Miguel Guhlin was responding to Ryan Bretag’s Death of a blogger II about whether blogs could be used as “a collaborative tool for the betterment of education.” Miguel wrote:
Blogs are as alive as the people who keep them, the people who join the conversation, but in the end, blogging is a conversation with the author of the blog. Should blogs be pushed to be MORE than that?
I would suggest that a blog assuming a role beyond what it was intended for is a mistake. A blog or the blogging process has no reason to evolve in itself. The person who writes the blog may start out with the desire to transform education, but because a blog is intensely personal, blogging is about achieving personal transformation, not societal change.
If Miguel’s premise is correct, that blogs are “as alive as the people who keep them,” then maybe some blogs would not be vehicles for personal transformation, as Miguel sees them. If a person is inclined to introspection then the blog may encourage and reflect that. But if not…there are a lot of bloggers (popular and otherwise) who seem to have no interest in using their blog for personal transformation. Transformation seems to be a presumption of the education blogger, a minor breed of the larger species. If a blog was devoted to dissemination of information, pushing a policy agenda, or promoting a product then the blog might be simply a publishing platform, which it is well suited for.
I don’t see “transformation” as a particularly strong selling point for the blogging practice since transformative experiences are generally unsettling to people. Going to graduate school was transformative, also. And in some ways it soured me on teaching since reading all that research and trying some things in the classroom broke the little bubble of faith I had in the “experts” who wrote the books. So, I write now, too. I write back. I write back to all the education research that misses the point, that obscures the practice, that distorts the picture. I write to fulfill my professional goal to be a minor pain in the ass. It keeps me off the streets.
Societal change? Naw.
3 Comments
Some blogs aren’t alive at all. They either move forward in a process of transformation, or they are allowed to die.
I suppose my blog is still read because transformation happens so rarely there (grin).
Take care,
Miguel
Doug,
I have been following your blog for some time now. I am a doctoral student at Seton Hall University (Administration & Leadership) and our cohort was recently introduced to the world of blogging and twitter; the class was even taught by Will Richardson and Alan November. I knew about these tools for quite some time (I love Web 2.0 technology and its potential) but saw blogs as mainly sources of megalomania. I am seeing many blogs from my colleagues (both in education and in the cohort) as mainly feeds of thoughts and experiences – much more like journals than conversation starters. Your blog is much different though. It is thought provoking and serves as a model for my own blog. Though I have not morphed completely into your realm, I am tailoring my blog to be more provoking and challenging.
I agree that many blogs should begin to take on a more academic and intellectual role in education. Simply starting a blog to say you do it is futile and our students will be no better for taking part in a pointless teacher or education blog. Blogs can evolve into places where rich and debatable topics are woven and available for public consumption. For now, many blogs will serve as homes for ranting, group think, and validation of personal opinion.
I’ll keep reading you if you keep provoking.
Thanks to the article, Now there is more reason to comment than ever before! Everyone should participate. I am incorporating what your wrote to our project!
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[...] is provoking and provides an aspect of blogging that I believe is worthy of study. Doug's recent post based on the post Death Of A Blogger raises a good point: for what purpose should a blog serve in [...]
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