A beginning.

It seems to me that I heard somewhere that the hardest thing about blogging is getting started. I really hope that this is true. I have been working on this process for the last month and I still have not been able to put pen to paper as it were.

I suppose that there were a couple of barriers that I have had to overcome in this process. The first was my preconceived notion that bloggers are pocket-protector wearing introverts that are not very adept at face-to-face communication so they pour out their souls on cyberspace in hopes that some one is bored enough to read it. I have recently had to reevaluate this latent belief as I have witnessed the power that uploading or contributing to the online community can have.

The other barrier that I have had to struggle with is a peculiar shyness that I am experiencing about having my digital voice heard. This is peculiar for me because I am not shy about having my voice heard in face-to-face interactions. And since I believe that being a teacher and being shy should be mutually exclusive, I need to overcome this barrier. I suspect that the main issue is that when you let your digital voice be heard, you are putting yourself out there in an uber-public and permanent sort of way. From this point on, every employer that I will potentially have will have the opportunity to develop a first impression with out ever meeting me. So instead of proceeding with caution, I think that it is important that I proceed with prudence and purpose.

With that in mind, now it is time for the bit about what I hope to accomplish here. Well, it all stems from my feelings of dread and confusion around the process of finding myself and my way as a teacher. In a lot of ways, I feel like my particular teacher prep program left me totally unprepared. But on the other hand, my teacher prep program gave me tools which I am only beginning to become aware of. The primary goal of my teacher prep program was to turn me and my colleagues into reflective practitioners who are able to deal with all of the grey areas of our beloved profession. So through this reflective exercise, I hope to glean as many insights and as much wisdom from my experiences as I can. It is also my sincere hope that other becoming and beginning teachers might find something of worth as they follow this, the last leg in my journey of becoming a teacher.

So with out any further ado or fanfare, let us begin...