Monday, the folks over at Twitter were working to fix an auto-follow-type bug and many people in the Twitterverse went into panic mode right away because their Following/Followers lists had apparently been wiped out to zero. Now for those of you that weren't on Twitter at the time - your Twitter stream was still visible to you as a user so it was pretty obvious that you were still following everyone you'd chosen to follow. But there were still a large number of people that went into a panic that they had lost their followers.
I was simply amazed at the number of people that were upset AND how few mentions there were of no longer following those they had chosen to follow - meaning most people were simply concerned that people were no longer following them. Now granted I have just a little less than 300 followers and follow a little less than 200, but I just don't see what the big deal was. If I'm saying things that others find to be truly meaningful and worthwhile won't they find me and start following me again? And vice versa: I know who I would start following again because I know whose tweets I find compelling and interesting.
So personal reflection time: What does it say about us if we are freaking out when something like losing our Twitter followers happens?
Image courtesy of Twitter.
About a week and a half ago I was told that due to budget cuts, my position was "being recommended for elimination to the BOE" and the following Monday the BOE approved that recommendation. If you have ever met me or read any posts on this blog you know that I LOVE my job. I love the opportunity to help other educators grow and improve the educational environment in their classrooms. When I lost my job I was at least able to apply for any open teaching positions within the district and have taken a position at a middle school teaching sixth grade science.
So in August I'm "going back" to the classroom.
It's still hard for me to fully grasp that idea, that I've lost the job that I love and it has nothing to do with my job performance or capabilities. In a time where there are entire schools being restructured by having all employees re-interview for their jobs, the only part that factored into selecting my position was that I was the last person hired. Some days I feel like I'm progressing through the stages of grieving, and other days I feel like I'm just going to wake up tomorrow and it will all have been a very long nightmare. And yes, it is a grieving process. I have lost something which I love and had no choice or say in the matter.
This weekend I was starting to see a light and begin to be excited about some of the possibilities with this new job. When I left the classroom blogs had only been approved for use in our district for a couple of months, the only wiki anyone had ever heard of was Wikipedia and the tools like Glogster and Voicethread hadn't even started yet. When I think about all that I have learned in the last three years as an instructional technology specialist, and pair that with all of the technology I will have available to me in the classroom, I really do start to get excited. I know that my experience as an ITS has made me a better teacher and that I will be able to more strongly impact students when I have that daily, face-to-face interaction with them, but I'm still struggling with the whole idea.
Leaving the classroom to take this position was the hardest thing I had ever done in my professional life at the time as I love teaching, and now I'll be "going back" with a new perspective and new skills.
Image courtesy of ManojVasanth and Flickr.
