Old Math

I got started with volunteer work at a middle school because I wanted to make a difference in education. Maybe not a huge difference but a noticeable and positive difference. The alternative seemed to be writing cranky letters to the local newspaper complaining about the school district; or running for the school board and have people complain about me.

I started reading education blogs because I saw all these people interested in education; I wanted to see what they had to say.

Finally I started writing a blog because I wanted my comments to come from someplace, I wanted people to know why I was saying what I did.

But I found I could not write what I wanted to say because I could not violate the privacy of the kids I worked with. Leaving aside the fact that I had at most three and a half readers, I am not enough of a writer to disguise the stories. I am helping transition an emotionally disturbed student to general education, today alone I have along blog's worth of material - but it is not my material it is his. So I gripe about idiotic math curriculums - pretty stale brew.

Lately I have stopped reading most other blogs as well. It is the same stories time and again:

Teacher Abuse of Students
Student Abuse of Teachers
Administration Abuse of Everyone
Lousy School of the Week

It just gets old. And the comments are predictable. You can read a blog and you KNOW what NYC Educator, Darren, and Mike In Texas are going to say. It might be witty, pertinent or impassioned but nobody every changes their mind about anything and nobody, least of all me, seems to learn anything.

Bottom line is I need to give the whole bogging thing a rest for a while before I get cynical.