Why educators should blog. . .

Things are flying around here today so I don’t have a ton of time to craft a beautiful treatise on the state of education or the passions of a teacher leader, but I did want to spend a few minutes answering a question that Jeremy Wang asked over at his new blog:

I’m slowly trying to cull my way through education blogosphere, and have found some gems here and there (the current Edublog nominations v2008 are helping). Some are making me nostalgic for teaching, others are going to re-awaken teaching nightmares. My Google Reader Ed folder is fat with feeds, and I’m trying to figure out if there’s room for me.

Here’s my advice to any new edublogger:  Blogging should be a selfish pursuit.

You should do it because you want to articulate your thinking and make your ideas transparent to a growing community of critics who can force you to rethink and revise. You should do it because you want to connect your thinking to the thinking of others and create new notions together. You should do it because you want to learn—and because you know that learning requires interaction.

If those core beliefs resonate with you, then fire it up!

Otherwise, lay down the digital pen and save yourself some frustration.

Ask yourself a simple question: If you never earned anything more than a small following of readers who were willing to jump into conversations every now and then—but they jumped in with fervor and brilliance—would the time you spend writing be worth it?

That’ll let you know whether blogging is for you.