FEEL MY PAIN: Super-tweeters may have noticed the hashtag, #edpain, surfacing throughout the Twitterverse. If you're wondering about the root of all our... eh.. all the #edpain, it started as large physical wall in Baltimore at the headquarters of the Digital Harbor Foundation where DHF Fellows could record their frustrations about teaching and learning. Never the ones to keep a good thing to themselves, the folks at DHF created this digital wall that allows everyone--teachers, parents and even students--to share their pain points around education.
Comments are diverse: Laura, a New Orleans teacher writes that she is frustrated with "Oversimplification, vitriol and sound bites in place of critical dialogue." (We couldn't agree more!) Daniel, a teacher in Townsend, Md, writes that he's worries that "District curriculum and benchmarks are sub-par, poorly designed, and mis-aligned yet student performance on those tests is used to determine teacher effectiveness. How can we assess value-add if the tests have no value?"
We think the wall is a pretty decent alternative to teacher's lounge meltdowns. Ideally it can also serve as a breeding ground for edtech problem-solvers and do-gooders to address real-world, everyday educational problems.