-Jeff

@Tim - You’ve added a lot to the discussion and I’m grateful for your take on this. Education IS a noble profession and the intensity online matches the dedication offline, so it would make sense that it transfers to the feelings re: advertising and “cheapening” their content. As with most things I write about, I truly do have an open mind and when I ask questions, I trully DO want input - I agree that gentle questioning benefits all. I’m always open to discussion and respectful dissent :-)

Intentionally or otherwise, most educators end up making less (or MUCH less) money than they would if they pursued careers in business, the other learned professions, etc. They know this. They are free enough from greed (or financial ambition, or however you want to put it) that it doesn’t keep them from pursuing their careers as teachers, administrators, etc. And if they happen to end up in a job that does pay them handsomely, they and their peers regard it as a special reward for their hard work — even when their supposedly princely income could be matched easily by a 28-year-old sales manager at a mid-sized company.

In this setting — and considering the cultural insularity of the educational profession as a whole — it’s not surprising to me that you get reactions to advertisements that are so very much at odds with the routine practice of other parts of the professional blogosphere. In that bigger setting, it’s well understood that if a blog doesn’t have ads, that’s a choice on the part of the blogger. (John Scalzi provides an example of this.) End of discussion. No moralizing.

My take, coming as someone who has just one finger in the pie of professional education: educators as a group will be well served to *learn* more from what you’re doing here — rather than moralize about it or react stereotypically to it. We can ALL expand our ways of thinking about what the blogosphere means — or can mean — but only when our assumptions are held up to at least gentle questioning.