Picking a Teachergram Name: How the Art of FUNology Got Its Start!

It all started with Instagram…

I started teaching in 2015. Over the first couple of years, I would share a few teaching events and ideas on my personal social media accounts to my friends and other teachers that I’d gone to college with. In my third year of teaching, I began to better develop my craft while in grad school and began sharing my teaching ideas on my Instagram stories much more often. In the fall of 2018, I randomly came across @FantasticallyFourth’s Instagram account on my personal page and thought it was literally the COOLEST thing to see a whole Instagram page devoted to sharing her teaching ideas. I put a poll on my personal page and ask if I should create a teachergram to share all of my teaching ideas separate from my personal page and after an overwhelming 100% “Yep!” vote, I decided to go for it!

The Hardest Part: Picking a Name

By the time I was ready to create a own teacher Instagram, I had come a across a few more teacher accounts and one thing I quickly realized is that most did not use their own name as their accounts. There was so many teachlaugh_______ or caffeinatelove_______. Those were pretty common and really just nothing like me. Other account names had a simple adjective and the grade level they taught. By that time, I had already switched grade levels once and knew I would again. Couldn’t take that route. I didn’t want to do anything with my whole last name because I knew planned to get married one day and that would change too.

I had to take a step back and think: what is my teacher identity? From the beginning of my career, I always used the Fun in Funderburk to name different things in the classroom. I also made an effort to making learning fun for my students and bring learning experiences to life. I knew I HAD to include Fun in my name but still didn’t know how.

I wanted to connect fun back to learning and how to make learning fun, kind of like a course you would take in college. The first name that came to mind was The Art of Fun. I loved it! It was simple, concise, and I thought it portrayed what I was all about. I especially love “the art of” because it means the skill of, and I thought I would totally be using my teacher Instagram to share the skill of making learning fun.

The name was taken!

I had to check all social media accounts to see if it was available and my heart broke when I typed in The Art of Fun on Instagram and there was already an account! Back to the drawing board I went!

I still really liked The Art of Fun so I began to think of different variations. I’m not sure how but I thought of adding -ology, the study of. That seemed to tie perfectly into the teacher world, sounded like a college course, played on Fun in my name, and it would be easily distinguishable in the midst of the similar sounding teacher Instagram names out there. The Art of FUNology was born.

And the rest was history!

After searching the name on Instagram and Facebook, I saw that the name was available and I made my accounts! I felt official. It’s been nearly two years since The Art of FUNology was born and it was one of the best decisions of my life. I have loved having an account/name that represents me as a teacher and creating a platform to share that with other teachers around the world.

Tips for picking a Teacher Instagram name for yourself:

• Choose a word or two that you most identify with as a teacher
• avoid using a grade level in your name. You never know where your career will take you and you wouldn’t want your name/brand to be limited to one grade
• Be careful with using your last name. Remember that life happens. Marriage, divorce, anything in between.
• Don’t be afraid to be creative. Your name may not sound like everyone else’s and that’s a GREAT thing! It will be easier to stand out and keep your followers from mistaking you for the other 16 accounts that sound similar.
• Choose a name that makes you happy. In the end, this is the most important part. Choose a name that you love and makes you proud and you can’t go wrong!