Blogging Positive Moments

Returning to work after the winter holidays is an unusual thing to do at my school. On Monday, Jan. 7th, the whole school is empty – not a soul around. In fact, every teacher and student is off on some sort of winter camping excursion or community service adventure (some even go to Costa Rica!). For me, I was up at Pine Crest, in Torrance, with the grade 8 class. While I was there, the administration asked me to contribute to the Outdoor Education blog, and I was totally game!

You can visit the blog at http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/greenwood%20college%20school and you’ll see all the excellent adventures that the school had.

But while I was blogging up at camp, I asked some students to write some posts for me, to provide a different perspective. The writing that they did – well you can read for yourself – was very positive and reflective. I think that the idea of blogging is starting to settle into the younger grades that I am focussing on. I say this because the responses to blogging were met with a positive attitude, as opposed to “I don’t want to do this”; I actually had three grade 12 students write a blog post after a very casual suggestion over a dinner of burritos!

Since we’ve returned, students in grade 7, 8 and 9 are blogging about their experiences from their OE sessions, and they are starting to see how previous posts can inform their latest posts – that they are building a narrative of their own growth and experiences. I hope that this is a cumulating effect, and it continues to build.

Furthermore, I had a grade 8 teacher of English approach me unprompted and ask for support in getting her started on blogging, and getting her class to start on it as well. 

All of these are positive signs, encouraging signs that I am moving in the right direction with building a culture of blogging.

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