If you can laugh at yourself, you’ll find this amusing. If you can’t laugh at yourself, then you’ll be offended and you’ll hate me and then you’ll unfollow me and then there will be a long-standing, unspoken feud between two people who have never met each other. If you feel that the latter will happen, don’t read any further and let’s stay connected because we have to play the follower game!

This is supposed to poke a little fun at the Twitter edu-chats that take place on a weekly basis. Mind you, I participate in these on a regular basis and I am guilty of some of the statements below.

I pretty much know that it is time to call it an evening and bow out of a Twitter edu-chat when I start seeing more than “the usual” proportion of edu-cliche tweets of the flavor below:

• “We should do what’s best for the Ss.”
• “Ts should be learners too!”
• “How do we expect Ss to learn if <strange, incomplete analogy>?”
• “… industrial era system of education … ”
• “As Ts we have to make sure every student <some heroic goal>.”
• “Homework! Rabble rabble!”
• “Tests! Rabble rabble!”
• “Standardized tests! Rabble rabble! Pitchforks! Torches!”
• “Grades! Averages! Rabble rabble!”
• “We have to give meaning, without meaning Ss don’t learn.”
• “Student learning has to be connected learning.”
• “Memorization is the devil!”
• “We should be measuring learning.”
• “… 21st century …”
• “… the game of school …”
• “… the real world …”
• “Agreed!”, “Me too!”, “Absolutely!”

I tend to be guilty of the “Rabble rabble!” type tweets. So when I catch myself rabbling, that’s my mental cue to call it quits for the night.

What about you? What are your cues?