Goodbye TeachingLikeAnArtist.com

 I decided I won’t renew the domain for this blog this year. For the last few years I've considered letting it go. I would decide to, but then I’d think of something on the horizon I wanted to try. I'd think maybe I could write about that when it worked out. 

But this year I looked back and I see that I wrote only once in January. That pretty much sums up how 2023 was, as far as my work in education. It was a tough year.

I wrote before about whether it’s worth telling the average story. Does anyone care to hear about mundane events and an overall plot that goes nowhere? I’ve been working in schools in one way or another for over 30 years now. Mostly what I have to tell about are good intentions, a long string of projects I was looking forward to, and then ultimately uninteresting or disappointing endings. 

I kept the blog alive in hopes that in the end the story of teaching like an artist would have an inspiring ending. My mantra at conferences was to, “inspire you, so you can inspire others”. I talked about dreaming big and sharing the work.

As it is, I can see now my whole career reached it’s peak from maybe 2014 - 2018. But at the time, I only thought I was on the fringe of something bigger. I would never have said I was close to arriving. Then in years after that, I’ve just been holding onto hope that there could still be a satisfying ending. 

I won’t go into the details of what transpired where I work. I know the past three years darkened many people’s idealistic visions for what we’re doing in school. I’ll just say there’s no hope left in me that I’ll make a significant difference in education in the amount of time I have left. 

Why did I ever have those dreams that, now, look like they could never have come true? I’ve stewed at great lengths over that question. Were the ideas really any good? Was I just too…something…to ever bring them to fruition? Or was I not enough in some way?

I probably did accomplish more than I would have had I not dreamed so big, but that’s not consoling. For all my wondering, I can only say with certainty that I have no clear answer.

Beyond my job, there’s nothing to complain about in my life. If I cared only about money and how my career helped me grow as a person, I’m good. I’m leaving so much better off than when I started. I still have goals and dreams in other areas of interest.

I just expected there was more to life than that, though. I thought I had a calling to do something in education, locally and beyond. I imagined at the end I’d have some advice for others about success. I expected personal history would back up all the things I wrote about so passionately in this blog and that I proclaimed so boldly in my conference presentations.

For now, it doesn’t look like this part of my story it ends that way. 

While I’m letting the domain go, I will keep the blog up. Every day I still go to work is a sign that I am holding on to some hope. If it all comes together someday, I’ll be thrilled to add another post to tell about it.