Let's Talk Animals...and Drupal

Laurel went to the zoo yesterday with my parents while M and I went to Columbus for DrupalCamp Ohio. Drupal is an awesome open source platform for making websites. Drupal is doubly awesome for its community of enthusiastic volunteers who do everything from writing new code to improve functionality or fix bugs, to helping newbies like myself learn about it.

I'm in somewhat of a blissed out state this morning after spending all day with people who drove hours to meet up and talk about something they love, who actively learn new things and who want to help other people learn too.

I wish there was a Math Teacher Camp somewhere, where enthusiastic math teachers would come together and solve problems in our field and learn new things. Where I (a lowly Algebra 1 teacher) could sit down next to a calculus teacher, and not feel inferior. Where we could talk about problems in our field, say "this is stupid", and then actually do something about it.

Maybe I should organize one. In all my spare time.

Anyway, tonight the three of us will all be together again and we will share stories about our weekends. M will talk Drupal. I will talk math. Laurel will talk animals.

It is so important to be curious about something, and to foster that curiosity in your children. And beyond making sure that your kids have hobbies and interests, and access to books and information about whatever they are stoked about this week, YOU as a parent should have a hobby. They should see you reading a book, joining an online discussion group, attending a conference or meeting. Learning something. Loving something. Trying out something that is hard, and maybe even scares you a little bit.

Yesterday I got bold enough to sit in on a session with one of the top dogs in the Drupal community, and learn about building a module from scratch.

Code.

Holy crap.

Stretching my mind that far felt good. But it also felt scary. What if she calls on me and asks what a hook is? What if I do something wrong while I'm following along and blow up my computer?

2012 will be here before we know it. New Year's resolutions and all that. This holiday season, I encourage you to think about something new you'd like to learn. Make it bold. Make it hard. Don't worry about how you are going to learn it yet. Just pick it. And leave a comment with your 2012 passion/hobby/skill/knowledge...whatever it is that you can get excited about.