the struggle

It is so hard to live a new life, and in the midst of the old one. My son turned 13 yesterday, but I am hardly 13 in learning to be myself.

Yesterday I taugh a workshop on alternative ways to use computers in teaching for writing to learn (I covered listservs, discussion boards, chat, and blogs). At one point I found myself talking about being a role model, in the context of using my course blog to be a role model for students in thinking critically about technology and society. I'm struck by how on a personal as well as a professional level I have come more and more to see role models as central to how we learn. I can't tell people much beyond facts, but I can show what I have learned through how I live my life. I'm grateful to Burningbird for being a role model in standing up to and naming the ways women are marginalized in the tech community.