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Do you think she should get fired for her blog posts?
Teachers are usually held to a higher standard than most ordinary folks.
I'm reminded of my senior year in school when my social studies teacher announced on the first day of class that he wanted to know who was "here to learn" and who was not, because he was not going to waste his time teaching students who did not want to learn.
We all thought it was cool.
Anyway, the teacher should have used an pseudonym or anonymous blog, she was stupid to use her real name or to use an identity that could be figured out.
Yes she should be fired. It's one thing to tell another person privately that your students are lazy whiners. Many high school teachers have said this to each other.
However, it is quite a different thing to create a public record stating the same.
I think the school was right to fire her- not because of what she said, but because I think to keep teaching at that school would have been impossible. What teachers think of kids should be a deep, dark secret....lol.
Note she was blogging while she was at work, then went home and finished. Note the comments by students as well. They certainly don't think highly of her at all.
Do you think she should get fired for her blog posts?
Actually I would think its more about her bad attitude and being overwhelmed with her job that got her in trouble. What complete and utter lack of judgment brought this person to post such a thing where others could read it??
What would they do if a CEO or Government official called employees whiners? Or the Michigan Assistant attorney general that attacked the U of M student running for student body president when the AAG attacked the student on his blog for being gay, anti-god and other assorted slanderous comments?
Additional thought-- NEVER BLOG in your own name if you are posting general comments...I have four blogs / FB, NONE of which are in my name.
Read the blog post, feel the same as I did before. I don't care. If there is a rule against internet usage at work, yes, she should get reprimanded for that. She certainly should *not* be fired for blogging about nameless students.
Putting aside the issue of the offensiveness of the posts, but talking about keeping the personal separate from the public, all those people arguing either side (that private affairs should or should not be used to judge people), I ask where do you draw the line between what expressions of speech in private can or cannot be used to discredit?
From the point of view of my employer's policy, the line is pretty hard and clear. You're not allowed to post anything on social media about our clients, or about work. If you feel that compromises your freedom, you're of course free to post, but the employer is also free to terminate your employment for policy violation. At-will employment, baby.
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How about blogging pseudonymously, and a student and a student reading it figuring out from the description of that it was her class?
How about if the teacher went to a forum like this and posted it, and a student happened to be a member on the forum?
In the context of my workplace's policy, if nothing else on the forum allowed any background knowledge into the poster's identity, where they work specifically, or the people about whom they are posting's identities, how would anybody ever know? But you have to consider whether it's truly anonymous. If you have other posts connected to your screenname that would allow people to reasonably connect the dots, then it's not so anonymous and is a violation of confidentiality. [/quote]
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How about if the teacher angrily wrote about it in her diary, dropped her diary on the bus one weekend by chance, and one of her students picked it up?
When I was a paralegal, we were strongly urged NEVER to remove briefs or intakes from the office (to, say, work on them at home), and if we had to, we were advised NEVER to let them out of our sight (i.e. leaving a briefcase on a car seat), due to the potential breach of confidentiality if somebody in your household saw them, somebody broke into your car, etc.
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How about if the teacher was overheard by the student gossiping to her friend about it at the mall?
Per my employer, if there is a record of it, your job is on the line. We are not to even name (first) names of clients, esp. when out socially with coworkers, specifically due to the overhearing factor, and the fact that it's simply not professional and looks bad. And, actually, even if you don't use names, you can be in violation, depending upon the context, if it's still possible to deduce who you're talking about. Confidentiality in regard to minor clients is a HUMONGOUS issue.
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Oh yeah, and haven't people figured out how to make Facebook settings private and viewable only to friends by now?
You'd think, but even that's not failsafe. Say I'm a teacher in a small town (such as where I grew up). I make comments about my work/thinly veiled or not so veiled comments about kids in my class out of frustration, but I'm meticulous about my privacy settings. Only I don't realize that my hairstylist, who is "friended," is married to a guy who's sister is the stepmom of a kid in my class, and it gets back/somebody shows the mom/kid, etc., and then my butt is on the line. If you put it out there, somebody can see it. And if somebody can see it, it can ALWAYS get shown to people you don't know have access. My boyfriend doesn't do FB, deleted his profile, the whole thing. But I'll read him stuff that I have access to, from time to time. Privacy settings do nothing, in this regard.
Sounds like teacher burnout issues, and I'm surprised there aren't more of them in the news. BUT, I seem to remember a case recently where a student referred to a teacher as a fat d* bag and that was decided in the favor of the student as protected free speech.
It seems to me that we can't have either/or, but must have both. What do we teach our students if they can say whatever they want, and get away with it, but the teacher gets penalized for the same offense?
Thanks for the information, I did not know about that case. But I think the teacher would be judged more strictly than the student because she is in a position of more "authority" and she is an adult.
Free speech is not very "free" at all.
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