Old Dogs New Tricks and Blogging

I was so incredibly excited to read that Elverado won the state bass fishing tournament.  As I looked at the pictures on social media I saw what made me proud to be a part of that school district.  In the background you could see a smiling Dave DeWulf.  Dave is now retired from his teaching job at EHS.  He was our vocational teacher and the bass fishing program started when we were there.  I was happy to sign the paperwork and he made the magic happen.

Dave is the reason that small schools are a joy to work in.  He cared deeply for kids and through his classes, he served our school and community.  He always saw the value in kids even when they didn't see it themselves.  Elverado is full of wonderful people like Dave.  I was a young principal (hired at 30) and he could have easily made my life hell but we respected each other because we valued the same things.  Well most things.  I was techie teacher and now an administrator and when I was hired the rumor was that Dave had never opened his email.  Ever.  We also joked that his use of email should be a performance indicator for me as his Principal.  If I could get him to use his email, I would have proven myself as a Principal.

I always wondered how people, especially in education, disregard the internet as a professional tool.  The most powerful tool technology has yet to give us should be what is empowering teachers.  If you are reading this you get it, but how do we get more of our old dogs to learn these new tricks?  That's not to say that more experienced teachers are not using Twitter, Pintrest and the like because we have great Twitter participation in our district.  But social media has to be more than just posting about projects made in our classrooms.  It needs to be more than just updating the scores.  It needs to be storytelling.

As a former social studies teacher I understand the value of story telling.  When more experienced teachers talk, I listen.  I want to know their perspectives because they have been shaped by history and experiences.  I have learned the most from the old dogs around me (I say that with love).  I have written in this blog for the 91st time with this post but none of what I have experienced at 39 is as interesting as stories told by someone that has been in education for 30 years.  These folks have seen a lot and if we want to find ways to make K-12 education great again, we have to listen to the stories of people that have seen the good, the bad and the ugly.

I would like to challenge our old dogs to teach us NCLB era people through blogging and social media.  We need to listen to your perspectives and allow them to help maintain the integrity of our profession.  On a side note, Dave did start checking his email.  He actually found it quite useful as a tool and I used to love getting called down to his room to help him with it.  I am however, still trying to find him on social media.  Maybe someone over that way can get him there.