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Teacher Suspended Over Blog About Students
English teacher Natalie Munroe is in a bit of hot water after she described the precious snowflakes in her class as: “Frightfully dim,” “Rat-like,” “Am concerned your kid is going to open fire on the school,” “I hate your kid,” and “Seems smarter than she actually is,” on her blog. The Central Bucks School District has suspended Natalie after parents complained to administrators. “It’s hard to know that you sat in her class for an hour and a half a day and for her to feel that way it is like, it is an awful feeling,” student Alli Woloshyn said.
I don't think this teacher's suspension over the blog is a violation of her rights online. Everyone is free to say what they wish without risk of government censorship. But on the flip side of the coin, everyone must also bear the consequences of their speech. She went online, said something stupid and now she has to deal with the consequences of that.
And frankly, she deserves to be suspended. Clearly, if she's posting this kind of stuff, her ability to teach those kids she refers to as idiots and rats is compromised. Does anyone want to be taught by someone who feels nothing but contempt for them?
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Kids have a way of living up to people's expectations. She expects these kids to act like animals, and they're fulfilling her expectations. I'd expect teachers to vent to each other about the students (and parents) they have to deal with, but venting in an online forum displays terrible judgement.
My mother works as a substitute teacher. She takes troubled kids that every else badmouths, treats them with respect, and gets them to open up, stop being disruptive, and actually start learning. If a teacher is having problems with kids, it is as much an indictment of the teacher as it is of the kids.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I not only have to agree with everything the parent says, but add two points:
1) This opens the school up for a big "emotional distress" lawsuit, and
2) I taught emotionally disturbed kids and normal kids. Even for teens, teachers are still enough of an authority that for a student to realize this is being said about them in a very public forum (not just the teacher's lounge, for example) could have repercussions for decades. I've known people that have been insulted by teachers that took it to heart because they respected the teacher and took years to understand the comments were not only inappropriate but not worth paying attention to.
All teachers want to be remembered as an influence and want to change lives, but not in the way this teacher has changed some young lives.
Normally I'm aghast when someone gets in trouble at work for their private blog/whatever, but in this case it's perfectly reasonable.
Why is it reasonable in this case? What does it matter what she thinks about her students, and why does it matter that people actually know the truth about how she feels? "Oh no! She might hurt the kids' feelings. Their precious self-esteem will be destroyed," you say. Kids so desperately need to learn to hear shit they won't like -- this is something that's missing from our society. Kids need thick skin. If she can get through to the kids and teach them the material, she has done her job superbly. In fact, showing her kids that it's ok to not be scared to speak the truth despite possible retribution is a vitally important lesson, one which too few kids even learn in their entire lives... Instead they turn into Compliance Sheep who never speak up or fight for what they believe in.
They have no right to a union, no right to speak, no right to demand respect from students. Everybody except teachers knows exactly how to teach just as those who use computers or cars know everything there is about how to design and build them. Education is a mess because of worthless, lowlife teachers and despite the heroic efforts of principals, administrators, parents, taxpayers, and former students. All the smart people on Slashdot taught themselves everything they know, and, as former students, are experts not only at being students but also on being teachers. Teachers should be fed to the hogs, or better still, the students. Just imagine how much money it would save if students taught themselves and ate ground teacher instead of tax-payer supported lunchmeat.
I don't work for a school district, or, of course, I would be suspended and muzzled for this post. Quite right, too.