Well, by now, most of you have either shared, read, or linked to my first post on the Huffington Post entitled “Where The Hammer Meets The Pick.” First things first: I’m glad I got such great reactions to the post. It’s a testament to the awesomeness of my social network, and how carefully we’ve helped craft the conversations. Secondly, I’m blessed someone thought my writing was good enough to feature next to the likes of Chris Lehmann, Geoffrey Canada, Diane Ravitch, and John Legend. That’s a testament to the rings around my eyes trying to crank out those last words before I went to teach another day. Third, I can’t believe I held the “secret” in for so long. I was offered it on the way to DC during this panel I was a part of, and when people kept asking me, “What’s up?” I wanted to reply, “Huffington Post, mofos!” It was like having to pee and you’re really close to your house.

It’s probably a testament to how much I’ve grown.

More importantly, I feel inclined to mention that teachers have a voice, and the biggest side effect of this education debate from up-top is that it gives the little guys like me (little guy metaphorically of course) a chance to speak to and from a people. I don’t have the huge following my edublogger brethren do or the millions my bosses downtown do in NYC, but every so often, I get an opportunity I can’t refuse. This was another one. Because of you, I get those opportunities, and hopefully, I get to highlight people like Jovan Miles, Monise Seward, or Miss Eyre (all of whom have burgeoning audiences in their own right) the way others have me.

In the meantime, there’s this other job we call teaching, and those exponents aren’t going to teach themselves. Thank you.

Jose, who originally wanted to title the blog I wrote for Arianna “Jose’s Silver Hammer,” but there’s only so many Beatles references he can make …