Many, many thanks to Optimus Rhyme, one of my all-time favorite nerdcore rap acts, for supplying the title to today's entry. It's a snippet of lyrics from their song "Coded and United." It seems appropriate for two reasons:
1. This school year has definitely felt like Reboot, work, recharge, work, walk home, recharge, shutdown, reboot, repeat for every educator out there. I don't need to belabor the point.
2. I am Rebooting my blog for the THIRD time! And I'm excited about it. I feel like I finally have clarity on what I want to say.
A couple of things contributed to this feeling, that I'd like to share with y'all. Because it's my blog, and I can. And the lyrics of "Coded and United" apply here as well:
Reboot, work, recharge, work, walk home, recharge, shutdown, reboot, repeat
I am not unique, I am not distinctive, not inimitable, reboot repeat
Every time I sat down to write a blog entry, I'd stare at the blank page. And stare, and stare. Of course, during the school day I'd have these huge insights: "I've gotta blog about this!" and by the time I got home I was either so exhausted from school that my brain couldn't function, or I was hamstrung by Impostor Syndrome (I am not unique, I am not distinctive, not inimitable).
So the blog just sorta... floundered.
Dug through CPU, couldn't find a clue
Ran twenty miles then I stopped
Couldn't take a step, couldn't think
Every process was blocked
Spent 10 years stuck in the same spot
Repeat directive, it seemed that I forgot
I found Angela Watson's Truth for Teachers Podcast & her 40 Hour Teacher Workweek program and they were one of a series of game-changers for me. I stopped burnout (and not before time!), healed, and learned to set boundaries and use strategies to improve my work-life balance. Seriously, if you're not familiar with Angela Watson and the important work she does, do not pass 'Go.' Go directly to her site and find out ways to love teaching again, and stop working all the dang time. Future You will be so grateful.
So now with more mental bandwidth and breathing room, I was able to cobble together some ideas for blog entries, but that dang Impostor Syndrome kept popping up. So, nothing new on the blog. Finally, I was researching something for class and someone's blog came up with the subtitle: "500 words a day on whatever I want." I don't know why that made it click for me but it did. I mean, of course a blog is "whatever I want" because it's MY blog. Any blogger can say whatever they want. But in my head I was making it out to be this huge thing because there are so many edubloggers out there that I admire so much. I couldn't imagine that I would have anything to say that they haven't said already. I mean, I was rationalizing to myself: "Of COURSE you have something unique to say! You are the only 'you' there is. Sure, maybe you might be inspired by someone else's idea, but you are the only one who can have your own unique perspective on it. So get bloggin', lady!"
But that ding-danged impostor syndrome head-demon is a persistent little bugger.
Sometimes it's not so much the content of what is said, but the way in which it's expressed, that makes it finally click. And for whatever reason, "500 words a day on whatever I want" did it for me. (If you're curious about the blog, it was the Abagond blog... I think I was searching Ebonics/AAVE for lesson ideas for the Linguistics class I teach). Thank you, Abagond!
About that same time, Angela Watson's team invited educators to apply and submit writing samples to be guest bloggers on her site. I figured this would be good motivation for me so I went for it, and my sample was accepted! Take that, head-demon!
Put another way, in the words of Optimus Rhyme:
C colon kill dot E X E so
I broke free, strode straight down the street, so
I felt fine like somebody hit a switch
Made up my mind, had to find that niche
With this wild school year I was also inspired to go all-in on CI for next year. So I've been reading up on a lot from Tina Hargaden and doing insane amounts of professional development on my own time to get up to speed. In my innermost Teacher Heart it felt right to me, to go this route, as the best way to do some "catch up" from the wild year and get my students to the next level despite all the obstacles from this past year.
It so happens that I am also up for National Board renewal (OK technically I was up for renewal in 2019-20, but we all know how that turned out... and National Board has been pretty great about offering flexible deferral options for candidates and renewal candidates during the pandemic, so my Certification has been extended through the 2021-22 school year, and will renew during that time).
So it just sort of felt like the right time for a reboot. I had newfound confidence, and a blog would be the perfect space for me to document my journey with going all-in on CI, as well as serve as a reflective journal as I undertake National Board renewal.
I had a hunger, for big prime numbers
Became a fan of this, cryptanalyst
I love the plain text so I guess it's no wonder.
I mastered it from symmetric to transitive.
Gathered codes, both public and private.
DES, ciphertext, name it I can write it.
I'm unshakable, I'm on the right road.
My goal? Writing the unbreakable code.
So here it is, my blog... version 2.0? 3.0? I don't even know at this point, but it feels good to have clarity this time around. As mentioned, I'll mostly be writing about my journey learning about and becoming better at teaching with CI. I will get vulnerable sometimes (probably a LOT) as I'm continuing to stretch outside my comfort zone. So pull up a chair and grab some popcorn. I'll also be writing about teaching high school Linguistics. And Global Education. And Social Justice. Because I can't NOT write about these things. They are part of who I am, personally and professionally. I hope it's helpful for teachers and Global Citizens everywhere. In the past I was letting the idea that it might not be helpful, stop me from writing anything. But the truth is, just like every other part of a teacher's job, we honestly never know who we've helped along the way. So I'm gonna write.
Finally, assimilation complete,
I write happily, encrypt and repeat...
Reboot, work, recharge, work, walk home, recharge, shutdown, reboot, repeat
PS: If you're wondering where my old blog articles are (all 3 of them - yup, I was averaging about an article every 12-18 months, go me!), I unpublished them. I'm not ashamed of the work I did, but I consider those "rehearsals" for the work I'm undertaking now. Rest assured, the same information will be coming out in future posts, but with a better, more coherent message.