Better late than never?

I, Laura Johnson, have a confession to make: I am absolutely terrified to be writing this blog post right now. I have been avoiding this task since our first face-to-face meeting in which I am still gathering myself from the overwhelming amount of new information that was thrown at me.

Let me give you a little background on my current “blogging/tweeting anxiety”.

As an elementary and high school student, I would have defined myself as a “science and math” kid. I absolutely excelled in courses in which there was only one, extremely predictable, perfect answer. There are no “maybes” in mathematics. There is only right and wrong, and if I worked hard enough, I knew how to get those shiny 100% test scores that gave me so much confidence in my status as a “good student”.

Now compare that with my English courses in which I suffered through during high school. As a French immersion student growing up, my written English skills had suffered dramatically; my sentence structure, spelling, and grammar were absolutely atrocious (and yes, I just had to check the spelling of the word atrocious). The thought of writing and submitting a piece of work for my English teacher at the time, with so many open-ended possibilities, with so many chances to be “wrong”, was enough to keep me up at night.

Reading Jenny Wright’s blog yesterday really struck a chord with me. She also reflected on her fear of using these amazing resources that the Cohort 21 community has presented us with. She acknowledged that with the great potential to connect with other educators and make your opinions heard, also comes the enormous potential that your opinions and contributions will be judged. What a vulnerable position for a new teacher, who more than anything, wishes there was simply a right and wrong way to interact with all of this new technology.

While I acknowledge that in order to get the most out of the Cohort 21 experience is to just dive in, and throw away my fear of getting a little “technologically messy”, I fear that the black and white math student inside of me will be kicking and screaming the whole way.

In speaking to one of the fantastic Cohort 21 facilitators the other night about my aversion to posting this blog, she made ask myself the question: “do my students really want a teacher who does everything “perfect”, or do they want a teacher who can model the vulnerability and willingness to get things wrong, and learn from her mistakes?” The funny thing is, as a Kindergarten teacher, I am constantly preaching to my students the famous line “take chances, make mistakes, get messy!” coined by Miss Frizzle from The Magic School Bus. I truly believe these are values that 21st century learners will need in order to thrive in our unpredictable and messy world, and I can see how ridiculous my professional perfectionist tendencies can be.

So here it is, my humble attempt to practice what I preach and “take chances and make mistakes”. Even though this blog post is not what may be expected, I think this first step will help me get over my professional blogging hurdle. Until next time!