Just learned of a new "Pedablogue" site by Harvest Bird with the marvelous subtitle, "Teaching Beyond Tips and Techniques." I like its approach a lot.

In fact, I like that other pedagogy-oriented blogs are calling themselves "pedablogs" but I get a little twinge of identity crisis when I come across a site with the same title as mine, which I thought was pretty original when I launched this page a year ago. It's like bumping into someone with your own full name -- something uncanny. My "anxiety of influence" haunts me.

But the truth is, Harvest Bird's site is authentically original and personal and worth a look-see. Bird even considers what distinguishes his blog from others:

When I started browsing other pedablogs ... they seemed different in function and purpose from what I intended for this site, largely because their register and focus perpetuated the "everything's fine" kind of professionalism that I don't believe truly exists.... Not that there's anything wrong with that, it's just not one of my goals at the present moment, not least because I don't intend this blog to be so much full of practical resources for other teachers as I intend it to be a place where I, and others who are interested, might stop and think.... I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to keep it operating below the professional face of teaching, by which I mean I intend it to be partisan, skeptical, critical and sometimes conflicted, much like the verso of my offline presence in the educational workforce.

I don't know if my blog in particular espouses an "everything's fine" kind of professionalism (I mean, really, I do want readers to stop and think, too!), but I have seen this elsewhere and Bird raises an interesting critique of teaching weblogs in general: we're all writing about our jobs, and what we do and say here reflects on our careers (and could potentially impact hiring/promotion). So to keep a pedablog does require a sort of "mask" of professionalism that may impede critical engagement in some cases (unless the teacher is anonymous...in which case, anything goes). But if the writer is truthfully engaged with pedagogy and scholarship -- rather than just journaling -- then the site is probably using the critical reflection, problematizing, case-building and philosophical dispute that Bird espouses.

This also might be a difference between K-12 pedablogs and collegiate pedablogs.

Perhaps the motto should be "Everything's fine in praxis, but in theory..." Or here's one I prefer: "Everything's possible."

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