Casey Miller and Kate Swift in The Handbook of Nonsexist Writing: For Writers, Editors, and Speakers (1981) refer to 18th century usuage.

Like a collective noun (e.g. the audience… they

versus the audience… it), the use of the pronoun “they” to refer to a grammatically singular subject such as “the student” reveals the delicious plurality that composes our subjectivities. Wise educators keep in mind the many many connections that students bring to a pedagogical experience and do encourage what Carl Rogers calls “being in the learning event” with the whole person. A way of approaching the nexus of teaching and learning which, of course, leads us, individually and collectively, back to the theme of the social construction of the learning environment in terms of a series of public and semi-private spaces.

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Extramural relations seems to be a theme that is cropping up in other guises. Witness the recent plethora of entries and comments on students reading teachers’ blogs. I wonder what is feeding this theme of traversing/constructing public/private/semi-private space.

Experiences of intrusive spam and telemarketers?  A belief in the power of gatherings and guests?

Pity if there is a chilling effect. 

Appropriate use of public space can be used to enhance the quality of education without jeopardizing student or teacher personal information.  Beyond the timeline of any given course, life long learnng benefits from a cultivation of the social dimensions of knowledge construction and exchange. Private people with no public personna are less likely to tap into networks of support or provide support.

I think the “pseudonym” is a reasonable solution for students who have privacy concerns.  My assumption is that the public nature of blogs will automatically “filter” anything considered private anyway.  I’m still learning this semester, but discussions like these seem pretty important.