I made my own Teacher website and here is why



I made my own Professional website. I was motivated to do this by Barbara A. Zielonka who, like me, has far too many websites to fully keep track of neatly. It felt right at this stage of my career, where I am often overwhelmed and confounded by the many projects and things I willingly agree to, to take stock. To sort, to rank and to put into order the things that I regularly do. Especially those that are above and beyond my day-to-day work of being a teacher.

A neat reflection of this kind came from a conversation I had with a Khmer teacher, director and leader, Sivuthy Ho, whom my wife and I were using as our translator and go-between for the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport (MoEYS) here in Cambodia for our work with Teachers Across Borders Australia.

He was explaining the many things that he does, notably:

1) Is the Director of a school (what we would call a Principal)

2) Works at the Provincial of Education (PoE) in the planning department (the Australian equivalent of working for the North Western region of the Victorian Education Department or similar).

3) Teaches English classes out-of-hours to support students in Kampong Thom, the place where he has long committed to develop

4) Translating and supporting the collaboration between Teachers Across Borders Australia and acting as our primary contact 'in-country' for resolving issues, liaising with various departments and work of this kind.

His simple reflection on all of this work was simple: "Well, they are all related, so it's okay.".

This is something that summarises and synthesises something that I have come to realise about myself across perhaps the most difficult year of my life, 2019.

The work that I do, the things that I pursue and the projects that I accept are all related, they appear numerous and complex to others, but to me they are all expressions of the same core idea:

'Things are not as good as they could be'
Which leads to:
'I can contribute to make things better'

This is the core thing that gets me up in the morning, pushes me to do things that I am not always comfortable with, largely because I do not think I am qualified or capable of delivering on them. It is also the thing that means I often cannot get to sleep, kept awake by a new idea, a new thought, a new approach to bring teachers together, to build their capacity or to share new things that I have learnt.

The process of creating a website is mostly painful and complicated processes of ICT, but the real value I found was in bringing the work that I do into greater relief by simply categorising, grouping and putting things into logical places. This process has, and will continue to, help me to prioritise those things that I do in 2020 and find ways to seek a clearer focus amid a year that will come with a higher workload from my direct school work with students and allow me less time to pursue these continuing passion projects that I love and value so much.

Thank you to all those teacher who shared their advice, their own examples of websites and various small items that made an otherwise painful process beneficial.

My shiny new website can be viewed at: www.stevenkolber.com

I welcome any and all comments, criticisms, challenges and feedback on this blog or the content of said website.

Running word count: 35,077

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