Even Lazy Teachers Should Blog

George Salazar
Sep 8, 2018 · 4 min read

I’ve made it through my first week of the academic year, kicking off year eight as a teacher, and it’s a surprisingly good start. I’m really hoping the Chinese are right that eight is a lucky number, because all the years before have been particularly brutal. But I have a good feeling about this term. Good enough to try again and start a blog. However many years you have as an educator, I hope you’re blogging (or in the process of starting one), too!

I know; the last thing a teacher wants to hear is yet another task they must add to their ever-growing list of responsibilities.

Script my lesson you say? Squeeze in another third party diagnostic tool to the lesson plan you already had me script from the anticipatory set to the exit slip? Pepper in some PARCC and SAT test questions in the middle of an already overambitious curriculum unit? And now here’s some bugger trying to get us to blog! Why can’t we just go back to the good old days when we could just wake up, get dressed, drive to work, and–you know–teach!

If we teach today’s students as we taught yesterday’s, we rob them of tomorrow.

— John Dewey

For many veteran teachers, there is definitely a nostalgic appeal to the past, the good old days when they could just do their job without all these programme initiatives and pedagogical approaches and evaluation frameworks eating away their professional autonomy. And I admit that sometimes I wish I were born decades before, to experience what those golden ages of the profession felt like. Today, the act of teaching itself seems to be made the least important amongst the many roles we’re expected to perform. But even if many of us are still teaching in the same crumbling buildings and teaching the same musty textbook our parents may have had, the world around us has changed considerably, as have those who enter our classrooms. It is a disservice to our current students to try to teach them as if it were still the 1800s, then expecting them to succeed in the social dynamics of the 21st century.

In this digital age, it is important for the next generation not only to be consumers, but also producers of substantive content. We’ve seen how online information — or misinformation — has impacted our society. We need our future generations to be effective keepers of the key.

So, what does that have to do with teachers blogging? For one, ‘The best writing teachers are writers themselves.’ Modelling is a key tool in every teacher’s instructional kit; you can’t just expect students to sign up for a WordPress account and suddenly become star bloggers. Believe me, I’ve tried. Lazy people often have a bad habit of skirting the hard work, only to wind up working more than if they’d done the job properly.

Modelling how to write successful blog posts is far more challenging than reciting the foundations of the dreaded five-paragraph essay. There isn’t a set formula or a checklist to complete. It is an authentic writing product, moulded and polished from the organic process of one’s thoughts, a process that is more recursive than linear.

Even as I am typing this post, I am aware just how difficult it is to string the words together, how often I have deleted phrases, only to write them again in slightly different iterations. I am brainstorming, drafting, writing, and editing simultaneously, which is far different from the sequential writing process that we teach our students as if it were gospel. Students, especially struggling writers, need to be aware that writing is hard, even for teachers who seem to know everything. It is work, requiring time (lots of time!) and effort. But it is also meaningful. Lazy people often skirt work because they find no value in the task. But here I am, clacking my keys well past the witching hour, because this is a task with purpose and personal stake. Now, you could argue that a teacher could achieve the same ends writing a novel or a collection of poetry. And I’m not stopping you from pursuing those genres if that is where your interests lie. But every writing form has its merits, and blogging definitely has plenty to recommend itself.

For more reasons why you should try writing your first post, look here, or here, or here!

You may ask, if I’m so lazy, why am I writing? Why not leave it to the superstar teachers?

For some reason I’m always getting forgotten. — Eeyore

There are many voices in education. But amongst them, I have yet to hear one like mine. I don’t want to make this a race thing, but just like our literary canon, education is mostly made up of white voices. Aside from Michelle Rhee (ugh) and Salman Khan (a lazy teacher’s lifesaver), I honestly haven’t heard of other prominent educators that represent Asian and Asian American experiences (please share if you have).

Representation matters. In policy, curriculum, instruction, you can’t effect change if you aren’t part of the conversation.

So here I am, entering the conversation. I hope you will, too.


Originally published at lifeinpraxis.com on September 8, 2018.

George is too lazy to conform his blog to US conventions, and will be writing his blog primarily in British English conventions, as it is the English he was taught. Don’t worry; he knows enough about GenAm standards to teach his students well.

George Salazar

Written by

Urban English educator. Assonant and alliterative aficionado. Down for shots at Voltaire or shots of vodka. Plato and Patrón: ibid. http://lifeinpraxis.com/

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade