A Ten Year Blog

Ten years ago I was writing regularly. However, I wanted a venue where I had to think about audience. I wanted to write as if someone was actually reading. Just writing was not enough. If I was going to be a good writing teacher, I had to really write. I had to go through the process like my students.

So I did what many people have done: I created a blog. It took me a year or three to figure out a focus, even if I depart from it once in a while. My parents read my blog. A few of you read my blog. More people read my blog if I post it on Facebook. Readership matters, but the practice is what really matters more.

So what about now? It has been ten years since I decided to write a letter to the void and talk to myself. Soon, I will no longer be a writing teacher. Do I still need writing practice?

My blog has become far more than writing practice or a way for me to share my ideas. It has also become a way for me to work out my thinking and try out ideas for writing in other venues. It has forced me to realize, as my old colleague Sally said often, that audience is everything. By publishing my writing on this blog, anyone may see it. What will they think? How might my words be received?

My daughter reads some of my posts and quips, “Dad, you are going to make me unelectable!” That is not my intention (although I am not sure how I feel about siring a politician). I never want to embarrass anyone, certainly not my family and least of all myself. Yet I don’t want to simply play it safe either. I want to test my skills and push my writing limits. I want to grow!

I have discovered that photos are important accompaniments. For the most part, all the photos on the blog are mine. There are a few that come from other sources. I have left a few posts photoless when I could not find a good match for them. I have sometimes written with photos in mind. Sometimes the photos come first!

I now schedule my blog posts. I have a calendar and a list of posts that are ready, those that need a little more work, and ideas to be developed. I have written timely posts (like this one) and posts that could be plugged in regardless of the date.

One of my goals is to “get out there” and get more readership for this blog. Frankly, that scares me a little. I am always humbled when someone says they read one of my posts. I don’t know my audience entirely. Hi, Mom! Hello, Dad!

When I am not in the classroom, how will that change this blog and my writing? I think I will go further out on the political limb. As I do in class, I have tried to limit my partisan discussions on the blog. I have made clear political statements about guns and schools and the standards to which we hold our elected officials, but I have avoided being overtly political beyond that focus. I am considering giving myself more latitude now.

I also have a new subject to write about: life after being a public school teacher. I don’t know much about it yet, but I am getting ready to learn! Writing will be a great way to explore and chronicle my new life.

I may increase my production. I have thought about posting some good articles, adding a third essay each month, posting works I am reading, or expanding other aspects of my blog.

I am retiring, but I am not retiring my “neighborhood.” Having the blog keeps me writing and thinking about how my voice is part of the chorus of public discourse. Stay tuned!

Over the Line

I have been writing about the things I say all the time: my lines or Hirschisms or whatever you want to call them. I have talked about silly lines, lines that involve word play, and how I reply to my pet-peeve of asking to go to the bathroom. I have lines for leaving the room, entering the room, and greeting people in the hallways. There are some lines that don't easily fit into any categories. Here is my second to last post about my classroom sayings. 

My former student Lucas reminded me that when I send a class off into small groups or to an activity out of our chairs, I often send kids off with a variation of Mork’s old line, “fly little birds be free!” When I need to bring them back to the large group, I riff on children’s playground games by calling out, “Red rover, red over” or “ally, ally, all come free!”

If, while they are in those small groups or partnerships, they should talk to another group or someone else’s partner, I jump in and tell them, “No group adultery! Don’t play around with someone else’s partners!”

As I greet a former student or anyone who has come back for a visit, I often reference an apocryphal 50s B SF movie: Return of the Thing that Went Away! Of course, anything that returns had to go away.

Often in class we read together. Reading for me is a kind of religious experience, so I will ask kids to “open your prayer book to page…” Sometimes I even add, “we’ll begin where is says, ‘Congregation:’”

When something falls during class, and it is usually a water bottle making a loud clanking sound, I will thank the student for testing gravity and tell them that they can rest easy because it is still working.

Kids have a tendency to pull their hands into their sleeves making them look handless. This is a good opportunity for some puns. I look at them in alarm and ask, “Where are your hands? Are you handicapped? Can I lend you a hand? Give you a hand? Hand it to you? Are you harder to handle?” Groans ensue and hands come out!

Similarly, I have kids every year who, like their two or three-year-old selves, seem to put all sorts of things that are not food into their mouths. This might be the drawstrings on their hoods, pencils and pens or pen caps, fingers, or other classroom materials. I often admonish them by saying, “Take that out of your mouth, you don’t know where that mouth has been!”

Students are so used to seeing examples of work that they routinely ask to see what the assignment looks like before they have to do it. That is a reasonable request. So whenever I am about to present them with such an example, I purse my lips, suck in my cheeks, and walk toe to heal across the room. Here comes the model.

I try to help my students learn about humor and how to tell a good joke. I teach them the basic three-part joke formula early in the year when I am showing them my model diagnostic assignment. I invite them to copy my assignment by using the line, “Imitation is the second most sincere form of flattery…” I repeat the set up line until someone (anyone!) provides me with a straight line: “What’s the first most sincere type of flattery?” Punch line: “Cash.”

Then there are those moments when I ask a question and every student in the room gives me the “you must be an alien” look. They stare back with vacant eyes that say, “We have no idea what you are talking about.” I used to use the line, “I don’t know George, something about the rabbits?” but since we have stopped teaching Of Mice and Men, that reference only gets the same reply.

As I have written before, I want kids to stay in the room. Next to “can I go to the bathroom,” my least favorite interruption is “can I go get a drink?” I always say, “yes, and get me one, too.” I always need it and never get it.

Hopefully, students learn to plan ahead before they miss class. I try to train them to be proactive, and to never ask, “Am I going to miss anything?” So when they say, “I am not going to be here tomorrow, “ I answer, “Good! I mean, oh, well. You know how to find out what we did – right?”

I have been teaching for more than thirty years, so my script is long and complex. I am certain that I have forgotten as many lines as I have described. I have one more post about my “Hirschisms” and I promise, it will be my last line!