How Public

After reading the two articles on Blogging, I still feel uneasy about blogging.
In the second article about blogging in education, I was reminded of a discovery I made both as second grade teacher and as a parent.
Children's lives are so public today. Chidren are so over scheduled with highly organized, usually competetive, activities.
In sports activities, children are taught to compete to win at younger and younger ages. Everybody is watching and usually winning is paramount. So what if the child loses? Suddenly this 6 year old, having had all these conflicting messages about
winning and good sportsmanship loses it himself, publicly. Mainly because developmentally, he's 6.
I think that there is something to be said about playing the game for the love of the game and for learning how to lose gracefully in a family or small intimate group. So I always encouraged my student's parents to play games with their children. Board games are great if only to learn how to lose, fail, or blow it, first in private, so that they could really learn with loving guidance how to be good sportsmen and the type of student who can look at failure as just a setback. Now, it's the entire community watching and so it is with blogging-only it's the entire world.

Will need loving guidence to get my video in the blog. Will be looking to my classroom family tonight as I arrive late due to back to school night.