How the grandchildren got a webpage

At right, older brother Paul helps little brother Miles figure stuff out.

As part of a class assignment, a college student evaluated my www.doug-johnson.com website. The report was well-done and quite comprehensive and basically boiled down to: your site is useful but dull. (The exact same words, I believe, the LWW uses when describing me!)

I was also taken a bit to task for mixing the professional and personal. While 99% of my website contains content of professional interest, there is The Grandfather's Page. So OK, it looks like shameless grandparental bragging, but the page was begun for a professional reason. And here it is...

In late April/early May of 2001, just about the time first grandson Paul was to make his long anticipated apperance into the world, I was in New York state, doing a series of workshops and presentations.  And primarily because of my own anxiety, I carried (for the first, last and only time during a presentation) a cell phone that was actually charged,  turned on and had a number I'd shared. I explained at the beginning of each talk that the only reason the phone might ring was if I had just become a grandfather. Not that I was excited or anything.

Invariably, of course, somebody's cell phone would ring during every presentation, causing a great intake of breath, followed by a disappointed sigh after realizing the phone that rang didn't have a new father on the other end. For three days, my own phone refused to ring.

Finally, late on the last day of the trip during my very last presentation,  my phone rang. In my excitement, I fumble it and cut off the caller. The phone rang again. It was my son-in-law calling to say...

Well, only to say doctors had induced labor in my daugher. Once again, a sigh of disappointment among the 30 librarians who were in the room.

But before I was allowed to leave the conference, attendees made me swear to keep them posted about this coming grandchild. I said I'd send pictures. And the Grandfather's Page was the result.

As presenters, as communicators, as teachers, we ought not be so worried about keeping our professional and personal lives separate. I know as a listener, I focus in when a presenter goes personal. I often can identify. The person becomes, like the Velveteen Rabbit, real. And often it is my heart that is touched - and my heart helps my head remember. I was reminded of this reading Jeff Utecht's entry "A personal stake in the future" on this Thinking Stick blog. Thanks, Jeff.

 How do you make yourself real to your students, your readers, your library patrons? Or is it really that important?

Comments

[Amy]

Doug you're absolutely RIGHT (again). When I write about my first grade daughter not having friends to play with at recess...people responded. They can identify with human emotions (imho).
So my online philosophy is, "a little (and I mean little) personal goes a long way.

Amy