Teachergram? Yikes.

Let me make one thing clear right off the bat: I would be a bad influencer. I have an Instagram account, but I’ve never posted to it. In fact, I forget why I made it in the first place. The most common pictures I take are blurry shots of my dogs. I once thought about snapping a picture of my food, but forgot until I was halfway finished eating. So it’s entirely possible I just don’t “get” teachergram. Still, I recognize bad pedagogy when I see it, and MAN do a lot of these teachers need to take a hard look at their priorities.

If you’re not familiar with teachergram, here’s the SparkNotes summary: “Teachergram” is the informal name for Instagram accounts made by teachers that chronicle their lives as educators. It seems that most of the teachergrammers are elementary-level teachers, but middle and high school are also well represented.

Now, this isn’t inherently a bad thing. Educators, particularly those working in public schools, should be open about the triumphs and challenges they face in the classroom. There’s a common perception of teaching as a job where you waltz into class each day, lecture in front of a chalkboard, and then go home as soon as the final bell rings. This is highly inaccurate and undersells the level of skill required to be a good teacher. However, based on what I’ve seen, teachergrammers are not committed to realism in the service of their profession. As I browsed through the photos of the most popular accounts, I grew more and more concerned about the message being sent about teaching.

The first area of concern is the emphasis on room decoration. I noticed that almost every inch of elementary teachergrammers’ classrooms is stuffed with decorations: posters, string lights, tchotchkes, plastic plants, pictures…It seemed overwhelming to me as an adult, so it’s probably not ideal for elementary children either. And if a kid has sensory issues, those rooms are sure to be a nightmare. It’s also just a bizarre and ineffective way to spend your time as an educator. The classrooms must take hours to put together, and the decorations are far beyond the point of providing any improvement to student learning. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with spending a lot of time and energy on decorating your classroom–some people love that stuff! It’s not for me, but it’s not a flaw in and of itself. There’s a strong argument to be made that a welcoming, comfortable space improves student outcomes. But I wonder how much of this teachergram room design is done to help students and how much of it is done in order to get pretty pictures for the internet. The fact that some of these teachers are sponsored by Target makes me think it’s the latter.

I also noticed that a shocking number of teachers post student work with names attached, or even put up pictures and videos that show students’ faces during in-class activities. This is a violation of FERPA, a federal law protecting the privacy of students. The fact that so many teachers think nothing of blithely breaking this law in order to provide content for their tens of thousands of online followers is alarming. (Truly, if I were a parent of one of these kids, I would go so far as to file a complaint with school administrators.) And ignorance is no excuse: We learned about FERPA in the first week of my education master’s program. If a teacher doesn’t know these kinds of posts are illegal, they chose not to pay attention. Beyond the issue of privacy laws, it’s questionable for a teacher to record classroom activities for their Instagram followers. When you’re teaching a lesson, your top priority must be your students. Grabbing your phone so you can capture the perfect clip of kids singing about long division is allowing your life outside of school to take center stage in the classroom. If you want to be an influencer, quit teaching and pursue that job full time. But if you’re going to stay in the classroom, your kids have to be your main focus.

The main issue, though, is bad pedagogy. For many teachergrammers, style has superseded function. A worksheet printed on bright neon paper with quirky, cursive font might be photogenic, but it’s still just a worksheet. Worse, a lot of these teachers seem to have made the all-too-common error of confusing engagement with rigor. Engaging lessons capture students’ attention and motivate them to participate in the activity. Rigorous lessons require students to do challenging, high-level work. A really great lesson will be both engaging and rigorous. Unfortunately, many teachergram lessons never move beyond engagement. One teacher posted about having her middle school science students make “dirt cup” desserts: gummy worms, chocolate pudding, and crushed oreos. I’m sure this really was an engaging lesson! Heck, I’d love to be engaged with some chocolate pudding right now. However, the teacher claimed the lesson was supposed to teach students about soil layers, and that’s where it failed. For one, it was flat-out wrong, because there are far more than two soil layers. But it was also way too simplistic for eighth-graders. Middle school kids are capable of learning not just the names of the soil layers, but what makes each of them different. A rigorous lesson on this topic might involve having students collect samples of topsoil and subsoil, then placing a plant in each soil type and charting the changes in their growth. Eating gummy worms is fun, but it doesn’t teach you about science.

These concerns probably don’t occur to most of the non-educators who follow teachergrammers. And you might argue it’s not that big of a deal, especially if many laypeople viewing these posts come away impressed with the work the teachers put in. However, I believe that students need to be our primary focus, and teachergram presents an image of teaching that’s inaccurate and misguided. I’ve also seen several student teachers and teachers beginning their careers who think teachergram is an aspirational model of what education should be. To them, I say: Put down the washi tape and the fairy lights. Just teach. You’ll be fine.