigarettes. I seriously have to hold my breath around him because I gag if I don't. . . . The kids are horrified by my abandonment.

-- http://www.firstyearteacher.%20blogspot.com/

Some are rooted in personal, sometimes esoteric opinion:

Yesterday I considered Robby George's argument that marriage is a unitive act of complementary persons. I agree with him. Other strategic minorities in industrial societies do not agree with him.

-- http://gruntledcenter.blogspot.com/

All give teachers a way to be heard as never before.

On one level, blogs are little more than personal journals posted on the Internet for all to see. They provide a forum for teachers to share ideas with colleagues around the world or simply talk about themselves and others. But under a wider lens, the sometimes funny, sometimes searing blogs paint what may be the rawest portrait seen of the teaching profession in transition -- and by some measures, in trouble.

I'm happy that my fellow teachers have now embraced the blogosphere. Depending on how they use them, this development will enhance their capacity to truly teach and inspire their students. Or it will further erode their basic sensibility to life beyond the Academy's bubble. Yeah, could be a mixed bag, there.

While teaching remains my day job, I don't consider myself an ed. blogger. Just take the quick tour through my archives. How many posts have I made about my work days? Exactly.

No, I'd rather expound upon the joys of Foolishness and the sorrows of being Reasonable. The larger stage of society or the smaller stage of my living room intrigue me the most.

Besides, when I blog, I'm off from work. Honestly.

So why would I want to look back?

Exactly!