"Branding" Myself. Resistance or Mental Laziness?

Despite teacher leadership trainings and general awareness built by cruising Twitter in the wee hours, I have not spent a lot of time developing a personal "brand" on the web.  Sometimes, I feel like I should maybe break my web identity up into teacher leader, dabbler in possible money-making ideas online (ebay, teacherspayteachers, craigslist or whatever) and... what?  "Me"? Mom? Writer?  Half my Twitter feed is news articles and Tweets about politics.

This was the same problem I faced when I started this blog many years ago.  I still haven't resolved it.  I recently started a Teachers Pay Teachers store, despite feeling slightly trashy about selling work that I would give to my colleagues free at the drop of a hint.  I haven't sold anything except a winter break bingo set, so I started playing with Buffer, an app to help me post links to my TPT products trying to drum up some traffic.  I know my products don't have cutesy thumbnails with bubble-headed people of various skin tones, and I have yet to be consistent about the types of documents and support (lessons) I include, but my products are inexpensive, and good learning tools, so I am going to keep going slowly and figure it will build.  

But, I feel a bit inauthentic using a buffer to post to my Twitter feed (@mshintonsainz). I don't want my followers to feel as though I am a robot.  I am not going to robot-out everything... but it becomes fuzzy quickly, right?  I have actually stopped following people who filled up my feed with repeated babble and advertisements day and night.  Why wouldn't others?

Is it possible to do okay with this mish-mashy type of web presence?  Do I really need to develop a series of brands?  

Questions I will continue to consider... probably over the summer!

Later, friends!

The Obstinacy of "Hope"

Hope won't let go of my neck. Find out what I mean by reading my newest Stories from School blog.

http://www.storiesfromschoolaz.org/2013/05/the-obstinacy-of-hope.html

Writing my Résumé

I've felt a little hindered lately in what I post here. I just removed a downright angry post from over a year ago, and I find myself wanting to blog, but feeling a bit imaginatively constipated (with a few exceptions).

For one, my life is "frittered away by detail" right now. Simplify? There is not much to be done unless I start preparing frozen dinners. Get help? I have some help, but life is full of the types of details most of the world would envy: Too much grading (because I am employed), trips to the bank (to pay the landscapers), dental appointments (because we have insurance), job search (because my spouse's new company is becoming successful and it's time to move there), attending to my children (because they are bright, curious, energetic, imaginative, intense and industrious--and they love me), cleaning the house (because it is so cozy and cute when we keep it tidy, and also free of stink) and tending to the doggie (because we are lucky to have Rox. She's just, as G would say, Haa-Hooooo.)

For another reason, every time I go to write anything online lately, I find myself thinking: "if a potential employer reads this, would it increase or decrease my chances of being hired?" And even though I don't share everything on my blog, the thought that, in effect, I am always writing my résumé stunts me. Ugh.

Having recently lived through our district's "professional boundaries" training where I learned that there is a lot of grey area but a word of warning about what we post online publicly, even though I do not believe there is anything on my blog that I regret putting there, and even though we were led to believe that the grey area is there so that we don't all become rulebound automatons, the grey area also leaves us vulnerable to painful trials should someone in the community feel uncomfortable with something I've posted. I really begin to ponder whether teachers who value their careers can truly exercise freedom of expression outside the classroom. Like politicians, or like back in the days of the small-town school, the teacher's public activities now become, to a certain extent, circumscribed by the school community.

What about art and poetry-- things adults create that might not be created to distribute amongst their students? We may not see any negative repercussions ever, but are we really free to express ourselves? Everything can become widely public in the fake click of a smartphone camera. In reality, our students are actually more free than we are to express themselves and critique the system. I hear them doing it as soon as they walk out the door of my classroom.

Perhaps these reflections don't illuminate anything, and managing a public identity is what any professional adult might face. These are just initial thoughts on the matter, anyhow. At the heart of the issue is that I need to do more writing that is just for me and my own growth and satisfaction. I do that often, but I must admit that for me, part of the satisfaction is knowing that someone somewhere read it or might read it, and that's where the head games begin.

The Tassel's NOT a Hassle

I hope I haven't put myself too far out on a limb, here, with my latest Stories from School blog entry.

I'd like to further explore the issue of whether or not I am in the classroom as a "brick in the wall" or as someone who equips students to tear down the walls, metaphorically.  This is just the beginning.

Please read, and I welcome comments and perspectives...
http://www.storiesfromschoolaz.org/2013/01/the-tassels-not-a-hassle.html

Invisible Data. Stories from School.

My latest Stories from School blog entry for the AZK12 Center both recognizes the wealth of data that good teachers have about their students, and also questions the usefulness of that data outside of the classroom walls.

I have a really hard time staying under 800 words for these entries, but this one got a comment immediately.  Yea!

I definitely have more to say on the subject. When do I not have more to say?

Who Are We Protecting? My first SFS blog entry

I have been invited to blog for Stories from School AZ, a blog devoted to stories about teaching that show how policy affects teaching practice.

My first entry is, of course, too long. However, I'm happy with it. I'm anxious to see what kind of comments it gets.

I can say from my own experiences that, next to losing a student to suicide, one of the worst feelings a teacher can have is the kick to the gut that comes when she is put in the position of being an arm of an institution, to the detriment of other important things in the classroom, like the mutual trust and respect of her students.  Makes me feel like Nurse Ratched.  Except that she is more purely personally evil.  Or does she truly think she is doing the right thing?

Is there any personal redemption in the acknowledgement of our failings?

Anyway, through a specific school story about a suicidal teen and mandatory reporting, I hope I've addressed an important topic about the need for institutions to address individuals.

Please read (and hopefully enjoy... and comment!)

Who Are We Protecting?  http://www.storiesfromschoolaz.org/2012/08/who-are-we-protecting.html

City Lights, Bats, and Teacher Voice

I'm sitting on the balcony in the dusk watching the silhouettes of small bats flit through my line of sight to the valley of city lights brightening slowly below me.  The lights sprawl in fits and starts, hedged into irregular shapes by the foothills of the other three mountain ranges around town... the Rincons, Santa Ritas and Tucson Mountains.

Above me, dark wood beams neatly divide strips of night sky.  I should get to see some extra stars from up here tonight.  They appear one by one, teasingly.

I came out here, out of my Loew's Ventana Canyon room, to relax after a heady day of thinking about teacher voice and teacher leadership at the AZK12 Center's Teacher Leadership Institute.  I am observing things around me, trying to clear my mind.

It is day one of five days, and I'm finding it hard to encapsulate and process what is in my mind.  We viewed the film American Teacher and heard from one of the producers, Nineve Calegari, and one of the teachers profiled in the film.  We had breakout discussions defining teaching as a profession.  We were asked to define our own vision of teaching as a profession, and to make a plan as to how we would find our teacher voice and use our spheres of influence to make our voice heard and to affect policy.

[As I type, a small spider keeps dropping down in front of my screen.  I suppose it thinks my light will attract its dinner.  I keep having to flick it off of me.  Hopefully it doesn't have friends.]

At a dinner meeting, I encountered my new position as a blogger for Stories from School, which I will begin in August.  As I shared my idea for a juicy topic and heard what other bloggers were going to write about, and about some of the stories they had already shared, my amazement at this opportunity grew.  And the weight of the responsibility I feel to be both honest and yet professional... that weight also grew. The rhetorical situation of a teacher with both the best interest and privacy of students in mind, and the responsibility not to directly criticize or implicate individuals with whom I work, to make the stories specific, juicy, sincere, personal, and yet speak to broader issues-- this is a tricky rhetorical situation.  I want to take risks, provoke conversation, thought and change.  And yet I like my job and profession, and Tucson is a small town.

Right now my teacher voice wants to scream and cry, both in joy and frustration, for a thousand reasons.  I think I need to narrow my message.

[Also, I need to decide if I'm going to go home to turn off the coffee maker, or just assume it has an auto-off function.  I haven't used that one in so long that I truly cannot remember.  I'd rather stay here, in the balmy evening, with the almost cool breeze and the--WOW-- amazing full moon now rising over the Rincons to my left.  I hear breezes and no traffic... I can no longer see the bats... the stars are out... my spider friends have apparently given up...  I have some tough choices to make]