Imaginary Blog Posts

It's so cliché. Naming a blog after a book that everyone is reading. Reading a book that everyone else is reading, and acting on it. And yet. Forty pages into Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, my life hasn't changed a whole lot. There is a reason this blog wasn't previously created. And that reason is the shower. I've written these posts in my head already. They're always brain-drafted mid-shower, mid-drive (during a sing-along, if we're being completely honest, and we are), and mid-workout. By the time I make it to my computer, the one-liners are gone. The larger issue, though, is that I've created multiple blogs in my head. Here is a sampling of various blogs that live in my imagination: 1. Teaching National History Day to English Language Learners (I know, enthralling) 2. Grading Thesis Statements Is Hard 3. Lifers: Teaching For Life In the Teach For America Era There are blogs about advocating for the social studies, decrying the suffering that students and teachers alike face in the standardized testing era, and using our obsession with data to actually take into account some crucial, scientific facts we ignore (healthy eating supports the brain, kids' natural sleep cycles run from midnight to 9 am, and the entire field of developmental psychology). Sometimes, my imagination blog posts are about supporting undocumented students, my love for curriculum, and my three guiding principles of historical thinking. Collaboration, and what it looks like when it's authentic. Professional development. Charters v. public, unions v. the world, educational policy, psychology, and how the Colorado Council for Social Studies can engage younger teachers. Sometimes, my imagination drafts a blog post about everything we can learn about teaching from a good cycling or yoga class. I thought this was all far too disconnected to write about in one blog. I know my focus on one interest within education will quickly be distracted by another, and this fluctuation has been acknowledged by others as a weakness: "You're doing too much. You can't plan curriculum for multiple schools, take on National History Day, teach a citizenship class for families, learn Spanish, grade, design a website, AND eat breakfast in the morning. It's too much." True. The common thread - this is where Sheryl Sandberg comes in - is that every one of these imaginary blog posts is about leaning into education. It's about being an educator. This is my first year teaching National History Day, and I feel like I've been training for this moment my whole life (don't worry, I'm aware of the severe nerdiness of that statement, and there will be more to come). Every book, resource, and idea about a great historical problem I've saved; every link to an NPR story that could turn into a history project; every graphic novel and unexpected artifact - has manifested itself on my own NHD bookshelf that I demanded be awkwardly installed in the tiny hallway outside of our classrooms. My high school theater teacher used to say that the only people who should be actors are people who cannot imagine doing anything else. The pay is terrible, instability unnerving, and the criticism emotionally draining. It's a curse, he argued, to love the theater, and only then does it make sense to dedicate one's life to it. When friends discuss their corporate lunches and holiday bonuses, I dream of marching into school, quitting my job, and prancing into a higher paying 9-5 job that I can leave at work. On Saturday mornings, when I'm grading at Starbucks at 7 am, I have occasionally hoped for someone to steal my stack of grading when I use the restroom. But I am a teacher. So, this blog will probably make minimal sense and lack continuity. But this is my attempt to keep a record of those mid-workout and mid-shower thoughts, so that one day, I can look back and remember the seemingly disjointed path I seem to follow into my teaching career.