Why Blogging is Like Teaching in the Country


cc licensed ( BY ND ) flickr photo shared by mtneer_man

Something that George Couros shared with us today at his Masterclass really resonated with me.

As an ex country teacher, an aspect of teaching in a small country town that I really loved was that you saw your students in situations other than the classroom and they saw you outside of school too. There were no Junior Primary beliefs that the teacher lived in the classroom and slept in the sickroom. Students in the country know that their teachers are real people who have lives, families, sports and interests outside of school.

George spoke today of the professional effects for him of sharing important happenings from his personal life with his school and professional network. We heard how he has seen people, who only saw him in his role as a principal, change their attitude to him when they understood that there was more to him than just his work. They knew from reading his blog/twitter feed that he was a whole person and their attitude changed when they were dealing with a man rather than an administrator.

For me, this seems very similar to the regard with which teachers, on the whole, are given when teaching in the country. To use technology which is so often seen as a barrier to human connections, to open up people’s view to the fact that teachers are not emotionless bureaucrat, but rather professionals with passions and concerns of their own, can only be a benefit to our profession and our cause as a whole.

George shared this video with us on how one person has been recording online aspects of his child’s growth from baby to young child which brought tears to quite a few eyes.


Wouldn’t it be great if we could all be seen as whole people and regarded as such, rather than just a 9-3 professional