Wednesday, July 12, 2017

Fueled by Coffee and Love by Mari Venturino

You may remember that I hosted a very special #WeirdEd happy hour back in April (The Story of Tonight) where we swapped stories and shared ideas. That was in the middle of a very crazy book-creating process. Well, guess what? It’s published!

Fueled by Coffee and Love is a collection of real stories by real teachers. Each contributor shared a story from their teaching journey. Some stories will make you smile, some stories will make you think, and some stories will make you cry. These are our stories.

Still not convinced? The intro was written by the one and only Doug Robertson! And, if that isn’t enough, all proceeds from this book will be donated to classrooms and teachers. (Ok good, you’re convinced. Go buy a copy, then read on.)

Jennie Magiera mentioned Chimanda Ngozi Adichie’s TED Talk in her ISTE 2017 keynote--if you haven’t seen this TED Talk, take a second to go watch it before we chat.  Adichie says, “Power is the ability not just to tell the story of another person, but to make it the definitive story of that person.” (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, TED Talk, The danger of a single story). It is a dangerous thing to allow others to tell our stories, especially when they are doing so for political or economic gain.

This project started in February 2017--my AVID 8 students were starting 20Time projects, and I decided to do one myself. My inspiration for this project stemmed from news media and politicians telling a one-sided tale of what teaching and education is and is not. I feel frustrated that the individuals making decisions about our profession have little idea of our day-to-day joys and struggles.

FBCAL - Social Media Release Graphic.png

What I thought would be a small and manageable project exploded (in a great way) and turned into a full-scale book project. In March through May, I gathered stories and facilitated the editing process. A total of 53 stories came in! Then, it took May and June to finish the editing, final formatting, getting a logo and cover design created, and getting the whole thing published. (Shoutout to Ray Charbonneau & y42k Publishing Services for making the self-publishing process easy.)

One of the biggest challenges in this project was recruiting a diverse cross-section of teachers, especially including teachers of color. Because this project grew out of my group of friends and PLN, I know there is some diversity of authors and I also know it isn’t representative of all teachers. (And, since I don’t know all of the authors personally, I’m making this judgement based on their stories, bios, and Twitter profiles.) This is something in the forefront of my mind as I plan for Volume 2.

Get yourself a copy of the book on Amazon--while you’re there, buy a second copy to gift to a teacher who has made an impact on you!

If you’re interested in writing and/or editing for FBCAL Volume 2, please fill out the interest list and I’ll email you once Volume 2 gets rolling this fall. Find out more about the project on the Fueled by Coffee and Love website. 

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