Transparency, in the Classroom and Online

A colleague recently commented on how there seems to be a natural tendency for us as humans to fight against the notion of living a life of transparency, how we have an urge to be self-protective, creating a sort of mask of how we want our lives to appear to the outside world. We had been discussing both the classroom and online communication, and the conversation left me wondering how I measure up in this area, especially given that transparency is something I value highly.

When I began teaching undergrads, I was only barely older than