is something I have experienced many times. Perhaps it was Meteor Blades sending me an email encouraging me to keep at it when I was struggling to find my voice. It was Las Vegas in 2006, the reaction (which as a shy person I was not sure how to handle) when I said I was teacherken. It has been the emails from people thanking me for things I have written, or the wonderful comments on my posts, where people get inspired to take an idea I have offered and take it further.
Perhaps my greatest experience of this came in the Spring of 2010, when I offered a diary titled simply Some new about me . . . where I explained to the community something I had known for a month - that I was a winner of the Washington Post Agnes Meyer Outstanding Teacher Award. It was not just the more than 1500 recommendations that diary received, it was the wonderful comments affirming me.
It is that on which I want to focus. Part of community building is affirming one another. I have been the beneficiary of that from many here, for which I am grateful.
Now Markos has offered another way of affirming - suggesting we gift people with lifetime subscriptions. It accomplishes several things.
1. It raises funds up front that can help make this site a better and more productive place.
2. It is a way we can affirm members of the community, some of whom may not realize how much we care for them, for what they give us all.
I have already been the beneficiary of such a gift, anonymously, as I wrote here earlier this week.
Why this diary? Simply to offer one more reminder of something you can do - pick out someone you wish to affirm and gift them, as I have been gifted.
It is a way we can help sustain and grow this wonderful community.
Peace.