It is Thursday night here in Doha, the equivalent of a Friday night, and I am ready to decompress. I am having a few friends over to watch some mindless movies and simply relax. Before they arrive however, I thought I’d write a quick post about a very simple yet potent feature of blogging- Building relationships.

We are getting a new middle school principle next year, and while I met him briefly during his interview process at our school, I cannot say that I know him. And there is no way that he knows much about me more than a brief first impression. In order to start building our professional relationship, I sent him the link to this blog and asked him to stay tuned. I hope he has time to monitor the blogs growth and keep up with the things that I am doing. In doing so, I anticipate that when he arrive next year, rather than spend six months getting to know each other, we can hit the ground running.

By then he should have a firm understating of my teaching style, the types of activities I do in my classroom, my ideas on technology, and even a glimpse into my personality and who I am. Just think of what the teachers here would learn about you if you had your own blog? So when we sit and have our first conversation about technology in the middle school, or how to develop standard based assessments, he will already have a good understating of how I feel and what I think. Hopefully, his busy scheduling allowing, he will have already commented on my blog and the conversations will have begun before he even arrives.

Good news! This is already the case. He commented here yesterday, and I have added him to my Skype contacts. Here’s to you getting to know you Steve. I hope to see on Intrepid Teacher as often as time allows, and I am excited to start our conversations about the future of our school now.