Blog Evolution meme

On a Thursday in October, Lynet tagged me with the blog evolution meme. Lynet’s not her real name, but she is Australian (I think), and so, apparently, is the meme. Or at least it is not NY Teacherish, because it hasn’t made the rounds of the blogs I read…at least I don’t remember it

I’m supposed to pick five posts from my archives that display how my blog has evolved over time, and then tag five more people to do the same. I did something similar almost a year ago with this “state of the blog” post.

This blog started as a vehicle to discuss teaching in NYC. Not the lesson planning part, but the dealing with administrators part, the dealing with abusive new policies, and so forth. As such, I immediately set out to be fiercely critical of the New York City Department of Education and the Mayor who runs it, and constructively critical of the United Federation of Teachers, which does an uneven job in protecting us and helping us stand up for ourselves. Here are three posts from the first two months of this blog that engage this theme: Recruitment Incentives, my first real post — Let Nadelstern Write (iow, let’s not allow this lousy excuse for an education bureaucrat waste union delegates’ time) — Smaller Classes.

Several months in, my love of math and teaching math started to leak to the surface. I am fond of puzzles; I started posting them (though most people call my puzzles ‘problems,’ I don’t think of them as problems if they are fun). I eventually got to actual lesson stuff, too, but puzzles are my passion. Here is my first puzzle, and my first big hit puzzle. That quadrilateral puzzle has been visited over 4,000 times. A ‘Love’ly Math Puzzle (my first) — jd2718 Goofs (even mistakes become puzzles) — Puzzle: proving a quadrilateral is a parallelogram (one of my best).

I am concerned with teachers’ questions. Oftentimes we do not have great sources of information. I posted links to the NYC contract, and noticed that there were lots of hits for the salary scale, and questions about other district’s salaries. So I started posting them, as well. Here are my NYC teacher contract links, my first non-NYC salary link, (most are one year out of date – maybe I can update this week) and a link to the Yonkers salary scale. Yonkers? Yonkers is not on this site! But it will be within a week. The link is dead now, it will go live soon. Check back. (Done – jd 2/19/08)

There is a Carnival of Education, which is a natural, right? And then a Carnival of Mathematics, even more so. And a Teacher’s Pot Luck that I sometimes forget about (sorry Ms Whatsit!) But in Spring 2007 I became a regular host for Mathematics (9 and 18 and 27 coming here), but more or less withdrew from Education.

Somewhere along the way, I lost focus. Not badly. But now I branch out. Culture. Travel. Politics. Food. Here’s one of each: La Faute á Fidel — Visiting Alonissos — Super Tuesday — Marrow Bone/Root Vegetable/Lentil Barley Soup.

OK, now some tags. Remember, it asked for five posts. I just went a little nuts, you don’t have to. Also remember, I sat on this 4 months, there’s no urgency here. Darmok of Ancora Imparo. Fred Klonsky of PREA Prez. susieJulie of Mildly Melancholy. Jose Vilson of Jose Vilson. Denise of Let’s Play Math.