Teacher suspended for calling her students "lazy whiners" (background, government)
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It just resounds, a wise truism that was given to me long ago: "Keep your thoughts to yourself".
Sometimes, I just shudder at the potential for these sticky legal issues that will arise out of our personal understanding of the doctrine of freedom of speech.
I think that if one could suppose that comments made by this teacher are merely just opinion, given within her rights to free expression, that this would be her
right. Is it the act of making public her opinions that has condemned her or is it those opinions are blatantly false, or considered to be hate speech? There is so
much about personal rights that has now, in this electronic age, got to be redefined. We've all become desktop publishers, quick to establish an online identity,
an arena where we may bare our souls, our opinions, even our darkest thoughts, but often became oblivious to the potential for ramifications and repercussions,
which could result in punishment.
Fired? Probably not.
Disciplined or reprimanded? Certainly.
Teaching is a profession that absolutely requires you to establish respectful relationships with students, parents, and administrators. If you go out and alienate the population that you are supposed to be working with your effectiveness is going to drop off dramatically.
Essentially this teacher has destroyed her own credibility. It is now going to be much more difficult for her to manage and discipline students. It's going to be much more difficult for her to contact parents with concerns about the progress of her students. And it's going to be much more difficult for her to rebuild a working relationship with her administration after her profanity-laced diatribe against her students and administration.
Free speech is not the issue. The issue is that she was unprofessional and has damaged her ability to to her job. That is at least worthy of a serious reprimand of some sort. But we all do make mistakes. Sounds like could easily have been a case of "blogging under the influence" which is ALWAYS a bad idea. Don't go spouting off in public if you've had a few too many glasses of wine or beer. I'm not sure a one-time mistake like this should necessarily mean your career is destroyed. In most other professions you're not likely to get fired for something like this done on your own time. But you are likely to get spanked and could hurt your career.
I agree. The teacher should expect to face some type of discipline, but not necessarily get fired. It was very poor judgment to make such posts in an online blog that is public. The article mentions that the complaints were "profanity laced". That shows even a greater lack of good judgment.
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?
This school district is one of the best ones in the state, not an urban one. Central Bucks School District - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia I would guess her salary is no less then $45,000/year. I'm not sure she should be fired, but this is a huge lapse in judgment and if she doesn't have tenure, then my guess is that her contract will not be renewed.
I think if you're going to write public things, especially about students, you need to be careful.
On the other hand these sorts of discussions go on all of the time behind closed doors. And in some schools what she said is told directly to the students.
There should be separation between your personal life and your employment, but it doesn't always work out that way.
These days if you talk about your employer on Facebook in a negative light they might reprimand or fire you. Conversely other employers might google you and find that you're not a "team player." Is it fair? Not really, but I'd err on the side of caution and leave these sorts of things personal and between you and your colleagues.
Discretion and tact are very important don't let the fact of fairness (or unfairness) in this case get in the way of conducting yourself professionally.
This post brings up a growing problem. There are people being fired over posts on Facebook and even offensive text messages. I don't mean inflammatory comments regarding race or the like. Simple things like "my boss is an idiot" has gotten people fired. I think people are slowly coming to realize that "free speech" may cost you you're job.
Do I think she should have been fired, no, but I can't say that I'd be jumping for joy if I discovered that she was my child's teacher either.
if she doesn't have tenure, then my guess is that her contract will not be renewed.
interesting thing, since teachers have this magical thing called "tenure" which seems to make them unfireable at some point, maybe they should take the opportunity to fire them while they still can.
Depends on her school's media policy and confidentiality requirements. It's very much standard practice currently for schools to be able to terminate personnel over things posted about students on social media/anywhere online, particularly if any names, be they that of students, the school, other personnel, or even the person him or herself are used, because it's then able to be traced back and confidentiality is compromised. My employer has fired people over Facebook posts, and will continue to do so. People need to get a grip. Is Facebook really worth losing your job?
Teachers have ALWAYS bitched about students (which is typically taken as unprofessional, too). But when you create a lasting, visible documentation of it, well, you're just stupid.
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?
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?
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?
How about if the teacher was overheard by the student gossiping to her friend about it at the mall?
In which of these cases, do you think the same result (the suspension) should have occured (imagine the exact same words of the rant were written or said in each scenario)? Why or why not?
Oh yeah, and haven't people figured out how to make Facebook settings private and viewable only to friends by now?
Here's a more detailed link (http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/115731854.html - broken link). She was foolish for doing what she did, and if she gets canned, she has herself to blame. Rightly or wrongly, her actions may compromise the work of her colleagues.
Calling the students "lazy whiners" is lazy and whining in itself. lol.
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