It’s been a long long time since I’ve blogged.
I haven’t felt the urge in a long time. I used to write daily. I met and maintained multiple friendships entirely through blogs for many years. But kids happened. And the internet also started to seem just a little too big. I realized my students could find me, and I also realized that something I wrote here could have an effect on how things went in the classroom. I became a lot more private. I tend to lurk more than post.
But then I won a couple big teaching awards, and people started asking me to lend my voice to the conversation online. They told me I should share what I know or what I’m learning with others. I started to view myself as a mentor, not just for my own students but for new teachers in the field as well, and I started to see my role at conferences differently. It may sound strange to you, dear reader, but even after 18 years of teaching I still sometimes feel like a novice teacher. I still feel like there’s so much more to learn and so many other people to learn from.
Yet, I have been given a tremendous opportunity to have a job that pays me to both teach and research, to try new crazy stuff, and to participate in a lot of training workshops. It’s selfish to keep all that new knowledge for myself, or only publish or present it in places inaccessible to the general public.
So here I am. Sharing. I’m going to talk about whatever I’m reading, or writing, or teaching, or thinking about that pertains to any of the above three. And I’m going to imagine that my audience is anyone from new teachers to experienced teachers looking for inspiration. I’m going to try to add to the conversation. I’m not saying anything here I talk about will be ground-breaking or amazing. I’m not trying to pretend that I’m *the* expert here. But I have some expertise, and I have some knowledge, and I have some experience, and maybe that will help someone else.
I will also probably do some techie stuff, because at my heart I’m a computer person (if you hadn’t figured that out from the subject line).
But anyhoo. Here goes nothing! Welcome to my blog!
-Dr. B (a.k.a. die kleine rote Tomate)
die kleine rote Tomate 