1 year. 235 posts. 117,500 words. 24,624 views. Happy Anniversary, Let’s Change Education!

Though the “official launch” took place in January, the unofficial hop into the world wide web happened last December 14 with a “Morning Minutes” post, in which I discussed my last minute scramble to get my independent learning project done–this blog–to present to my kids.  And that was how it started. A year ago, my student Megan Lavin challenged me to do my own independent learning project along with them, and…the rest is history.

At the time, I just wanted to create a forum for discussing educational issues among all the key stakeholders: teachers, students, parents, administrators, and the public. But as we went along, people weren’t really contributing to the conversation, but a lot of people were logging in to listen, so I spoke, and I kept speaking. Many of my initial posts targeted grading practices, which seemed to resonate with a lot of folks, and from there the conversation continued, eventually leading to my decision to go gradeless, giving an unexpected birth to Project 180.

Never imagined that I would have landed here a year ago, 70 days into a journey both filled with delight and fraught with doubt, my beautiful burden. But it is neither a burden borne nor a beauty beheld alone, I’ve had you. Some of you every single step of the way. And this gives me the strength to face my doubt and the spirit to share my delight. And with that, thank you. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for understanding my struggles. Thank you for celebrating my successes. Thank you. Couldn’t do it without you, so don’t leave me now. Long road ahead. Gonna need ya.

Happy Wednesday, all.