Me and my Mentor

Every Monday, I tweet out the hashtag #MentoringMonday. I like the idea of taking at least one day a week to encourage my large network of educators to reach out and support a new and/or pre-service teacher. I know it’s not a big thing, but if it encourages at least one person to take the action to mentor, then I’ve been successful.

Tip for the Day: Write to Blog

On this #MentoringMonday I want to share one tip for the day: Work this summer to get your personal blog space up and running and write. It doesn’t matter what platform your choose (i.e. Blogger, WordPress, TypePad) what matters is that you get started writing. Of the many things you could do to support yourself to grow, writing is the most important one. I say this because I firmly believe that writing is the backbone of our work as educators and if we don’t learn how to do this well, we are selling ourselves short!

Everybody writes..right? Wrong! I have to raise my hand and humbly admit that as a classroom teacher (pre-blogging days) I was writing all the time. In notebooks, journals, lesson plans and more. When I transitioned to my work as an administrator, however, much of that went out the window! It seemed that time that could have been spent writing was relegated to memos, letters, emails and weekly bulletins. Not what I’d call true writing to grow my craft.

I’ll admit that I allowed it to happen, that time of “not writing” and it was a big mistake. When I stepped into the space of ‘indie” consultant, after 19 years as an admin the first thing I was asked to do was to write a blog post. Yikes! It felt like a sledgehammer coming down on my head and panic set it in. I didn’t think I could do it and it took me weeks to convince myself that I could. This much is true…it was a struggle to get my “mojo” back. But in time, I was able to dig deep and find my voice again thanks to guess what…a mentor!

On this lovely summer Monday, I hope that you will consider my little tip for the day, and breakaway! I’ve created a little 8tracks for your listening pleasure as you ponder your blogging future. I hope it inspires you!

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