“Professionalism”
Thanks a bunch for those who have dropped by recently. For anyone with a blog of their own, please know that I will try my best to follow you if you post comments here. I am looking forward to making more connections and to receiving (and giving) feedback on ideas.
Just a short post here, to try to clarify what I meant by the word “professionalism”, because Kate wasn’t the only person to be unsure of what I meant.
I am deeply (overly?) concerned with what it means for an individual with a relationship to an institution to be blogging about their experiences. By choosing to state my real name on this website, I am acting as an unofficial representative of my school. My words here reflect back on my employer.
And I want to be professional about this relationship, but I also want to be authentic.
So – the question is, what does that mean? What does it look like? How do I remain authentic and honest and “jeff” and yet also not do anything to reflect badly on my employer in the eyes of anyone who has access to the internet?
In looking for a discussion on that issue, I’ve come up pretty much empty. I do have some ideas of an answer, but if anyone would like to take a stab at answering my question above, that would be fabulous.
Themocracy
My short answer is to not say anything on my blog that I would not say directly to the faces of my direct supervisor, superintendent, or colleagues.
I think there’s an elephant in the room here (and I apologize in advance if this isn’t where you were headed at some point) in the shape of criticizing or critiquing institutions you work for/study at/otherwise represent.
Being authentic doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of a program or policy, but I would definitely exercise caution in how you word/present it (and also make sure you have all the facts, or at least be transparent and admit when you don’t, and what the implications of that could be).
It is possible to be transparent and authentic, as long as you respect the wishes of others who may not want to be as transparent.
Sometimes you just have to throw caution to the wind Jeff.
It is amazing to think that a learning institution that should be promoting discussion, openness, reflective practice and the great power of the critical friend might feel “threatened” by what someone like yourself puts on a blog.
I would like to hope that we are all professional enough to give credit where due but also point out the weaknesses in the systems to which we give our blood, sweat and tears. If it is good enough for the kids it should be good enough for the place they attend and the administrators who work with them.
Hope to see you at the conference next month.
Paul
My rule is like Damian’s, except I usually frame it as “don’t say anything I wouldn’t want published in the local paper.” Same idea. I also don’t talk about specific students or colleagues, unless it’s complimentary. If I write something and worry that someone might take personal offense, I don’t publish it, or I rewrite it. The “Save as Draft” button is a wonderful thing. I think there’s room for professional disagreement and criticism as long as you retain respect and civility. d
Thanks folks! Damian, you are right, that is exactly where I am heading with this – how can I be authentic and also admit that there are warts in where I work?
I had always thought of it as something like not putting anything online that I wouldn’t put in an all-users email, but I think that Kate’s analogy is better. A blog is available to anyone, but it doesn’t call attention to itself in the way that an email or face to face conversation does.
@Paul: in an ideal world I think you are right, but the fact that blogs are so public changes the situation.
Justin Hardman, my close friend and new supervisor, had an interesting take on this – “don’t write anything negative”. Criticism needs to stay in-house.
In his view, an institution is failing if they are not providing employees with internal mechanisms for identifying and solving complaints / criticisms. If a teacher has to put their criticisms on a blog, that means that there are no administrators / supervisors inside the school who would listen or try to work toward a solution.
All of this leaves me at a slightly better place than where I was when I started. I think that the next step is to just start blogging and see how this feels.
[...] example, let’s look at my last post. Instead of putting my concerns online, I could have sent it to my school’s director of [...]