What Makes You Feel Old as a Teacher or Blogger?

I started paying close attention to the education blogosphere in 2004. There weren’t many ed blogs then — not compared to now, at least — but there was enough to keep me busy. Sites like Education Week and EducationNews.org handled the news, while blogs like Alexander Russo’s and Joanne Jacobs’ were daily reads (and still are).

I remember coming across high school student Sam Jackson’s College Experience blog and reading his thoughtful analysis of his trek through the college admissions process. He spoke to selection, financing, all of it, in a way that blows Jay Mathews and College Confidential out of the water. It was real, honest and well-written.

Sam applied to Yale and was admitted. I think his major at Yale was Everything Under The Sun; that’s what I took from his knowledgeable posts on college life, his experiences in China, etc. My views and politics seldom matched up with Sam’s, but who cares? The guy has been a profitable education read for 5 or 6 years, which is more than I can say for all but a handful of education writers. My professional life is better off having been exposed to his thoughts over the years.

And now I read that Sam had his last Yale class yesterday.

I feel as old as the education blogosphere can make you feel. When I started reading Sam, he was probably a high school sophomore who’d just begun to think seriously about college. Now he’s done at Yale and moving on to something else.

What makes you feel “old” in teaching or blogging?