Ivanov is a class and English teacher at Emili School in Tallinn, and Õismets is a class and math teacher at Haabneeme School.

Ivanov said that she posts content with the idea that it can be enjoyed by those not directly involved in education as well.

"My followers actually include students too," she added.

Õismets said that she had started out posting various tips and ideas, but over time has expanded in scope to include more entertaining videos as well.

The English teacher admitted that content creation for social media is a lot of work, but in the end still pays off. "I get a lot back out of it too; the response is always really positive," Ivanov explained. "Why I personally do it is that feeling of community – to share ideas or tips with other teachers. In my Instagram stories I also conduct various polls and generate discussion between various groups."

She added that in a sense it serves as a personal blog as well. "It's so nice to look back on what I've done!" she said.

"I originally did actually start it first and foremost as a blog for myself, for the memories, but now it's rather grown into more of a community," Õismets said. "A lovely community has formed there."

Ivanov explained that she herself gets her ideas for funny videos, which hold greater appeal for non-teachers, from social media.

"I keep an eye on what's trending," she described. "If a certain clip of music is trending, I'll do something with that. Overall, though, my main ideas come from my own work and from my colleagues online."

"Even traveling sometimes, like we were in Barcelona and I saw some really cool glazed tiles, and I immediately came up with the idea of doing a similar pattern and then make up a math game right on it," Õismets recalled, acknowledging that inspiration can really strike anywhere. "We can pull really cool ideas from everything around us."

Both teacher influencers agreed that on top of everything else, promoting the teaching profession is important too. Ivanov acknowledged that in connection with this year of strikes in Estonia in particular, teaching has ended up looking very unattractive, like everything seems to be going wrong all the time.

"In reality that's not the case, and I can certainly show using these funny stories involving my students that this is actually a very fun profession," she emphasized.

The math teacher, meanwhile, said that she tends to leave the more complex aspects of the job out of her content.

"I moreso try to keep things positive, but I will point out workload and communicating with parents," Õismets said. "It was especially a bit difficult during the first few years, when I myself was still really young and maybe a little timid."

For anyone interested in the teaching profession, the two recommend job shadowing with an actual teacher. They also suggested looking up other teacher influencers too.

"We're not the only ones – there are so many teacher accounts, and so many different teachers' accounts," Õismets said. "You'll be sure to get some idea from those."

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