Reflections on Teaching

I am struck by this idea discussed by Rick and Marcia that blogging is more than journaling, more than a static reflection. I like thinking of all this as using journaling as a forum for introducing people to ideas with which they may find a connection in their own lives.

When a writer publishes a printed work, it is perhaps  a kind of unrequited conversation in which the writer’s words are reflections on his or her own life/ideas. The reader than reads the words and, hopefully, forges connections between what is written by the author and what is lived/thought by the reader. But however inspirational the experience for the writer or the reader, it is, for both, one-sided, not something they can share with one another (at least not in an immediate sense).

It seems to me that this blogging realm has the power to bring those reflections (made by the writer) and those connections (made by the reader) into active relationship with one another in –nearly– real time.  This “nearly real time” aspect is important I think as it allows the writer and the reader to take part in both the reading and the writing within the time of their choosing so that they may express their thoughts with more care and craft than is often possible in an actual real-time conversation.

Another interesting kind of “connection” this makes possible is the actual connections the writer can offer the reader by linking words to other references, other sources through the “hyper” connectivity of the medium. This connectivity raises this kind of writing beyond the linearity of “just” journaling…in fact, I’d argue that this medium is the truest kind of journaling because it is capable of embodying the vast web of connections in a writer’s mind that accompanies any single written thought.

Having “said” all this, I find that I have run out of time to take advantage of the possibilities and have only a single active link to weave into my writing…but if any reader wishes to reflect or connect, I invite the conversation!