I just turned forty four; that’s just a number. A day later Dusty World is going to cross the thirty thousand page view mark. That’s just a number too, but I like it a lot more than forty four.
Blogging started as a bit of catharsis; a chance to reflect on my profession. I picked up the idea from ECOO a few years ago and hit 5000 page views in February 2012, just over two years after I started posting. I was overjoyed then.
In June of 2012, just four months later, Dusty World passed ten thousand page views. Once a backlog of posts builds, people wander in off the internet looking at old posts as well as new. This is my 168th post. I tend to stay away from the picture and/or short comment posts. When I write it tends to be about me trying to develop an idea, usually with graphics and a lot of hypertext to support it.
I love how blogging has sharpened my voice and I love talking to people about ideas reading a post has sparked in them. I even love listening to the disagreements; most times I agree with them. When I write a post, I have to follow the idea all the way down the rabbit hole, it’s why I do it. Blogging has let me shake the dust of my English and philosophy degrees and exercise them.
Posting has become a natural part of my reflective process. I sometimes don’t even necessarily agree with what I end up working out in Dusty World posts, but they always offer me some perspective on what I’m wrestling with.
During the worst of the job action in Ontario this past year Dusty World occasionally wandered into politics. After being bitten by all sides of that dissonance I’m thinking that nothing is to be gained from trying to untangle the nasty politics around education in Ontario. The interests are so deeply ingrained and self involved that coming out on one side or the other is essentially meaningless if you’re interested in supporting education itself. My energy is better spend focusing on the unnerving, exciting and revolutionary technological change we’re going through. It not only frightens and excites me, but it also makes for a rich source of reflection, especially when I see students being experimented on with it every day. How technology is changing our society is always a source of interest and something I’d never want to stop looking at.
The bizarre future we’re making for ourselves is going to make existing political structures around education increasingly tenuous and inconsequential. If I have to take a side it would be the side that doesn’t exist yet, but it will. I’m OK with being the villain for thinking in a way that is only just beginning to exist.
Dusty World is going to keep its eye on the prize and speak to the radical changes we’re all going to have to adapt to in the coming years. Meanwhile, thirty thousand is a nice number to think about.
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| Noon on May 18th!!! |