Happy Birthday, Beyond School – and Rest in Peace?
Thursday, 1 January 2009 Clay Burell 
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(This post is dedicated to the aspiring writers out there.)
Today, January 1, 2009, is the second birthday of Beyond School.
What a short, strange trip it’s been.
I’m not superstitious, but I love coincidences, synchronicities, and patterns as much as the next guy. So I’m going to trace those two years up to an announcement about some ch- ch- ch- ch- changes in my writing and non-writing life that will start this week. It’s not quite the death of Beyond School, so much as maybe growing beyond it. I’m not sure. Maybe I will be by the end of this post.
In my dreamer’s twenties, I often fantasized that….
….could I but scrawl across the sky, in letters stratosphere-high and coast to coast broad, an unknown writer’s plea to the world to discover my words – with contact info at the bottom – then some patron would do so. I had no connections, no money, no idea how to manifest my potential to the world. (College essays with a red “A” across the top and encouraging scribbles on the last page did not seem like manifesting to anything larger than the usually tired hired reader at the front of the classroom.)
That was in the ’80s. It lasted into the ’90s. And I’m fully aware of how lame that dreamer was, when others with more gumption did the work to figure out the publishing game, and got published. But that was me.
Then I collided with a White Rabbit in Shanghai,
- Jeff Utecht – around the autumn of 2005, and followed him down a certain rabbit-hole, and into the wonderland of blogging. (I still hate that word.)
During the winter break of that same year, Karl Fisch, who maybe knows this, and maybe doesn’t, offered me a Fischbowl full of red pills, blue pills, new-colored pills, and I fisted them up and gulped them down. For a couple of weeks, I read everything he wrote and started having trippy visions of an education that could be. I started a blog on Live Journal, of all things, and wrote a good twenty posts in a week. (I was single then, and it was an easy pleasure.) On New Year’s Day 2006, I waved a magic mouse and zapped those posts from Live Journal to Blogspot.
I wrote and wrote and wrote for months, mostly to nobody. The occasional comment in those days was like a gold coin from the sky. I wrote visions of world-writing wikis that would turn into blog-book “blooks” and French Revolution wikis that made my head swim. I wrote about dystopian edu-futures in which teacher-vampires “sucked classroom blogging dry,” turned it into “a new way to turn in the same old homework.” I wrote and I wrote, for nobody and everybody.
By the end of the first year, I had written – and read, oh yes, so many of you – my way into ways of teaching that were candle-flames to my moth. I’m not saying they were anywhere close to great or perfect; they were just beautiful, bright forms of inventive play that frequently drew me too close and, because they were usually too ambitious and too big, burned me out.
I’ve always agreed with whoozits the great writer who said, “It’s better to burn than to rot,” so that was okay.
A healthy schizophrenia came….
….a Nietzschean “ball of snakes” of the mind, each contending for control of this here space. I was tired of writing of Things Two Point Oh. It felt like writing about the joys of a honeymoon, long after the newness had worn off. But I was an “edublogger,” a self-taglined “kicker of addictions to 20th Century teaching.” Stuck wriggling on my pin, how could I presume to write beyond Beyond School?
But the literary snake ascended triumphant. I started writing mad long posts about Gilgamesh, touching taboos untouchable in the schoolroom (possibly only because of my own ex-Southern Baptist unconscious). I asked students to stay and teachers to leave. I wrote ten thousand words about an epic of about ten thousand words, and only got a quarter of the way through it.
The funny thing about succumbing to that snake: it worked. More people read those Gilgamesh posts than all the rest of my 600 posts combined. It made me want to stop writing about school(iness) altogether, and just write readings of the heights of human art.
Then Sarah Palin winked up the world,
and too many seemed seduced. Another snake ascended the ball, a political one, fangs thirsting to sink venom into that catastrophic hockey-mom’s neck – for the sake of America and the world. Grandiose, yes, but aren’t all our evangelisms? I wrote about nothing but politics for the next many weeks. (And if McCain dies, goodness forbid, in the next four years, don’t make me say “I told you it was important.” That Saks Fifth Avenue demagogue would be ruling the world – including that “country” she knows as Africa.)
Fully expecting my subscribers to unsubscribe in droves, I could only hope others would come to replace them. Water seeks its own level and all of that. (And I thank all of you who stayed.)
And then one day,
after weeks of nothing but manic and stentorian political blogging, I got an email from somebody about an editing / writing position opening up. It involved educational politics and activism. “I thought of you instantly,” he said. (And I thank him, and he knows who he is.)
I applied, interviewed, interviewed again. Glacial, painful waiting (and contemporaneous with the radio job I’d also been interviewing for).
And I got the job. Stay tuned for the URL when the site is ready to launch later this week. And expect me to pull many of your sleeves to help me push that vision of an education that could be – and that, because of so many of you, already is for a few lucky students.
Have I mentioned that long ago….
….I fantasized about writing in letters as large as the sky, “I write, I write – find me”?
That was B.W. (Before Weblogs).
Now, A.W., that fantasy has become possible. Instead of scribing on the sky, we write and write on screens of light. And if we do it long enough, hard enough – instinctively enough – we can, with the right timing and wind conditions, be found.
This isn’t crowing, mind you. I’ll still need a day job. What this is, for any who need it spelled out, is a T-E-S-T-I-M-O-N-Y of the potential of writing yourself out there. Maybe those students who never believed it when I talked myself red in the face about all of this in theory will see it now. I started Beyond School with a freshman class two years ago; I wish I had them as juniors this year.
~ ~ ~
In the future,
I’ll be writing more on my new space than here. I want to continue making time to write the Unsucky English Lectures, but am not sure if I’ll post them here, or on a new blog, and just leave Beyond School as an artifact of teaching ideas.
(I wonder what Christian Long would advise. He bowed out of Think:Lab recently, if I’m not mistaken. And my god, I just searched for his blog and it seems he deleted it. Is that true? What a loss.)
Photo:
“Escribiendo el cielo” by anikaviro
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Tags: autobiography Print This Post
No. 1 — January 1st, 2009 at 9:49 pm
Congratulations, Clay. What a wonderful way to start the new year!
Harold Jarches last blog post..New year, new challenges
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 2nd, 2009 at 8:35 am
Thanks, Harold. I figured you’d relate.
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No. 2 — January 1st, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Clay, Congratulations on the new job! This testimony is great, and I think some students will take to heart your message and find encouragement in it. Thanks for sharing your journey and thoughts!
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:08 am
Thanks, Paula
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No. 3 — January 1st, 2009 at 11:37 pm
That is really good news. I can’t wait to see the new site. I do hope you’ll keep this site up, as I haven’t managed to read through everything in the archives yet.
This unknown, aspiring writer is extremely grateful to have been able to read this post. After reading it (thrice) when I first woke up, without even having had a cup of coffee yet, I felt encouraged and motivated and hopeful again. It certainly is a good affirmation.
Oh, and it is eerie how similar the “dreamer’s twenties” portion is to my current mindset.
spgreenlaws last blog post..Shalom, Salaam
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:15 am
S.P.,
Hearing it resonated with you comforts me. Terrorist fist-jab, time-delayed doppelgänger. (And the Dreamer 20s were a good stage for me. Since I didn’t mind scraping pennies as long as I had books music film, it was all fine. A squirrel in autumn thing. You’ll chew the nuggets you’re storing now for the rest of your life. And be glad.)
I won’t delete Beyond School. I’m just not sure whether I can continue writing under a title so specialized.
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No. 4 — January 2nd, 2009 at 12:10 am
Clay, I am so excited for you! What wonderful news and I agree with spgreenlaw – it is also personally inspiring. My blog, started years ago, also began with a wish to share my teaching stories. So many days now I find myself pondering entries but have no place to put them as they don’t fit the teaching journey theme. I think we are all consummate learners, maybe it is the learning journey I should write about. Your prose is a gift to us, your energy a vitamin for tired visionaries. Congratulations and I look forward to reading your letters in the sky. Peace.
Lorraine Orenchuks last blog post..Accountability
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 2nd, 2009 at 9:19 am
Lorraine, that’s an interesting comment. You feel it too, the “no place to put them” syndrome.
Long ago I read a post asking whether professional and personal blogs should be separate, and at the time thought “No.” Now I disagree.
It’s an audience thing. Non-educators are probably not going to want to read posts about freaking classroom wikis, no matter how cool they are to us. But non-educators might subscribe to a space we devote to us as sojourners, to riff off your phrase. Or more naturally, us as simply ourselves.
I love the style of your comment. You’ve got ear, girl. “A vitamin for tired visionaries” is a sound-sense keeper.
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No. 5 — January 2nd, 2009 at 1:07 am
Hi Clay, Congratulations and Happy New Year ~ I truly hope you will keep this blog up, if not active, so your newer readers, like me, have an opportunity to read more of it. I can imagine it would be difficult to keep two such blogs going at once, but perhaps this one can evolve into your personal/creative blog — I accidentally wrote persona/creative blog there, and maybe that’s a clue — while the new one can be the place for your ongoing, focused critique of education. At any rate I’m glad “the world” discovered you, through Gilgamesh, politics, or by whatever means!
Jennifers last blog post..Instructional Technologist, “In Quotes”
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 2nd, 2009 at 10:14 am
Jennifer,
“Persona/creative” – what a great typo.
BS won’t go anywhere, as I said to Lorraine above, I’m just not sure what to do with it.
Happy New Year
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No. 6 — January 2nd, 2009 at 10:30 am
Clay,
Congratulations on the new job! That’s great news, and I’m very much looking forward to what you’ve got in store for the new year. All the best!
Toms last blog post..Resolutions
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No. 7 — January 2nd, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Um, Clay, have you peeked at the name of your blog recently?
Beyond School. Beyond. Really. Go look. I’ll wait while you do.
Everything out and about and beyond–your blog is the anti-edublog, and it needs to continue, at least until you finish Gilgamesh.
You only need one passionate reader to make writing worthwhile–you can only truly write to one other anyway, despite the industrial perception of art today.
Unless there’s some ridiculous copyright thing attached to your new endeavor (and congrats!, btw), then cross-post here.
The only person who thinks you’re an edublogger is you. No sane teacher would take on Gilgamesh as though it matters (and it does).
And whoever hired you knows you’re less than sane in the limited definition of “sound mind.”
I didn’t drop the F-bomb, though I had to edit it a few times in the past coule of minutes.
I am very happy for you, but you got to get this idea that you are limited here out of your head.
You changed the conversation. We cannot allow you to walk away from it.
So there.
Michael Doyles last blog post..Industrialism and clams
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:52 pm
Oh, Michael, it’s the “school” part that makes me want to….graduate.
Titles are the first thing new readers see. I want new readers in and out of education, and wouldn’t blame most new readers for passing on the title because, um, they’re really not into reading about school.
Maybe I’ll change the title to just “Beyond.” Or “Into Life.”
But I will keep posting here, I think. Although I’m thinking of starting an “Unsucky English” blog. (But damn, that “English” sounds schooly. Damn damn damn.)
Hey, happy new year, by the way. You really enriched ’08 for me. Thanks for that.
We should meet before we die.
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No. 8 — January 2nd, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Congratulations Clay! I hope you’ll have time to finish Gilgamesh – I actually went out and bought the book and read it based on your posts. Good luck in your new endeavor. I can’t wait to see where your “sky writing” takes you next.
Sharon Seslijas last blog post..What Type is that Blog?
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 3rd, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Thanks Sharon
I will definitely (knocks wood against the runaway bus flattening tomorrow) finish Gilgamesh, and more. But I think the “more” will be the additional chapters of the book that the Gilg writings will be, in revised form, the chapter one….
I really appreciate your encouragement, by the way, Sharon, and hope your new year is a good one.
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No. 9 — January 3rd, 2009 at 12:52 am
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No. 10 — January 3rd, 2009 at 2:28 am
Congratulations, Clay – glad to know that we will still be able to read your work, now in more than one place. (I’ve only just begun struggling with the “no place to put it” problem.) Lean into the discomfort that new things bring; it’s there that beauty is created. And I agree with Michael – the only person that limits you is you. Thanks for writing and, a personal thanks from me, for reading.
I hope that you can kick that flu.
href=”http://tabor330.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/provisioning-bermuda/” rel=”nofollow”>Provisioning in Bermuda
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Kate, I’ve still got the damn flu, but the antibiotics are kicking in. Gah.
The “no place to put it problem” is a thorny one, but it’ll all wash out.
I’m so glad we “met.”
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No. 11 — January 3rd, 2009 at 3:35 am
I have to say- since starting my little blog slowly back in September, your words here have often been a big inspiration for many things I think, talk about, or write.
When I read your first sentence about a short, strange trip… I knew that you were going to drop something interesting. Thinking about your link in my blogroll heading out to an archive page somewhat saddens me at first thought. Not that it isn’t a sweet little archive, but I (and I’m sure many others who read mine) always knew we could click that link and get something a little different than the standard fare.
I think your new plan sounds pretty doggone exciting. I am anxious to see this when it drops. I’m confident you’ll let us know when and where this is happening when it does. Your blog helping to lead you into this next phase of your life is quite cool. It is one more perfect example for my kids to see. Back when I started plugging away on the web in these venues I realized this could be a way to subvert the typical path through one’s career. I think it is one of the most exciting and democratic things I have seen in my young(?) life.
So thanks for having the chops to pull that off… and for being a public example (redundant to the topic) of what I try to forewarn folks about.
And yeah- it seems I may be getting ready to add another site to the ol’ blogroll perhaps.
Keep it uP!
Sean
Sean Nashs last blog post..My Daughter’s Favorite “Gift”
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
Sean, that “one more example for my kids to see” nails the purpose of the post. It’s good to get that feedback.
It’s great interacting with you so much these days. Let’s both try not to die any time soon so we can do more of it
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No. 12 — January 3rd, 2009 at 10:58 am
Congratulations Clay and Happy New Year. Still find myself heading over to BS –often– despite the billions of other net options out there. A true testament of the great thinking that exists here.
Can’t wait to see what’s next. Cheers.
Bill Farrens last blog post..Convinced
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Bill, thank you for that. I’ve featured and linked to you in a couple of places in my resources post already. Sorry I’ve been so incommunicado the last couple of months (or more?). The reasons should be more transparent now
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No. 13 — January 3rd, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Great and inspirational post: it’s hard to believe you’ve only been writing on Beyond School for 2 years.
I certainly can sympathize with being constrained by a venue, and I hope I can continue to follow your work wherever it resides.
Congratulations and may this be a good year for you.
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
Morgante, in a few words: You amaze me, and I’ll hunt you down if you ever disappear. Thanks for the kind words, too.
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No. 14 — January 4th, 2009 at 12:08 am
Sneak preview for commenters here (woo-hoo, I know), because I’m too tired to post about it yet.
Education.Change.org.
So far it’s prescribed (and rightly so) background content, but I’m excited as all hell. Great community there already for the other Change.org blogs, and the focus on action in addition to words – with a huge member base seemingly born to act – is my kind of focus.
I’d be honored and delighted to converse with all of you there and here. In Google Reader, if nothing’s new, the extra feed won’t show.
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Scott Schwister Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
Back in ancient times, during one of our potent conversations, you said something about a vision of web 3.0-to-come: read-write-ACT. Take all the words and thoughts and convictions and put them into action. And here it is, and here you are. I can’t imagine a surer set of hands on the wheel at education.change.org. Really and truly…not just blowing smoke. Constructively framing issues that have built up layers of political calcification over the years (did you see Bud Hunt’s research into Project Follow Through?), negotiating/mediating/translating a conversation with so very many voices, and then helping move all that blogspeak into real action? It’ll take someone with deep background knowledge of public ed past and present, social media chops, in-the-trenches teaching experience, unshakable sense of self, passion for activism balanced by pragmatism. Have I missed anything? Throw in a superhero cape for good measure. You’re it. It’ll be fun to see you in action in a feisty new locale.
Scott Schwisters last blog post..laboring for invention
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Scott, you know, you’re right. Our talks back then were almost exactly about this.
It’s so nice to hear from you again. I hope you’re well.
I’d say more, but I’m packing for Bangkok flight at the last minute!
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No. 15 — January 4th, 2009 at 3:16 am
I must tell you that when I received an email informing me that there was going to be a new section on Change.org concerning public education, I felt an immediate rush of excitement followed by a huge sinking down to my gut.
You see, as a first-year teacher, I’m still idealistic and passionate. However, as with most idealists, I’m used to being let down or disappointed. I assumed the new Change.org page would be run by one of two people: 1. an ancient professor who hasn’t taught in a classroom in years; or 2. one who spent a year or two teaching and then moved on into administration.
I should have known better! After discovering you on here and reading what you have to say, I’m so glad that you formed a partnership with them. I look forward to reading your words and taking them to heart.
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 2:45 pm
Nicholas, just a quick note to say your comment made my day.
After I finish packing for my flight to Thailand in 18 hours, and writing my post for c.o., and interviewing for jobs all next week (I’m on a self-financed sabbatical this year to rejuvenate – and that k-12 teachers don’t get that as readily as university professors is criminal beyond compare) – *inhale* – I really look forward to settling in to get to know you and so many other good people.
What do you teach? Where? What levels?
Clay
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No. 16 — January 4th, 2009 at 8:15 am
I agree with you: I hate the word blogging. And I remember what you said it could be for adults and students: advanced digital communication. Keep it up with the bar raised high.
Paul Cs last blog post..Heirloom Discoveries and Treasures
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Clay Burell Reply:
January 4th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Thanks Paul. We both know that blogging is just a place to put writing
Have a great new year. Nice to see your own blog taking off.
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No. 17 — January 4th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Clay,
Happy belated blogday – and don’t let it be a funeral. Just checked out your space at Change.org – and I’m excited both for you and for them. Go get ‘em. But please stop by here, too. I suspect you’ll have plenty to say in both places.
Bud Hunts last blog post..Seeing Mindfully, Thanks to D’Arcy
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No. 18 — January 10th, 2009 at 10:51 am
Can’t quite find a clever phrase that adequately conveys how I feel about what you’ve shared and how it’s prodded me to step off the beaten path every now and again. Just a simple “thank you” will have to do.
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No. 19 — January 12th, 2009 at 12:26 am
Clay,
Belated congratulations on your new position over at change.org — you truly are *THE BEST* person for such a role! I am happily entering it into my reader presently and I look forward to more nuggets from both that site, and this one. I am glad to hear you won’t be taking BS offline; it has been a ray of inspirational light on more than one occasion since I discovered it about a year ago. I feel better knowing you’re not “going anywhere” in some strange way – almost like a security blanket! Thank you for past encouragement, and for that which I am certain will come in the future just by my continued subscriptions to your writing.
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No. 20 — January 27th, 2009 at 4:44 am
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