I am an adjunct instructor for a school of education. All last year, I kept up with the adventures of a blogger who called herself “newoldschoolteacher.” She was incredibly unhappy in her master’s program and let everyone know how stupid she thought the whole thing was. I found myself often annoyed with her seeming unwillingness to give any credit to her professors. I know there are plenty of things wrong with what she calls the “education establishment” but there are also plenty of good things happening. I can only hope that at some point in her new career, she encounters a student like herself, one who refuses to find any good, sure she knows better than the teacher and not afraid to say so.

Today, I discovered that she is guest blogging for Eduwonk. In her first post, she comments that this blogging experience will be different, since she will have to read and comment: “For my blog I just spewed out random thoughts that came into my head, which usually consisted of nonsensical cursing at the nearly unbelievable stupidity and wastefulness of the education establishment. Saying something constructive is more difficult.” It seems hard to me to believe that she missed the irony and hypocrisy of that statement. I suppose though if you are just “spewing,” rereading is not a prerequisite. It might have been nice for those of us who are working hard to try to prepare new teachers if she had tried out the “constructive” approach last year.