#ChooseKind

I’m not much of a tweeter. I don’t tweet anything insightful or inspirational. To quote myself today in a reply to someone #Imsoboring. I like Twitter and interacting with people from all over the UK who share similar interests to myself, however recently I’m not liking Twitter.

On the internet/Twitter there are many lists of who to follow. Yesterday @RogersHistory put together a list and for some reason he has experienced so much what I can only say is hatred because of it being predominantly a ‘white’ list. @redgierob has a 101 people to follow (and I’m not on there :o)….because I’m boring!) @ICTEvangleist has the periodic table style which so many people have used as a template and I have never seen either of these gents come in for any kind of abuse.

We’ve all seen the tweet “I’m new to Twitter, who would you recommend I follow?” and then the replies. I’ve replied to them, a lot of people I interact with reply to them. Who do people recommend? Well from what I see it’s other people within their Twitter circle etc. When I recommend people there are 2 main reasons I do so:

1) I think they seem like a pleasant person (I’m lucky to have met a number of people at Primary Rocks so I know this for most of the people I follow)

2) Their tweets are relevant to teaching. When I recommend people I don’t think about whether they’re male/female, black/white, LGBT and this it now seems is a problem and it seems because of this, I could be considered to be a racist/white supremacist. From tweets I’ve seen it appears I’m narrow-minded because my Twitter circle does not include a variety of backgrounds etc. Why? Just because I don’t ‘know’ many people of BAME, this does not make me a bad person!

When did EduTwitter become so nasty? When did some ‘professionals’ become so vile and deliberately seek to degrade or denigrate others for what appears to be pleasure? I’m not one to deliberately enter into arguments online. Many times I read, mutter to myself and scroll on by. By writing this blog I know I am putting myself out there for all sorts of replies and possible attacks (oh yes…..my anxiety cannot wait for that!) however the recent behaviour has prompted me to write my 2nd ever blog.

I am reminded of the quote from R.J Palacio’s Wonder which I think we should all think of: ” When given the choice between being right and being kind, choose kind.”

End of ramblings……