More Education Blogs I've Discovered & Being an ABD

Because there are a number of teachers who read The Median Sib regularly, I will share excellent education related blogs whenever I find them. Tonight, as a wind-down from Thanksgiving festivities, I surfed through some blogs and found some gems.

I found Jenny D., who is a doctoral candidate in education and public policy. One post, It's About Teaching Teachers, compared Japanese teacher preparation and training with that of American teachers. Although professional learning is a priority with my particular school system, it is not as high a priority as it apparently is in Japan.

Jenny D. also discusses progress on her dissertation - something that makes me particularly envious since I got sidetracked at the beginning of my dissertation and wasn't able to get back to it until too many years had gone by for my courses to count. I completed all the coursework, the written and oral qualifying exams...even the first chapter . . .but no dissertation. I dislike being an ABD, but I can't re-write my history.

Following a link in Jenny D.'s blog, I found (a)musings of a grad student by Rebecca Goetz, a doctoral candidate at Harvard. She had an article, "Do Not Fear The Blog" in The Chronicle of Higher Education that was particularly interesting to me. I liked her use of the word "metablogging." It's great reading for anyone who likes to metablog...and since I think and ponder and re-think everything I do connected with my blog, I definitely metablog!

Rebecca's blog led me to New Kid On The Hallway, which led me to two ABD blogs. Since I have no plausible means of getting out of being an ABD without starting all over (something that's not appealing at the age of 56), the titles of these two blogs caught my eye - ABD: Almost Bloody Done and ABD Mom. I enjoyed them both and will return often to keep up with their progress.

I was about to click back to my blog from ABD Mom, when Eating An Elephant caught my eye in the blogroll. I knew what it was about before I even looked at the blog. I clicked on over to look at it and found a whole LIST of ABD blogs.

So my reading is determined for the next few days. I'll read all the ABD stuff and feel envious and will look at various schools again to see if I can't convince someone to accept at least SOME of my 11-year old credits. But they won't - because I've already tried, and I just don't have the heart to start all over on it. I'll enjoy, though, reading about the struggles and triumphs of other doctoral candidates.