Does My Voice Matter?

I've been toying with this blog post for a while, trying to figure out exactly what I wanted to say.

One thing that keeps coming to my own personal thoughts is the idea of "does my voice really matter"?  Do I have ideas that are worth sharing?  Can I have an impact on anyone?

And the more I involve myself with others the more that I see that there are many of us who feel that way.

I think about the first time I got on Twitter.  When I first joined twitter I said very little.  I was seeing great ideas and tweets shared by other educators and all that kept going through my head was "no one needs to hear what you have to say".  So I sat back and watched.  I watched the interactions take place, the relationships form, and the ideas be shared.  And you know, honestly, that's how I was acting within my own school too.  I closed my door, did my own little creative things behind my walls and kept it all to myself.  Why?  Fear.  Fear that I would be chided.  Fear that I was doing it "wrong".  And even Fear that it wasn't good enough.

Then one day I decided to participate in a Twitter chat...I didn't say much at first.  I just tweeted one or two things.  But that feeling you get when someone retweets something of yours or favorites one of your tweets, it's hard to explain to others.  It's this weird sense of validation.  This kind of way of making you feel like, "maybe I can share something of use".  And so I began to tweet more and more and began to get more honest on Twitter and share my thoughts and ideas of how to make education better.

That lead into blogging.  I have always loved writing, but writing for myself.  Not sharing with others...hence why my children's book that got printed took 7 years after finishing it for me to get the nerve to put it out there.  But blogging gave me an outlet.  And from the first blog post I did I made a conscious decision that I wanted to be completely honest.  I wanted to give a real life glimpse of my struggles and my joys within my classroom.

And from there I began to get the nerve to blog about all kinds of things and not just things that are going on in my classroom.  And now I travel all over the state of Texas speaking, I write blogs that get tons of hits, and I have thousands of followers....why?  Is my "voice" really that moving?

And I realize, we all have a voice.  We all have something about us that makes us stand out, that makes us special, that makes us who we are.  And when we sit there and think "Does my voice Matter?" all we're doing is demeaning our God-given gifts.  We aren't setting an example that is worthy of our students following.  We became educators for a reason; to lead and to teach and to connect.  We all are good at what we do in one way or another, and honestly I think it's kind of unfair to the other educators NOT to share.

At many trainings I do I am always begging teachers to get on Twitter.  Why?  Because I know I don't have all the answers, ideas, solutions....but others do!  And the more people I can convince to blog, tweet, Pin, Clip, or Podcast, the more ideas that are going to get out there that I can borrow from!

So I write this to say to you, YES YOU, you have a voice.  And guess what, it matters.  To who?  To me and to so many others you may never even meet.  So please take the time to share what you're doing in your school, at home, online, in your class, your community, whatever!  JUST SHARE.  Because your voice matters.  There are many of us hungry for new ideas from people just like you.  So start today!

I heard this song driving to my hotel today and thought the lyrics fit perfectly with who I am and sorta this post too....here's a snippet...

I want to Stand out

I wanna stand tall

I wanna be myself even if it means

I won't fit in at all

I wanna be real

I wanna be me

Cause everything I am is who I'm meant to be

I was meant to be free

- Jessie Daniels

Would love to hear comments below OR share your blog with me below so I can have some more great people to read from!  Or better yet if you've never blogged START TODAY and share your post with me!