Blogs as Conversations and Calls for Action

On Thursday night, an interesting dilemma fell into my lap. I discovered from my youngest sister, who just graduated high school last year, that my high school was literally falling into shambles. After my high school principal passed away in 2001, the leadership of the high school fell into numerous incapable hands. Turnover was high. At the same time, the vision of the school started to change. See, I attended a religious high school, but the school, for whatever reason, started becoming less religious. In the most recent news, the most influential teacher in my entire academic career (which includes college) was fired with a handful of other teachers.

I was brought to the attention of a Facebook group that was formed by current high school students to save the teachers who were canned. The group’s wall has an incredible outpouring of support by the high school students. I graduated high school a long time ago, but I still have a connection to the school — more so, I feel an obligation towards the teachers whose careers I feel were unjustly terminated.

I decided to start a more public-facing blog to support the affected faculty members. It was simply a 3am Friday morning decision (literally — I bought the domain name at 2:48AM according to the records), and I emailed three people, my little sister included, about the site. I posted two posts about how the current mission of the school is completely contradicting the mission statement that is displayed so prominently on the school’s website. I left the site alone, thinking that nothing would happen, not knowing what to expect.

Friday started no differently than any other workday. However, within the next few hours, the site saw an avalanche of messages comforting the teachers who were expelled. I was absolutely stunned by how word spread so quickly. It truly had an incredible reach all within a few hours. Since then, I spoke to several teachers, parents, alumni, and faculty, and every single one of them had heard about the site. I received emails, both onymous and anonymous, telling me how I am making a difference. While I haven’t heard from any of the individuals in support of the recent “cleansing” of my high school, I hear that they exist as well. I am waiting for those individuals to step forward.

There are so many blogs that are written for so many different purposes. There are blogs that are personal in nature. There are blogs that provide tips and tricks about improving one’s life. There are blogs that break news or that repeat news. There are blogs that offer opinion on a variety of subjects. And there are blogs, like the one I started on Friday, that seek out to make a community aware and to make a difference.

Suffice to say, I believe that the blog I have started is making a difference. I hope that it is a difference for the better.