Where we are.

To say that it has been a while is an understatement.  The last post I wrote was at the start of the first year of Clark Street Community School.  As I write now, we are on the cusp of our fourth year.  Students that were baby freshman will finish this school year as grown-up graduates.  They will leave us and go off into the world.  It seems hard to believe that we are here.  

This summer I worked for the Greater Madison Writing Project co-facuilitating a group of teachers who began action research projects that they will work on throughout the school year.  (More to come on these amazing folks and their work throughout the year.)  I knew that in addition to facilitating, I wanted to challenge myself to work along with them, but I wasn't sure what I wanted that work to look like.  

A thought kept creeping up telling me that I needed to write.  I kept pushing it down with awesome excuses.  In the writing project, there are legit great writers.  Published writers.  Fiction writers.  I am not that good of a writer.  Reading and research are way more my things.  I don't have time to write.  But slowly, I started to talk myself into it.  I do have that blog from a long time ago.  I could set aside a bit of time each week.  As a teacher of writing, I should put my money where my mouth is. And then I began to wonder... What would happen to my teaching if I was writing regularly?  What would happen to my teaching of writing?  What would I learn about myself?  My students?  My practice?

So here we are.  You can see who won.  

My plan is to set aside two hours a week to write and to post at least once a week.  I am nervously excited for this challenge.  There is no lack of material in my work, but often lack of time and lack of balance - something I have been working very hard to get back to the past year.  While I am a bit afraid, I am excited to see what the challenge might bring.  And this special combination of feelings is usually a sign that I am on the right track.

More to come.
Thanks for reading.