The Pedestal Isn’t Real

The thing with living inside your life while also writing a blog is that you can hardly tell what your life looks like to someone who is just reading the blog.

The people I teach with know a lot of my issues. They know that my desk is often a mess, that there are stacks of papers all around my room, that I tend toward anti-socialism while I'm at work. They see very clearly the work in progress.

My students see it, too. They see me stumble over my words, they hear me apologize when I mess up, they know how bad I can be at responding to emails. I think most of them would call me a good teacher — and that credibility is a key goal — but none would call me anywhere close to perfect.

And my wife and children? Holy cow. No humans know better what a misshapen ball of clay I am.

But a trouble for some readers of this blog might be that there's an illusion of, “He's all put together. Guys like him, they're on a pedestal.”

And this isn't helpful because, of course, the pedestal isn't real.

To help with the illusion, today I offer up a special piece put together with love by one of our colleagues. Jeff Frieden runs a beautiful, hand-crafted, mission-critical podcast called Dear Teacher, Don't Give Up! Recently, I sat down with Jeff via the Internet to discuss the time that I quit teaching for a year.

(That'll take care of the pedestal problem!)

Here's the show.

(In a rush? Here's a brief clip Jeff made of the show re: setting up a work schedule for ourselves.)

Enjoy!