• Kilian Betlach, Teaching in the 408, Best Teacher Blog.

Nominated posthumously, unfortunately. At one point I thought his new employers at Ed Trust would deploy him as their answer to Ed Sector’s Kevin Carey but that seems overly hopeful now. Even if he never puts down another word at his blog, though, it will still remain best-in-class for new teacher biography, for an anthropological study of a particularly high-functioning kind of educator, and, of course, for good and honest basketball coaching.

Nothing brings out the worst, most overblown rhetoric in our little sphere than the Edublog AwardsUnless it’s one of Scott’s blog rankings. but, given my hypothesis that these awards function as reference directories for newcomers, I can’t help but play along. No one’s writing deserves the audience more than TMAO’s and if y’all don’t pull through with the votes, I’ll proceed straight to my backup plan where I bind his collected blog output in hard copy and distribute it to every new teacher I meet.

Aside: nominations require a blog this year, which is an interesting decision on the part of Josie, James, et al.