This is the time of year when people post “Best of” lists: Best Apps of the Year, Best News Stories of the Year, Best Songs of the Year, Best Posts of the Year, etc… I try to be different when I can (if it’s not terribly embarrassing), so I decided not to take that exact route. I briefly entertained the thought of doing a “Worst of” post – until I heard a radio story about the “Worst Movies of the Year.” Since that idea is already taken, I decided to take a look at this year’s posts to find some of the ones that fell “in-between” according to my blog stats. Sometimes I scratch my head at the posts that get a lot of views when compared to the ones that receive little attention. But there are some that are in the middle that might bear a second look. Maybe I posted them on a holiday, or on a big news day – or when one of the “Worst Movies of the Year” opened. Whatever the reason for the mediocre number of views, I decided to roll a few of them out for another try because, quite frankly, I am rather enthusiastic about the topics:
- “Make Your Own History” – this post features a video of a TED talk by Brad Meltzer. You may remember that I have mentioned Meltzer recently, as he is the author of one of my favorite children’s books, Heroes for My Daughter. In this video, Meltzer gives a passionate speech about how we can all make history, and offers the three important qualities of great achievers. It is an excellent video to show students or teachers.
- “I Wonder if We Could All Be a Bit Kinder” – I was deeply moved by reading the book, Wonder, by R.J. Palacio, this summer. In this post that I wrote in August, I summarized the book, and related it’s message of the need for kindness to two other great lectures that also highlight the importance of compassion – those of Jeff and Mark Bezos.
- “Don’t Compare Yourself to Others” – Some people I know are becoming “connected” educators through Twitter or other social networks, and they are panicking. They see great things that other people are doing and worry that they are not good enough. I’ll admit that I sometimes suffer from the same feelings of inadequacy. I wrote this post to remind those people, and myself, that our most important connections are made with our students – and we all do this in different ways. It’s great to get new ideas, but we can’t berate ourselves for not trying every single one of them.
So, there you have it – my list of mediocre posts from 2013. Actually, there are far more than 3. I just chose the best of the mediocre according to my very humble opinion.
I guess that means I’m not all that different after all 😉
