A Blog A Day15/31

The One About The Twitter Echo Chamber

So there is a Medium Post by Shanna Peeples that is making the rounds on twitter right now. It hit me like a bag of bricks, and seems sort of related to my last post. 

"​“EduCelebs” who dominate the platform are part of the problem. For a place that seemed to be a way for teachers to find each other and share resources, Twitter has become clans of “positivity” grouped around people pushing books and consultancy. Their followers retweet messages that sterilize the humanity of teaching into chirpy cliches (attitude is everything!) and flat statements (teachers change lives) treated as if they are visionary."

Your Back-To-School Messages Are Hurting Teachers

I personally believe that twitter was instrumental in my own professional development and I still share to it, and go to it for resources. However, the positive echo chamber I can totally relate to. I have stopped attending twitter chats, it seems like there aren't really any new ideas OR people aren't really listening to each other. It's so positive, it's like people are afraid to challenge the status quo. 

At this stage in my game I am actively seeking out people that aren't afraid to un-filter themselves. I need negative feedback, or at the very least someone that thinks differently than me. I need to know what I need to do to improve. If everything is always positive how do we fix mistakes? There is always room for improvement.

Mansplaining School

This article also starts to focus in on mansplaining in education, and emotional abuse on the mostly female workforce, Which nothing blew my hair back quite like the article linked below. But yes teacher walkouts, and teacher attrition is going to be more and more of a problem. Will be interesting to see what is yet to come. 

Why Teachers Are Walking Out