I Got Trolled on Twitter Today...

Today I received a pair of Twitter notifications from a group called Iowa Women for Trump who decided they needed to do a little hating on me based on one of my tweets from the stage at Millersville University's spring commencement a few weeks ago.  I'll share the pair of tweets they sent on my behalf in a moment, but first some context.

Our commencement speaker this year was Marie Harf from Fox News.  Marie is the daughter of a good friend and alumnus of Millersville University, James Harf.  Currently, as I noted, Marie is a contributor and political commentator on Fox News who, as a Democrat, provides a perspective that is a little more from the left than is usual for Fox (but, hey, props to Fox for the bipartisanship).  Prior to Fox, she served as Senior Advisor of Strategic Communications to Secretary of State John Kerry during the Obama administration and led the Iran nuclear negotiations communications strategy.  She has also served as Acting Spokesperson and Deputy Spokesperson for the State Department.

And she is a fellow grad of the University of Virginia.  As fellow UVA grad and Facebook friend Timothy Shea replied to the tweet:  Wahoowa!

Anyhow, I took a few moments to tweet about her commencement address from my place on the stage and attempted to tag her in the process.  Here is that tweet:

Innocent enough, right?  Nothing political, nothing controversial.  I just wanted to give a little shout out to our guest, the successful daughter of a friend of the university.  Well, it seems that the hashtag I used is NOT Marie's, rather it belongs to this group of Trump supporters in Iowa.  Just a dumb mistake on my part.  If you visit them on the Internet, you will see that they are decidedly not supporters of Marie's.

Here are their tweets:

At least now I know that I got Marie's hashtag wrong...

How does this pertain to the Classroom Reflecting Pool?  Here are a few thoughts on what this means for us in education:

• Discourse on issues - How do we help children learn that it is natural to disagree about issues and productive to engage in conversations about those issues and the points of disagreement?  
• Critical thinking - Related to discourse, how do we help students learn to think outside their own mindsets, place themselves into the minds of those with whom they disagree, and reflect on the differences as a means of seeking understanding?  Can we expand their thinking in this way?
• The use of evidence - Can we do a better job of teaching children to use facts as evidence to support their arguments? 
• Civility - Teachers who are civil, maintain their classrooms as civil spaces, and reinforce civility among their students will be more likely to be surrounded by students who are able to engage others in civil ways by the end of the school year.  I know it can sometimes be hard to maintain civility during debates and disagreements, but civility IS important.  How can we do better on this?

So, I guess haters are gonna hate no matter what, but should we be complacent about trolling like this?  My suggestion to teachers and teacher candidates in the face of this is to use it as an opportunity to pause and reflect on what they can do for their students to prepare them for something better.

Until next time...