Who Cares? I do.

The question for Day 9 of the blogging challenge is “Write about one of your biggest accomplishments in your teaching that no one knows about (or may not care)?”  At first, I thought it would be hard to come up with one.  After all, I’ve come along way as an educator from my early days as a business teacher, followed by an 8-year hiatus when I stayed home with my kids and then back to the classroom.  When I returned to teaching I felt like I had never taught a day in my life.  The profession seemed to have changed dramatically from when I left in 2003, even though during the last two years of it I did some tutoring and subbing.  I also went from teaching in a small, rural town to a much larger, suburban town.  Talk about taking off running, I had some catching up to do in very little time.  Thankfully, I survived and still going strong.

However, that’s not my biggest accomplishment. At this point, I feel my biggest accomplishment that most people don’t know about and probably wouldn’t care is this blog right here.  While most of my colleagues probably reflect on their teaching practice in some fashion, I would not be surprised if they think it’s a waste of time to blog about it, much less take the time to read it.  

But, whether my blog has an audience of 1,000 or just me, the fact remains that this blog is for me.  I’m not exactly a prolific writer but I’ve always wanted to blog.  I put it off because I felt I had nothing to write about, but last year when I implemented blogging as part of free writing exercises in my ESL classes, I felt compelled to join them and so I did.  At the end of last year, I finally created one and am now taking reflection to a whole new level.  I’m proud of what I’m doing and I’m finding it a tremendous growth experience, although a very time consuming one as well.  The next challenge of course will be to keep it up after the 30 days have passed, but I think I will.  If nothing else, my students‘ blogging will serve as an intrinsic motivator  and I believe that they should do as I do, not as I say.

So, who cares about this accomplishment?  I do.