Every teacher has a staff room, i.e. a room in which they can spend breaks and free periods, to chat or to technical discussions with colleagues, to rework their lessons, to correct tests in free periods, to rest.
In large schools, this teachers' room is often spread over several rooms, is sometimes also called a team room and is an information point, contact exchange and material store at the same time.
Recently, however, some educators have another home port in digital form. A #Instalehrerzimmer has been established on the social media platform Instagram, and a 'twitterlehrerzimmer' (#twlz) on the entertainment portal Twitter. Parallel to the official relationships at a specific school location, contacts between educational staff of all stripes and ranks are increasingly cultivated there, often anonymously, nationwide. I looked around the education sector for a hundred days.
On Instagram, users (age group up to 40) more or less often submit statements (called posts) that consist of a picture or mini video and a comment of any length - or they comment on other people’s statements.
This communication takes place in overlapping sub-communities: everyone has ten or a thousand users who follow him - and he himself also follows a few or hundreds.
One calls oneself “main subject_human”, “Gefuehlschaos_mama” or “character education”.
"Your input was great again"
Here, for example, there are informative trainee teachers and young teachers who enthusiastically report great moments with their students, but also complain in astonishment about the enormous stresses of the teaching profession. Quite a few agree that the school system (especially the existence of grades) is actually inhuman and urgently needs fundamental reforms - the slogan, for example: “less professionalism, more humanity”. Statements on Instagram are almost always friendly and compassionate, sometimes turn out to be a little cheesy, and often only come via emoji.
Among these voices are professional providers of supposed solutions, such as smaller teaching material companies. But you also come across self-appointed “school developers”. They stir up the gloomy mood to the best of their ability and offer their own, usually non-certified "training courses" as a remedy. By the way, many young teachers are parents themselves, so they also report on their life with their own children. How wonderful this or that moment is to be together. And how hard it is to fulfill all of the child's wishes. The observer has the impression of being able to observe under a magnifying glass how all the small points in the middle are used, how mentally pampering the upbringing is, especially in more reflective circles of the population. Who is here not only with “Oh, how great!” Or “Oh, how difficult!“Reacts, but sets question marks or even gives advisory impulses, sometimes arouses interest, but can also reap resistance. Uncertainty about upbringing is apparently just as widespread as a self-confident zeitgeist.
It's quite different on Twitter.
There you “twitter”, chat, in short text form (maximum 280 characters), perhaps supplemented by a picture or links.
Teachers, department heads or school principals (age group feels like 30+) comment on current topics - or throw questions into the group.
“Who has a tip on how Software XY works?” Or “What do you use to create these blatant graphics?” Sociable and lonely people loosen up the chirping with emotional status reports (“Your input was great again”, “I'm so exhausted after the Vaccination ”etc.).
And here too, providers of the education industry act, especially the larger ones.
Digitization is the big issue
On Twitter you are also organized informally, in follower bubbles in which you pass the balls to each other - what you think is great, what is underground. Here, too, sometimes original names: “45minuten”, “HerrBock” or “Fr. CoSinus ". Some only want to exchange ideas on a job-specific basis, while others also want to have a multiplicative effect, i.e. to spread their view of the pedagogical. Dealing with one another ranges from matter-of-fact to rough. Those who think differently also receive cynical comments, experience bouncer behavior or are blocked.