900 Posts, Because the Last 100 Didn’t Make It Easy

By Jose Vilson | March 28, 2012

900 Posts, Because the Last 100 Didn’t Make It Easy

By Jose Vilson | March 28, 2012
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Ladies and gents, I’ve arrived at my 900th post.

I should dedicate this one to the fact that George Zimmerman, Trayvon Martin’s murderer, was caught unbloodied and unbruised on video during his trip to the Sanford Police Department with police, dispelling his account almost assuredly. I could also dedicated to the lesser known Shaima Al-Awadi, a mother of four was who brutally murdered for her Muslim faith I presume. I could talk about my sincerest trepidation over the latest iteration of the New York State math test coming in seven school days (not including ELA test days), but I might do that much better in another blog.

I should remind you as my readers that racism, sexism, ageism, and other social biases haven’t really waned in effect, just changed shape, and that privilege plays a large role in even my most progressive colleagues. Yet, because my race puts me in a disposition where I have to write about it, I should hope we can all learn about our biases one post to the next.

I should write about the ongoing struggle to define that which I write, and how my blog has gotten to the point where people actually read it before they speak to me at times. The more influential it gets, the more people slyly comment to me in PD sessions that they read it off GothamSchools or some other ubiquitous website. Even when they say they’re not reading it, I know higher-ups have read it and made their own judgments about me because of their own shortcomings, and I’m good with that too. This blog has probably assisted more snitches than dispelled them.

I should write about the daily struggles of trying to balance my own life’s changes with having to stay whole for kids who come to me broke by their situations. These kids who bring their burdens to class so discreetly have to have someone who can handle them plus him or herself, and I’m still learning how to be my better self. Their variance in ability only matches the wide distribution of experiences, tragedies, and hopes.

I should write about how absolutely difficult I find all this to write, not because I don’t know where to start, but I don’t often know where to start that 800 + nth post. While the concepts flowed, the actual writing hurt to do because of my ill-conceived notions about getting the idea right the first time, grammar notwithstanding. I should make an infographic of how many hours I spent writing this, how many drafts never get the “Publish” button hit, how many curses have actually prevented people from reading my blog in their schools, and how many people only want math teachers to just write about math and not poetry, for instance.

Stupid, but what the hell do I know?

I should list how many haters and negators I’ve had in order, then dedicate the next post to all the people who’ve helped me push my writing to the next level. I should write about race for an entire month, or at least until my blog gets stereotyped, then write a cerebral post about education, just to poke at my fellow ed-techies and maybe radical educators.

But I could also thank you for having read all these things, because, as Amber elucidated recently, this blog belongs to you, never mind the namesake. Seriously.

Jose, who has seven days until the


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