Hi everyone,
I migrated your emails over from Buttondown to Substack last night. Pershmail is a Substack newsletter now.
I did this for two reasons:
I love our Friday listified posts, but I want to start blogging again, and Substack is built for comments.
Buttondown has always been somewhat annoying to use (though it recently got significantly smoother).
That’s why we’re here. I have zero plans to try to get you to pay for my writing. I want to be an honest broker about the things I write about and, honestly, $100/month or whatever isn’t worth introducing a profit motive into the mix here.
(I suppose if it was more like $1000/month I could treat this more like a job? And I could do less side-hustling or tutoring for money? And then I’d figure out a way to make it worth it to everyone? I don’t know man, that’s not really where we’re at as a Pershmail right now. But a Pershan can dream.)
If we’re going back to blogging, I also want to more clearly state what those posts will be about: mostly teaching, math, research, education. I’ve always been interested in things beyond—if not exactly bigger—than the classroom. When I started sending these emails in early 2020 it was out of a desire to share a little bit more of my enthusiasm for books, music, comedy, culture, etc., along with all the teaching stuff.
Since then, two things have happened. First, I’ve found other outlets for some of that non-classroom energy. These are things I’ll continue to share in the Friday emails. But the second thing is that you showed up. And: surprise, surprise! The vast majority of you are here because of what I have to say about teaching. (The select few who do like chatting about all that other stuff: please don’t go anywhere. I need you.)
So, here’s the plan:
You’re going to keep getting emails like the ones you have been getting every other Friday for the forseeable future.
I’ll also use this as my blog for teacher stuff, the same way I’ve been blogging about education for the past decade or so, most recently here but before that here and here. I’m still trying to flesh out this page on edu research, and I think some of my upcoming blogging will be along those lines.
So, back to blogging, though I never really stopped. Does the move to Substack make me a trend-chaser? Or maybe it makes me old-fashioned? Or maybe old old-fashioned.
I’ve got parent-teacher conferences and stuff with my kids this week and am generally a bit of an overstretched mess, but I’m hoping to send you a first bloggy post in the near future. Talk soon!