Okay, admit it. After reading the title, you were a little hesitant to open this post, weren’t you?
Well, there is no need to worry. Everything you are about to view has received a “G” rating by the American Bloggers Association.
Here is what the title really means. With the official start of summer just a few days away, it’s time for me to hang up the long, heavy blog posts for a little while.
Instead, over the next six weeks, I will unveil a new line of fashionable, airy, blog posts, a.k.a. “summer shorts.”
My goal is to write them short and write them real. Long enough to cover the important parts of a defined topic, but short enough to be read comfortably in five minutes or less.
If you have been a follower of viewfromtheedge for some time, you know that “shorts” are not my typical attire. In fact, if you created a clothing metaphor for my regular writing style, most of my posts would be three-piece suits with neck ties, pocket squares, and top hats! Oh, and maybe some silly socks from time to time.
Well, with the arrival of warmer temperatures and vacation days, it’s time to strip it down for a few weeks.
Of course, I plan to offer some light, fun-time narratives to blend in seamlessly with the halcyon days of summer. At the same time, I may throw on some distressed denim on occasion to represent those well-worn yet always reliable education topics that never seem to fade away. You know–things like testing and legislative idiocy.
The style options are virtually endless, so I will seek the most flattering styles for my mood at the time. The only rule is that they cannot extend “below the knee,” which in this extended metaphor translates to 500 words or less. This seems uncomfortably brief given my existing “wardrobe” of posts, but we’re not talking Speedos here. That would NOT be a good look for me (or any other human for that matter!)
So, with that as a preview, I hope you are now at least a little excited to get into my summer “shorts.” Tomorrow, I will post my thoughts about the incomparable Diane Ravitch’s keynote speech at this week’s CCOSA Summer Conference, followed soon thereafter by a smack-down of the Oklahoma third grade retention law.
I have developed a list of at least a dozen topics that will fit well for this “short” format, anything from ESEA reauthorization to Arne Duncan to parent opt-outs (oops, did I say that out loud).
It will be fun. If you have random topics that you would like me to tackle, send it along and I’ll see if it fits my appetite. Likewise, I would enjoy seeing some summer shorts from some of our other excellent Oklahoma bloggers.