Hiding Behind Bad Jokes

Let's clear something up right now: Putting "Satire" or "Funny observations" does not absolve you of the responsibility of being coherent and responsible in your education tweets. For every anonymous education account that tweets well there are a dozen that are terrible at it.

That's right, friends and readers- this is a blog about education twitter. Strap in.

There are more anonymous education twitter accounts that I prefer to think about. Most of them hide behind handles like @LOLTeacherProblems or @MindYourMindset or @YourDumbAdmin. They have bios full of weasel words like, "meant to amuse" or "these are jokes" or "satire" or "just observations meant to be inspirational". Things that attempt to distance them from the content of their feeds or brush off tweets as "just jokes" as protection.


Here's the problem with that- "Jokes" are not the same thing as "complaining about your job and/or students with a winky face". It's just not. I get wanting to complain. I get wanting to have a space to do that freely. I don't think that is a bad thing in and of itself. Where my problem lies is when the account, framed as a source of insight or comedy, supplies neither. The funny isn't that hard. Correction- One funny isn't that hard. Three funnies, especially about teaching (an incredibly funny profession), aren't that hard. An entire account dedicated to the funny? That's hard. Before deciding you should create an anonymous account with all your clever education observations try to be sure you have more than a half dozen of them. Because once the well runs dry you'll still have that account sitting there and you and I both know you'll want to use it.

What happens to those accounts? Let's take two recent examples. I'm not going to call either account out by handle because that sucks, and I'm not going to link to the tweets. I won't link to the tweets because both accounts have since deleted the tweets under pressure of push back. Not bullying, push back. Response in a public forum to what they said publicly. One even wrote a (terrible) non-apology, then deleted that, then deleted an even worse poor me apology, then deleted that. Courage of your convictions and whatnot, I guess.

The first account example frames themselves as a funny account. "Check me out, I have clever things to say." Most of the tweets are boring at best and sucrose or cotton candy at worse. Until the account decided to post (I'm paraphrasing) "You know what I hate about my students? When they use slang." The they gave an example of a slang phrase that literally anyone would say (and did), "Wait, are you mocking the way a student of color speaks?" That's a problem, but maybe the account could have added context. That's not what happened. What happened was the tweet went mini-viral and pretty soon (white) teachers all over were adding the annoying things their students say that also sounded like they were singling out students of color. This thread got longer and longer and more and more racist. Like openly, easily racist. And when the account who started it all was called on it they got defensive, they started blocking people (not me, even though I straight out called them racist in an RT to 21.7k people, but accounts run by teachers of color did get blocked). Eventually they deleted the tweet and posted the two non-apologies I mentioned earlier.

There's a lot of problems with this. First off, if the student's quote was taken out of context it's the responsibility of the account posting it to provide the context needed and asked for. Secondly, and this is more important, if the responses to your thread get increasingly more racist it's your job to shut that down or at least try. There should be replies from you to the offenders telling them what's not welcome in no uncertain terms. An artist can absolutely cull their followers. I point to the easiest example- Nirvana post-Nevermind. Nevermind was the biggest album on the planet and Nirvana exploded into places they never wanted to be, and suddenly people who should never have been in their fandom found them and decided to like them. So on the next album, In Utero,  they put this in the liner notes.

"If any of you hate homosexuals, people of different color, or women, please do this one favor for us- leave us alone! Don't come to our shows and don't buy our records."

You can't control who buys your stuff or follows you, but you can be very clear who and what is unwelcome. The second a twitter thread you start becomes toxic it's on you to at least try to stop that. "But I'm just trying to be a funny twitter account." Sorry dude, you started this, now own what you said.

The second type of account I want to talk about isn't sure what they want to be. They want to be funny, sure, but they also know that fauxspiration goes a long way towards those sweet sweet interaction metrics. So they will post what I suppose is supposed to be funny and mix in a nice helping of pablum and platitudes. The best kind of platitude? The kind teachers in February really want to hear? "Exhaustion means you're working hard. Being exhausted means you're a good teacher."

Holy crap, we're still doing this? I'm more of a martyr than you because I'm more tired? I love my kids more because I hate myself more? Pain makes teachers great? This is not a Thing! It has never been a Thing. Stop trying to make exhausted happen, Gretchen, or you can't sit with us anymore.

Again, lots of push back. Lots of tired, concerned teachers feeling the need to raise their hands and go, "Uh, this is a bad narrative and you should stop."

"Jeez, you guys are all so mean. I'm just trying to *mumble mumble argle bargle*." Hiding behind inspiration and, when that fails, hiding behind "it's supposed to be funny." If it's supposed to be funny then it ought to be. Don't be Ricky Gervais. It's possible to be shocking or edgy and funny, not just preachy and obnoxious.

As a bonus type of account, we have the sunshine and rainbows ones that pretend at understanding mindset but only to the depth of a splash pad in mid-winter. I saw, and I swear this is true, an account about mindsets tweet "Feeling overwhelmed? Switch to excitement! Don't think you have to do it, think you get to do it!" Oh, that's all it takes to stop feeling this tired and overwhelmed? It's just a mindset issue? "You're depressed? Have you tried not being depressed?" This reduction of depression, anxiety, anger, frustration, and exhaustion to simple "Well you just aren't trying hard enough to be happy" wouldn't fly on My Little Pony (one of the best cartoons about friendship and relationships and conflict out there today)*.

I want to make note that I'm not going to go after the anonymous part of these accounts, just their content. Honestly, I would rather everyone speak with their own face because that forces you to stand behind what you say, but I also understand the reality of some school districts and how some teachers might not feel safe speaking their truth with their face exposed. So, while I prefer to say everything with my face and voice out there in the open, I understand why some don't and I won't fault them for it.

Keep the focus on content. Education twitter accounts of the world- I cannot tell you how to tweet (the last thousand words to the contrary, I know). What I can tell you is what we see and how it makes us feel. Oversimplification, reduction, and hiding behind "It was just a joke, omg" are weak covers that do nothing to disguise a lack of content. Not to say everything everyone says on education twitter needs to have some deeper meaning. Imma tweet about Star Trek and my kids and my band and music I like as much as I tweet about education. But my bio doesn't pretend that I'm anything other than that.

Satire isn't that hard. Funny isn't that hard. Inspiration can't be that hard. Pretend I went to Target, browsed through the cards for a long time, and mailed you one that said, "Get better." Not because you're sick, but because you'r not very good at this.


*The Mane Six ranking goes 1) Pinkie Pie 2) Rainbow Dash 3) Rarity 4) Twilight Sparkle 5) Fluttershy 6) Applejack. No I will not be taking questions about this except to say Rarity sometimes jumps to number two because she's secretly the funniest pony. and The Great and Powerful Trixie is the best re-occurring pony because the idea of a stage magician in a world with actual magic is freaking hilarious and Trixie calls herself "The Great and Powerful Trixie" in the third person and I want to adopt that.

If you like this post and the other posts on this blog you should know I’ve written three books about teaching- He’s the Weird Teacher, THE Teaching Text (You’re Welcome), and A Classroom Of One. I’ve also written one novel- The Unforgiving Road. You should check them out, I’m even better in long form. I’m also on the tweets @TheWeirdTeacher.

Learning to Fret Less (OR A Post About Bass, Projects, and Risk)

If you are a regular reader of this blog or of my twitter feed then you're probably aware I spend a lot of time talking about Making in the classroom. STEAM is one of my teaching passions and I feel very strongly that there is no learning like hands-on, get it wrong, then reflect on what you learned and generalize it to everything else learning. I do not ignore the textbooks in my classroom, I'm not an extremist who thinks ditching normal tools makes sense, but I do lean hard in the Explore And Do To Learn camp. I love telling my students that they're going to make a cardboard arcade and then stepping aside and letting them figure it out over four days. I love fielding student questions like, "How do I make this arcade game do this thing I want it to do?" with "I dunno, I've never made a game that does that. Draw out what you think, building it, then revise it until it works." It's the same reason I like teaching coding. Coding is all about revision and generalization of rules.

I love watching my students do this. I love the risk I feel I'm taking as a teacher by letting them do these things.

But is it a risk? I mean, I believe in this method. I have actual years of experience doing it with students. I've seen the positive results over and over. I have faith in the process even in the midst of freaking out about the process not working this time. I call it a risk because making often throws a classroom into what looks like chaos, but it's really a messy but controlled working environment. Making in the classroom isn't a real risk for me.

Especially since I'm not the one making anything. I'm supervising.

If you're not a teacher who does a lot of making you might think this is a strange way to do things. "I wouldn't have my students do anything I wouldn't do" and all that. But here's the thing- there's a lot to watch and be aware of when a classroom full of kids are making something. When I'm making something I need to focus. It's kinda the same reason I don't silently read when my kids silently read. I wouldn't be able to stop when the timer went off. I wouldn't be able to stop working on my thing to help a student deal with whatever their thing is. Also, students tend to follow their teacher's lead, even independent students. They are trained to assume that the way you're doing something is the "right" way. So I don't do anything, unless a specific skill needs to be modeled. I don't let them just drown. I'm the teacher, after all.

But here's a secret about me- I'm super confident about making things out of cardboard. Cardboard is easy and cheap. However, I get kinda freaked out making things that are real. I don't like changing my own oil and I'd rather pay someone. If I go to IKEA and buy a flurgenshiglet my wife will be the one to build it because she likes that kind of thing. I'm just now learning to love Lego. My "creating" creativity happens at a keyboard and, more recently, on my electric bass.

Which is why when I got the wild hair to turn my cheap starter bass into a fretless I had significant concerns. What if I screw up my bass? What if I do it wrong? I don't know how to do this, I've never done it before.

You know, excuses I wouldn't tolerate from my kids.

I prefer the direct human touch to YouTube tutorials, so after watching a dozen how-to videos that ranged from a five minute video of "I Used A Kitchen Knife To Make A Fretless Bass" to "Part Seven of Fifteen: Choosing the Proper Sand Paper" I texted a buddy of mine about it and it turned out he'd done it before. Through a longish, patient text conversation he convinced me that it wouldn't be that hard, I could do it, it's pretty cheap, and he'd be a phone call away if I needed it.

That's all it took. I'm hesitant to start projects like this, but I'm also of the personality that when I decide I'm going to do something I jump directly in and go. I decided I was going to do it on Thursday night, and Friday after school I hit the craft store for supplies and, after putting the Weirdlings to bed, got to work.

A little context for those of you who might not know what I'm talking about- guitars and basses are fretted instruments. The frets are those metal bars that go up the neck. They allow the player to know where the notes are and they cause the note to ring out in tune as the string is pressed against them. A fretless instrument has, as I'm sure you've figured out from the clever name, no frets. You can buy a fretless where the neck was built without them or, if you don't have the cash to throw around on a new-to-you instrument, you can convert a fretted instrument into a fretless by, well....pulling the frets out with pliers and filling in the gaps.

See the silver lines? Those are frets.

The first fret removal. It has begun.

It's a pretty straightforward process. You might be able to see where my trepidation would come in though. I own two basses- this one, which was my first bass and cost, along with a tiny practice amp and a junk gig bag, just over $200, and a Geddy Lee Signature Series Jazz bass that cost a lot more. So I only have two, my good one and my old back-up. I'd rather not ruin the back-up. But if I'm going to experiment on something it ain't the nice one. And this is a way of revitalizing an old, kinda junk instrument without getting rid of it or spending a ton of money on it (I think there's an education metaphor here too).

The frets are held in with some glue, so I took our clothes iron, set it on high, and heated up each fret. Then, using needle nose pliers, I gently wiggled the fret free. Repeat 22 times. Next, I bought a sheet of 1/32" basswood, the narrowest sheet available. I still had to sand down both the fret gap and the sheet of basswood, then cut it into small slats which filled the gaps. I added a tiny bit of superglue just to be sure nothing would move, but those things were in there tighter than a [REDACTED].

Once the whole neck was filled in I had to trim the pieces shorter and then go at it with progressively finer sandpaper. I started with heavy grit to cut down the tall slats and as they got closer to the neck switched to finer and finer grit. It still took quite a bit of sanding and I know I took some width off the neck in the process, which is ok because the bass kind of had a baseball bat neck to begin with.

What's nice about this process is once you're here you can't screw it up any more. Like, you can, but it's too late to fix it or take it back, so I could relax and go to it with the sandpaper.

By the time I finished the neck was nearly perfect. It's still not perfectly smooth, which means I will occasionally get some weird buzzing, but the friend who talked me through the process to begin with is sending me a radius block that I can use to finish the sanding. I also need to file down the nut *waits for the giggling to stop* which is the metal post at the head of the neck that keeps the strings in place. When the neck had frets the nut was fine, but I was pressing the strings down onto the frets, not the neck. You wouldn't think that that tiny fraction of an inch would make that much difference, but it does. So when I get the radius block I'll also file the nut to lower the string action and make the bass more comfortable and cleaner to play.

What does all of this have to do with teaching? I constantly challenge my students to take risks. I'm always asking them to do things they don't know how to do and have faith that they'll learn from it. But I rarely do that. Learning to play the bass starting two years ago was a big moment for me in my journey of continuing learning. When do I learn from making? What's STEAM in my life? When did I do something I wasn't sure I knew how to do and used my resources to figure out anyway? Yes, we can be constantly growing our practice by attending conferences and reading new books, but what concrete things are we doing that can reflect in our practice? You cannot expect to put something into the world that you do not first internalize and actualize.

I think this bass will eventually need new electronics, the knobs are rubbish and cheap, and probably new tuners, and then new pick-ups, and maybe a new bridge. Eventually it'll be the Bass of Theseus*. But the thought of dealing with wires and electronics freaks me out. I've never done that before.

Which means I probably should. For myself. And for my kids.


*no, I won't link to it, you Google it if you want to know what I'm talking about

If you like this post and the other posts on this blog you should know I’ve written three books about teaching- He’s the Weird Teacher, THE Teaching Text (You’re Welcome), and A Classroom Of One. I’ve also written one novel- The Unforgiving Road. You should check them out, I’m even better in long form. I’m also on the tweets @TheWeirdTeacher.