Brave

I am faux brave. In school, with students, I talk about the importance of being brave all the time.  I advise my first graders to take risks and figure out those tricky words. With the older students, I urge them to be brave in their thinking. Outside my door, a "Be Brave" sign is posted. I wrote about being brave. I talk the talk.

Yet, I know. Starting a blog terrified me. I still struggle and worry about what to write and what type of blog it should be. I find it easy to get caught up with teaching and everything else and forget (and ignore)  this anxiety-inducing, wishy-washy blog.

After months of reading about twitter and its benefits to educators, I decided to stop my endless lurking and sign up. Within seconds of creating an account, I shut my laptop down, my introvert heart pounding. I remember feeling exposed and convinced that something was going to fall out of the sky and hit me. I only knew one person on Twitter and was too afraid to reach out. I wanted a slow roll out…and for weeks had zero followers.

I mastered retweeting. The retweets were all interesting resources, thoughts and links about teaching and books. I pretended I was my own follower -- "Oh, retweet that! She would like it."  

And then, I answered an invitation from a person I did not know…Niki Ohs Barnes (@daydreamreader). I woke up the next day and had all these followers. Amazing. I will always remember her generosity in reaching out. 

I still resort to retweeting and lurking but, once in a while, I step up and jump in.

 Oh, and nothing has fallen on me yet.