As you might be aware, we’ve been holding workshop sessions for the last few months. Anjelica and I decided it was time to put our “money where our mouths had been” and try to do something to help others in our community to get more proactive online. We decided to start our Blogging Workshop Series where we are basically trying to teach people how to start and grow their own successful blogs.
It’s been an eye opening experience to say the least, and to be quite honest, it’s also proving to be a huge learning opportunity for the two of us.
Not only because we are evaluating and kind of figuring things out for our own online brands all over again – we never did anything like this when we started out. But also because this is the first time we have held a teaching role for such an extended period of time. Let me tell you, I have a new found respect for educators at all levels. I guess the closest thing to this experience for me was the couple of months I spent teaching English as a second language a few years ago. However, that curriculum was not my own and all I had to do was make sure the dots were connecting for all my students. Still a very daunting task mind you.
This is different.
Here, we are driving the vehicle and making decisions about where we turn, stop, make a detour, and when it is time to hand everyone their drivers licenses. Well not literally, but you get the point.
As we were winding down our first cohort of workshops we decided to engage our students in a candid conversation about their thoughts and feedback on our very first stint as instructors in these workshops. As you might imagine, the initial feedback was all positive and very flattering. We pushed back, “be honest with us, we want to make sure we are doing the best job possible in these classes.” The feedback became a little more tangible, and we insisted on more brutal honesty. By the end of the class we walked away with a workable list of actions to take before our next cohort of students would show up to class.
A few years ago I don’t think I would have known, much less have been comfortable, with asking anyone to be so brutally honest with me. It’s hard to hear the truth. But I’ve been purposely trying to be honest with myself about what my strengths and weaknesses are. I think Anjelica has been there for a long time ahead of me. I’m finally trying to catch up!
So here we go – into our next series of blogging workshops – with an open mind and a deep desire to really make them count for each and everyone of our students.
¡Mandenos buenas vibras!
