Separation of Professional and Personal Space?

Last evening, I contemplated the merits of maintaining two separate blogs: A professional edublog, and a second, more personal blog. Especially given my recent illness, I wasn’t sure if visitors, both new and returning, desired to read about my struggles on a blog which professed to be about teaching and learning.

But, at what point don’t the professional and personal blur, overlap, and intersect in our lives? Or, when one takes over the other for a period of time? I am not really able to speak on the professional right now, expressly because I have not been at school in over a week. My absence from the workplace has created a shortfall of authentic material. However, there is no shortfall of personal material. Therefore, for the sake of authenticity, I draw more heavily on the personal for the meantime.

There are many in the blogosphere, perhaps even some of you who visit from time to time, who maintain two blogs for the express purpose of keeping the professional and the personal separate and uncluttered. First, I respect that. Second, I admire any person who is able to maintain two or more blogs simultaneously. Blogging is a lot of work! And yet, there is a certain charm in those blogs, mine included, which, whether intentionally or by default, create a sort of patchwork quilt by merging the professional and the personal. The subject matter may be unpredictable, and the direction not easily navigable, but the voice clear, true and authentic. I also find myself sometimes feeling really conflicted regarding the subject matter of my posts: Does this really speak to who I am as a teacher?

This is not to say that one who separates the professional and the personal via the maintenance of two separate blogs is not clear, true and authentic in his/her voice on both accounts. Superkimbo/mscofino demonstrates these three characterstics beautifully in her two blogs, Follow That Elephant! and Always Learning. What I am saying is when one has a blog which blends the professional and the personal, there seems to be more self-editing at times for the sake of professional purity. Or, at least this is how I feel sometimes in my blogging life.

As I conclude this post, I am obviously no closer to an answer re: the separation of professional and personal space than when I began. This being said, I am more inclined to maintaining one blog. However, perhaps you, the reader can weigh in: Are there advantages to maintaining two blogs for the purpose of separating the professional and the personal? And, if you or someone you know maintains two separate blogs for this purpose, what benefits and challenges have you/he/she encountered?