Viva la #nerdlution

As usual, I'm late to the party. I should probably make my #nerdlution to try and be ahead of a trend, but, as I understand it, the point is to set a goal to be accomplished over 50 days that is actually realistic. While I believe in failure as a necessary step towards learning, my experience tells me that setting myself up to fail will not result in any new learning, only frustration, self-doubt and the inevitable internal "I told you so" conversation that really doesn't need to be repeated. I'm too old for that.

I was fortunate to be mentored by an administrator who firmly believed in a whole child approach to everything. She always talked about incorporating a social, emotional and physical component to nearly everything you do in life. To honor her, I'm going to make three nerdlutions, one for each category.

Being a trendsetter in technology, fashion, pedagogy, thought, etc. is out of the realm of possibility. As much as I admire the great young minds on twitter, I'm not going to be one of them. Whoever said "youth is wasted on the young" has never read a blog post or tweet by Justin Stortz @newfirewithin, Oliver Schinkten @schink10, John Spencer @edrethink, Dave Burgess @burgessdave, Pernille Ripp @pernilleripp, or Joy Kirr @JoyKirr. These creative, passionate and thoughtful young educators are just a few of the connections I've been fortunate to make on twitter who have helped shape my thinking. One of my nerdlutions is to send a tweet of thanks out over the next 50 days to people (young and old) who have impacted the how and why of what I do each day to let them know they are appreciated.

I'm halfway through a master's program. For much of the past 9 months, I've felt slightly guilty when I'm actually doing something unrelated to the program during my free time. One thing I haven't been doing is reading just for fun. I remember what it's like to read a book without (references, 2009), but I haven't made the time to actually do it. Therefore, my emotional nerdlution is to read a book unrelated to education for 15 minutes each night. I'm going to enjoy that.

Finally, my physical nerdlution is to ride my bike during the nightly news each night. I have everything I need to make this happen - I'm just lazy. So, enough with the excuses, already. Via la nerdlution!

(I've  just decided  to stay away from toxic people and detox myself; I realize that I should commit to that for more than 50 days, however. I was reading Tamra Dollar's latest post http://www.dollarliteracy.blogspot.com/ while writing this. Her #tweetpreciation will be one of the first.)