By Todd Nesloney and Travis Crowder
All of us carry stories. And they are beautiful. Conversations with students, fellow educators, and even with ourselves, frame our understanding of our craft and work. Moments of success and failure linger in our minds long after we leave school at the end of a curricular year. We remember those moments as we seek to grow and learn beside our thinking and each other. Capturing moments, ideas, memories and strategies is important because it provides us with a trail of our thinking. How many times have we had a wonderful conversation with a colleague or an “aha” moment with a student? How many times have we basked in the brilliance of a professional text or experienced pure joy during a rough time in our personal lives? These moments have the power to lift others, and through writing, you can share your powerful story.
We turned to writing as a way to deepen our own understanding. When we are toying with an idea in our minds or frustrated with an issue, writing becomes our safe place, a place for us to explore the things that consume our minds. Very often, we share our writing on social media, believing that inviting others to read our stories makes all of us stronger. While writing is powerful in its own right, sharing our writing invites others to share our journey and potentially grow beside us.
Blogging provides an avenue for us to openly share our own personal stories. Though it may be terrifying to put your fears, successes, failures, struggles, joys, etc., out there for others to see, what we’ve seen come from sharing our personal selves is that it connects with others on a much deeper level and reminds us of the simple truth everyone has a story and every story matters. As a campus administrator, you have the unique ability to lead from the top. To show your team what vulnerability looks like and to make yourself much more approachable.
Of the many blogging sites available, we prefer WordPress and Blogger. WordPress.com is an easy-to-navigate site with helpful tools and tips to get you started. The graphics and fonts available are gorgeous, and the design features are streamlined and professional. When you publish a post, settings can be adjusted to share directly to social media news feeds, such as Twitter. For those just getting started with blogging who need something quick and easy, Blogger might be the better choice. Blogger comes free with every Gmail account and functions a lot like a Google Doc or Word document with very familiar icons.
Blogging does not have to be perfect. It does not have to be streamlined and edited, flowery and brilliant. It just has to be you. We encourage you to share your story through writing and blogging. When we share our stories, we are not alone. We become part of a larger community, one that extends beyond the walls of our schools, yet lives deep inside our hearts. All of us have stories worth sharing. Perhaps you aren’t ready to share your story with a blog, and that’s okay. Just start writing. The more you write, the more your confidence will grow, and we are excited to hear what you have to say.
Todd Nesloney is the principal of Webb Elementary in Navasota ISD. Todd co-authored Kids Deserve It! and Sparks in The Dark, and is the author of Stories from Webb.
Travis Crowder, a National Board Certified Teacher, teaches middle school students in North Carolina. He co-hosts the popular podcast series “Sparks in the Dark” and is co-author of Sparks in the Dark.
TEPSA News, March/April 2019, Vol 76, No 2
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