My Fantasy Faculty League

Nov 16 What is the most powerful aspect of being a connected educator? What are you grateful for?

Jenny Paulsen's entry on day 14 of this #TeachThought blogging month is a golden example of why I'm grateful to be a connected educator: I get to choose my colleagues! Jenny's post made me wish she was a teacher across the hall. Of course she's not. She's in Cedar Falls.

And Brittany Jungck is in Waterloo.  Kimberly Witt is in Milford. Missy Hauptsteen is in Clarion. Yet these November blogging partners are essentially hand-picked co-workers. They are my Fantasy Faculty League, plucked from teams across the state, selected for their willingness to share their hearts and foibles and high-fives and frustrations every day for a month.

I have more hand-picked virtual colleagues on the ICTE Facebook Group, where we ask each other questions and share resources and connect for conferences and EngCamps and Billy Collins poetry readings. 

Wider still is my flight of Twitter colleagues, 1586 thinkers and doers who sprinkle my days with quips and links that broaden my mind.

And because these folks are online, they don't hog more than their share of the donuts in the teachers' lounge or rag about students I love.  I can quietly un-follow them if they get too crabby.

According to Mapquest, it would take me 9 hours and 57 minutes in current traffic to drive by and wave to Jenny, Britt, Missy and Kimberly.