Comments on: “I’ll never read Don’s Blog”

By: Parent with Standards

Parent with Standards — Wed, 31 Jan 2007 13:23:26 +0000

You are welcome Don. In my conversations with parents I mention your blog. There is surprise on hearing this. We all know that performance of service institutions are not impressive. Citizens complain loudly of growing bureaucracy in local and government agencies. We view these local and government agencies as being run more for the convenience of its employees than for contribution and performance. There is a joy out there in realising that there is new management thinking in using technology to connect with its citizens. I look forward to learning more about what you are doing.

Parent with Standards

By: Don

Don — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 20:10:12 +0000

Dear Parent with Standards

We are trying to establish a new way of communicating - but it will take time to embed it throughout education. A comment such as yours can be a powerful lever for change. Many thanks.

By: Stuart Meldrum » Blog Archive » Support networks

Stuart Meldrum » Blog Archive » Support networks — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 16:24:34 +0000

[...] That’s probably where blogging will come in as a big help. There’s an interesting discussion going on over on Don’s Learning Log about the benefits of blogging and people’s resistance to it, the idea that it is a vanity thing. The main reason I blog is I find it helps to write what I’m thinking and feeling, putting things into written words give me the opportunity to clarify my own ideas. It then has the added bonuses of people chipping in their comments too and helps me shape my ideas further, and giving the chance to read about what other people are thinking through their blogs, in general blogging just helps me make sense of things. So I don’t do it to make me look good, I blog it because I think it helps me do whatever I’m doing better. [...]

By: BrianC

BrianC — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 14:31:26 +0000

When someone uses phrases such as ” I will never……..” etc I think it tells you more about that person than a blog ever could. It will also leave them feeling ever so silly when the inevitable happens and they read your blog at some point in their life.
Personally the only thing I’ve ever publicly stated that I shall never do is Morris dancing.

By: Parent with Standards

Parent with Standards — Thu, 25 Jan 2007 11:49:12 +0000

Your blog is a wonderful medium! How else can a parent gain access to those higher up in education. Had I sent a formal letter into the Education Department I would have got the normal unimaginative bog standard reply. Your reply was from one human to another.

By: David Gilmour

David Gilmour — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 23:35:28 +0000

Maybe traditional Scottish culture has a particular problem with blogging? You’re supposed to keep your head down, get on with your job and not draw attention to yourself.

Carol Craig is on to something, I think, with her book The Scots’ Crisis of Confidence (Key messages here). Here are some extracts:

…Being Scottish comes with a fairly narrow set of attitudes about how a ‘true Scot’ should behave and what he or she should think and this stunts individuality, creativity and enterprise. Many Scots fear challenging these prevailing ideas in case they are criticised, denounced or ostracised…

So what are the inhibiting beliefs, attitudes and general mindset which lead to conformity? Many arise from Scotland’s Calvinist past and have been reinforced in modern times by Labour movement values. They are so much part of the culture they affect everyone living here (including Catholics and atheists) and include some of the following:
…

A prevailing belief that it is wrong to think highly of yourself and that you should just see yourself as the same as others. Americans share this strong belief in equality but in their culture it leads to the view that if we are all born equal then everyone is special whereas in Scotland the notion that we are all equal leads to the idea that no-one is special.

A strong injunction to ‘know your place’ and not get above your station. This exhortation comes from Scotland’s egalitarian values but paradoxically, in a society where people do not set out in life equal all it does is reinforce class (and gender) inequality.

By: Barry Smith

Barry Smith — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:40:10 +0000

Yes, perhaps that was just an ego/vanity reference that I missed!

By: Don Ledingham

Don Ledingham — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 22:34:28 +0000

Barry, I’m intrigued as to why anyone would describe your blog as “Fashion Shows???”

By: oldandrew

oldandrew — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 21:06:03 +0000

Personally I make a point of not telling anyone I work with, or used to work with, that I have a blog, and I make a reasonable effort to ensure some degree of anonymity.

I don’t like the thought that anyone might recognise themselves.

By: Barry Smith

Barry Smith — Wed, 24 Jan 2007 14:16:41 +0000

I think the comments above echo what most people who ‘blog’ would say on this issue. I have not had the ‘ego’ criticism levelled at me but I have been told that my blog was “F****** S****, pretentious and boring” (a direct quote)by another teacher. I’m not quite sure how to take it but suppose I should be glad in a way that it had such an impact on someone!

I think when we see students using social media regularly in schools for learning as well as in their ’social’ lives and the number of staff who blog or use other social media increases, the phenomenon of blogging will become an accepted and recognised tool in the learning process. I suppose criticism will always be levelled at new ideas that do not have easily measured benefits, it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t continue to generate data to back up what we feel we instinctively know.