Awake & Curious

I am aware that New years resolutions are rarely actualized. So why make them at all? Well perhaps the reason that they are rarely realized is they are either unrelated to the individuals life, or at worst just completely grandiose and unrealistic.

So my advice to myself this year is to make changes with an eye to how I live, what I really want, and what is most important.

In my life my family and my teaching career are pretty competitive for top billing. So the changes I would like to make are less grandiose than ones my 20 something self would have made.

1. I want to read more, and not on a computer. Laptop life has made me less of a reader, which I was avidly before I entered into a committed relationship with my Powerbook. So I want to read more, I still buy books like an avid reader, but I read much less( my husband now reads and claims most of the books I buy as his own)  and I don’t thing that is good for me period.

2. I want to write more. Here and other places. Responding to blogs, and NYT editorials which I love to do, write my own response and then read what everyone else has written.  I have to admit as much as the blogesphere and it’s self important bloggers have begun to turn me off. The thing is the shared conversation really is something special. I like to read what others have written and see how they think and then express myself. The beauty of the blog or Web 2.0. is in the shared comments. So I want to write more. Here at least 1 a week.

3. I intend on being a more effective teacher.  Now I realize that is  a vague statement. But it means something different  to me In this stage of my career It means being willing to mentor younger teachers as well work directly with students.  I work in the same system as everyone else in New York City  and it plainly sucks.  There is little to no attention to things I believe in passionately , Project Based Learning , utilizing technology to  create learning networks or even simply have students publish work.  I have to be a force of change to some extent, because archaic  policies of the NYCDOE are not. No matter what Klein claims in Australia.

That is all  have for now. I have a few other resolutions but they are more personal and this is not  the place to discuss weight gain. Just lets say Oprah is not the only one with that problem.

Happy New Year.