Comments on: Who should blog first?

By: I can see it growing: Blogging and Writing | connect. create. question.

I can see it growing: Blogging and Writing | connect. create. question. — Wed, 07 May 2008 15:44:18 +0000

[...] I’ve been reading a few things about blogging. And I’ve been reading a few things about writing. And I’ve been reading [...]

By: Paul Bogush

Paul Bogush — Wed, 07 May 2008 11:14:21 +0000

Thanks for pointing out a flaw in my post–I did not make it clear that a teacher had to have a good blog, or be a good writer. In fact when I was writing this I was not even thinking about the writing aspect of blogging. I was thinking simply about the feeling of exposing yourself to the world…of being totally vulnerable. A good writer, or even a bad writer who is a good teacher cannot experience that unless they do it.

Your example with the coach actually is all about what I am saying. Many times the worst players make the best coaches because they know what it is like to not understand something, but they do have experience playing the game. I think it is hard to coach a batter if you have never stood up against a fastball. It is hard to coach confidence in blogging, if you have never experienced the fear of blogging yourself.

You example about the music teacher is also a point I tried to make. If you have no fear in blogging, if you are a great writer, if you don’t know what it is like to people totally and completely worried every time you hit the submit button, then you might have a lot of difficulty getting inside the head of your kids and helping them through it.

“But a teacher’s ability to create and foster fabulous bloggers does not rest on being a blogger herself.” You are right, it rests on being able to look at the experience through the eyes of the kid. Hard to do if you don’t do it, hard to do it you are really good at it.

Thanks for the comment!

By: MsMichetti

MsMichetti — Wed, 07 May 2008 07:38:23 +0000

Hi Paul,
While I agree with some of what you’ve said, I disagree fundamentally with the idea that we cannot teach a student to blog unless we blog ourselves. Why? Because blogging is not much different from writing, and I do not think that a teacher needs to be a great writer in order to teach writing. And research supports this. (See Gleeson and Plain, 1996, published in English Journal and Wess, 1981, Rhetoric Society Quarterly. There are others I recall reading many years ago when I researched this in teachers’ college, but I can’t recall them now.)

In fact, I don’t think a teacher needs to be able to “do” a lot of what he/she teaches. Think of some of the best coaches of sports teams you know — or the best coach of any skill that you can think of. Are they the best in their field, in terms of skills? Chances are, no. But they have great coaching skills. Yes, they probably know enough about the skill to understand how it works, but being a good teacher is about so much more than being good at what you teach. I’m thinking at this moment about a music teacher I had in high school, who was one heck of a talented performer – definitely the most skilled pianist I knew, but who couldn’t get us to sing or play worth squat — and he was frustrated by that, not knowing how to “get” us to do it. He was a great musician, and a terrible teacher.

Likewise, the best writing coaches I have worked with are not the best writers. Are they good? Yeah, at times. Do they know what makes writing work? Definitely. Are they full of encouragement, understanding, sympathy, and tips? Absolutely.

And so I don’t believe that a teacher needs to be a skilled blogger in order to teach kids to blog. Some experience, sure. But a teacher’s ability to create and foster fabulous bloggers does not rest on being a blogger herself.

By: teacherninja

teacherninja — Tue, 06 May 2008 13:10:48 +0000

Great post, great blog. Just added you to my feed reader. Thanks.

By: Nadine

Nadine — Tue, 06 May 2008 07:27:20 +0000

Hi Paul!
Yes… I see! Teachers should continue the generation of blogging by teaching their students an so on! BLOGGING IS SO IMPORTANT!

Good ideas and reasons, people might go all crazy and say that Blogging is boring, but that is nonsense. I believe everyone should blog. Don’t you?

By: Jethro

Jethro — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 03:55:35 +0000

Paul, Great post. You said it wonderfully. I think this goes back to Draper’s PD post a couple days ago. I taught my kids to blog because I saw how great it was working for me. The other day people were whining about the edublogosphere being a closed “cocktail party” and some guy was complaining about having something like “only 200″ readers after 3 1/2 months. I know how you feel to have nobody leave a comment. It seems that my blog hasn’t even been read 200 times in the nearly three years I have been blogging.

Thanks for your comments on my posts and others. You rock.