I think that my growth and understanding about being a reflective teacher through blogs has been very subtle. It is hard to be reflective and be public all at the same time. I think that many of us at the beginning of the year in our cohort could hardly bring our selves to write enough about critical issues and to share with others what caused us frustration and joy.
Many times blogging also has been times of half thoughts, and fussy ideas emerging. Yet it has been nice to share with the cohort and other people my wonders. Like my wonders about students fascination for poetry (that I did not have at their age) or how exciting it is for a math unit to come together and see students understand. Often I have found that the responses are just what I need to push my thinking or to encourage me. However as one of us put in a blog last quarter, it is an interesting world that we enter, and the challenge might be to stay connected with so much happening.
I think that part of this growth being so public is that I have to push my thinking in ways I would not usually want to. There are ideas that I found myself grappling with such as how we want to develop our community or encourage students to participate. To articulate my thoughts and respond to others has been an interesting task. I have found however that educators are mostly going to give a helping hand and support that I would not have found, if I did not challenge myself to do so. I think that like Sonia Nieto said in her book What Keeps Teachers Going that, “To survive and grow, I have to find colleagues who share my anger, hopes, beliefs, and assumptions about students and teaching.” Blogging and tweeting are just another platform that I can continue to use to develop as educators and learners.
Pensamientos de Teacher 
Mar 17, 2014 @ 20:00:23
I so agree with the part about finding colleagues that share our ideas and values about students and teaching. I am struggling with the values of the school I am student teaching at and it is extremely helpful to comeback to the thoughts and ideas of the cohort in person and in blog-form to keep my passion and desire to teach going.
Mar 17, 2014 @ 20:20:37
Growingateacher it so hard sometimes to really look for encouragement, and yes we have been great with each other. I hope it continues long after we are not in the cohort. I wonder how important it is to have that type of conversations with our CT’s. I am sure we would find that the concerns others have are the same and maybe discover some fear of what is unknown.
Mar 19, 2014 @ 20:46:26
Thank you. I have been learning so much in seeing the children through your perceptive eyes, hearing their voices, seeing you grow. I just noticed that Nieto includes teacher anger as something that we do well to share, and with your careful attention to the experiences of *all* children in your classroom, anger and frustration will certainly be something you’ll feel as you come up against the ways in which schools sometimes fall short of supporting all children.
I have appreciated this glimpse into your growth as a teacher and hope that I’ll have the change to see more in the months ahead.