On being myself

Integrity.

The word gets thrown out a lot, and probably means different things almost every time, so I may as well add my definition.

To me, it's about being true to yourself. It's the antonym of hypocrisy.

And it's really hard.

It's hard because there are so many pressures and forces trying to shape us into their mold: other peoples demands, expectations, and imaginations, a whole slough of rules and regulations, traditions and social mores, and our own notions of what we are supposed to be and do.

And some of them seem good--like what we're supposed to do, supposed to be. And some of the people are really important to us. And we so want to be accepted and important to others.

And the path of least resistance is to take on the shape they want us to.

And maybe this is OK sometimes.

But I think it's usually just painful. It usually just holds us down--makes us into something we really don't want to be, a shape we really just don't fit.

In a previous post, I decided this was a worthy goal: A better match, a better fit between the world and us. 

Here, I'll make it a bit more personal: A better fit between me and what I really am.

On Twitter and transparency

Bill, why don't you have separate Twitter accounts, one for personal tweets and one for professional tweets?

That's a great question, and I know many educators do just that, and I understand why, I think.

But in my case, I have a few reasons to have just one.

First, one of my goals as a person is that my whole life will be just that: whole. I don't want to be one person at home and another at work. To me, that sort of thing cause a tension between the two, which results in stress. Having one account forces me to examine all of my posts in the same light, applying the same standard. If it's not OK to post something because my students might see it, then I need to ask why it's OK at all.

Secondly, I want people to see me as I am. That way there won't be any surprises. What you see is what you get.

Thirdly, I think there's a danger that if I present a different face to my students, one that is scrubbed clean of all weaknesses and points of possible criticism, if I post only education-related, purely positive and absolutely vanilla posts, then the message I'm sending is that it's not important to be yourself. Instead, masks are better.

I think it's good for my students to see that I'm a real person as well as their teacher, complete with potentially controversial views, strange music preferences, and a full and varied life outside of school.

What do you think?