Thanks Rasmussen Nice to Meet You

I periodically get emails that look like this:

Hi,
My name is _____ from (Onlinedegrees.net). We wanted to let you know that we featured your blog in one of our recent articles on our own blog. (50 Best Blogs for Early Childhood Educators), is linked below and could be a fun way to share this announcement with your readers.

Thanks again for your time, and keep up the good work!

________

I appreciate the attention but I realized quite quickly that it is a marketing ploy and stopped following up. I am sure that onlinedegrees.net believe they have found some of the best blogs in this category. Their inclusion of Teacher Tom affirms this. I just don't give these "lists" much credibility because how they describe the blog doesn' t provide much information. They could have written the description of most from what shows up in a google search.

This has caused me to be highly suspicious of "lists". Now I don't give much cred to anybody who puts me on a list and then emails to let me know they put me on the list. So when I received a similar email from Rasmussen College another online college, I didn't think much of it. But then Rasmussen came up on the Teacher Leaders Network Forum. Apparently, Rasmussen has created a hubub on TLN with their list and our organization has decided to create our own list.

I think Rasmussen had a narrow idea of what "best" would be before they made the list. My work on Pre-K Now is very easy to swallow where as some of my other writing is a little less easy. I am appalled that Nancy, Bill, and Jose aren't on the list but, none of the three of them are easy consumption material. They are all difficult and demand something of the reader.

So thanks Rasmussen for the mention. Maybe you can check out the blogs below for next year.

Nancy Flanagan writes Teacher in a Strange Land with the passion of a first year teacher and the wisdom of a 30 plus year professional. In every post Nancy challenges. She challenges teachers, policymakers, students, parents, and America to just educate better and think about why we are doing it the way we are.

Bill Ferriter is the Tempered Radical . He is definitely radical but never nonsensically so. His consistent challenging of the status quo, whether it is in how we view technology, middle school, or professional development never fails to leave me just a little changed by the end of a post. Bill has a knack for making you reconsider how you see the world even if you don't agree with him.

The Jose Vilson Jose's tag line is "Its not about a salary, its about reality." and that pretty much "sums" (wink) it up for this brilliant writer about the reality of being a middle school math teacher in NYC, Washington Heights. He tackles subjects that most teachers, including me, would never tocuh. Not even with a ten yard stick. He writes with such lyricism and passion that we can taste the chalk dust in his classroom. Does he talk about more than just education? Yes, but thats the point, teachers are more than just educators, they are human beings. Teachers are within a system that they are constantly defending with students and fighting as professional. Jose is not an easy read, and that is why he should be read.