Reactions from Alex: Part 2

Ok... the story continues...

I’m not really comfortable with it. I feel I want to put much more thought into what I write for the reasons laid out by Siobhan. I am much happier communicating face to face and bouncing ideas about in a more immediate way where I can reword something that has been misconstrued.
Anne

For me writing my thoughts on a blog is a bit intimidating. If I'm in a real live discussion and I say something -it is not written there as a constant reminder-it is a passing thing. If what I've said has not been very interesting chances are it will be forgotten in 2 minutes as soon as someone else speaks.
Siobhan

Like Siobhan I find myself quite reticent to commit my ideas and quite anxious about what I write and agree that this is because spoken discourse is ephemeral and I can test ideas and sound things out them being set in stone.
Sarah

Re. the very nature of 'blogging', shouldn't be too demanding, should it? Not too wordy or referential. I think one of the issues all users of a blog have to be clear on is etiquette. Some of these posts are more like mini essays...
Sam

... especially thoughts relating to sensitive, complex issues: it's too easy to read and interpret these superficially when you are viewing them online
Julia

With having to contribute here on the blog – it forces me to do something I may have tried to not do in the classroom – which is to actually say something. This isn’t because I can use this way of learning to adopt a different persona (I don’t think anyway!!), but I have the time to think about what I want to say, and the moment hasn’t passed before I build myself up to say something. I also find it easier to explain myself in writing, more than I do in speech, and I also can absorb what others are saying, as I can read it more than once.
Claire

I must admit I was rather surprised by many of your reactions here ... 'intimidating', 'reticent', 'anxious' and so on regarding writing. By chance I was reading an article yesterday that claimed that there is substantial evidence that teachers do not like writing and committing their thoughts in a permanent form.
My initial thought was that this is somewhat ironic - given how much time we spend teaching writing, encouraging students to record everything (vocab, study plans, learning logs, diaries, ...), explaining stance and voice, teaching academic conventions and so on. Asking students to do things we feel uncomfortable with! This led Claire (among others) to empathise with the challenges students face (from us) in writing in academic contexts. Many of you prefer 'talking' because you can repair misunderstanding, your comments are not recorded, and you can escape judgement. This really does interest me. To my mind, we're all teachers, with a wide range of experience, none of us are perfect, we are all fallible in our thoughts (I'm convinced that some/much of what I write you find odd/disagree with/irriates you) ... why fear judgement so much? What does it really matter what others think? Especially when there are only ten or so people who actually read what we write. Is it a question of self-esteem? Confidence? A desire to be respected? I am really interested in this aspect.
Writing forces us to think a little harder about what we believe. It requires greater effort on our part. I also believe, quite firmly, that education should be uncomfortable (I'm not a sadist though!). Being pushed to do things (such as writing your thoughts down for all to do see) you wouldn't otherwise do is a means to enlarge your perspectives and understandings - which is (surely?) one the key aims of education.

Also I like Claire's point about contributing. The blog has enabled everyone to contribute as much or as little as they like. We tend to think that face-to-face teaching is somehow ideal. Yet, we have all probably experienced classrooms where teachers dominate, talk all the time, one or two students dictate their needs, the students feel alienated, sullen, silent, or feel enormous pressure just to say something. Teachers ask banal questions (what did you do at the weekend?) to ellicit the right tense (without much care as to what the stduents say) about topics which may have little or no meaning/interest for the students. Teaching methodology often seems to either promote 'neutral' topics (on the presessional at Nottingham I was always slightly irritated by the essay titles chosen for assessment - tourism, the environment, pollution etc. I wouldn't be particularly inspired to write about any of these topics, personally) or require a 'personal' view from students (why, as teachers, are we entitled to demand 'personal' views from students?). My point is that, I hope, this forum allows all of you to read what others have said and for you all to contribute. A classroom can't do that (often).

As for Sam's comment about mini essays ... well that's entirely up to you how you write on this blog. I don't think blog writing has achieved genre status yet. You'll find academic blogs, 'chatty' blogs, long entries, a few lines ... there aren't any rules. If it is too long, print it off and read it (which is why I provide a pdf of the longer posts)... post regular, short entries if you like. You're all registered here as authors so you're free to take the discussion where ever you like too.

I disagree with Julia's point about the superficiality of reading online. Well, I think it is more a question of the ethics of the readers/listeners that counts here. We should (a normative claim rather than suggesting a fact), regardless of the media, take others seriously. We are just as likely to listen superfically as we do reading online. We all listen selectively, some things stick in our mind more than others, resonate with us more, surprise us etc. The same with reading?