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I agree. If the profanity was appropriate within the "voice" of the character in the assignment I would not report it. In fact, the character using profanity may have even added to the overall quality of that specific assignment.
As a former special education teacher I also stronglyagree that we are often punished for students behavior outside of the classroom if he/she is a special education student where administration would never involve the regular education teacher if the very same behavior was exhibited by their regular education student. It is like we are responsible for that student 24/7 and the regular education teachers are only responsible for things that happen inside their classroom.
This shows up in many ways, even official policy. One small example, at my former school any bus misconduct report, involving a special education student, even on a regular education bus was sent to their special education teacher. We had to call the parents, have them come in for a conference with us, deal with the bus company, keep the documentation, do all of the follow-up, etc. etc. A lot of extra work for us.
If a regular education student had a bus misconduct report it was handled completely by the office and the regular education teacher was not even informed about the problem. They were only notified if the student was actually kicked off the bus, and they still did not have any extra work.
Interesting. I never had to do any paperwork related to the bus misconduct so I guess I should count my blessings for that. I just don't like getting a bad evaluation b/c of something that my students did outside of my classroom, like I was supposed to predict sex on the bus based on the fact that I got a paper with cuss words in it. I will say that the words were very much in the context of the assignment and he got an A on the assignment b/c it was so well done and he put his heart into the topic.
Quote:
Originally Posted by captain_hug99
I agree. However, after reading through several of the OPs posts, I would make a trusted administrator aware (do you have an AP to go to?).
I do and I know she would have told me to not worry about it. Unfortunately they're not keeping her in the loop and they never asked for her input into my evaluation which was a slap in the face to her. She was pretty upset about the whole situation as well and said others got poor evaluations--and all of them were also special ed teachers and they had nothing to do with this situation at all. She said not to worry about it but I'm wanting to look for another job and having a poor eval to follow me doesn't bode well for my job hunt. (This is something I wanted to do anyway, not a reaction to the situation at my school.)
Let me try this again and I apologize to anybody who took my previous post seriously. It was meant to be waaaay over the top and to make folks curious about the link.
Basically, there have been studies done that refute the premise of the OP. In reality, swearing is an indication of higher intellect, not lower.
You got a poor eval because a student wrote a few cuss words and you didn't inform your principal? And you were held responsible for something a student did outside of your classroom?
Unless it was particularly egregious, I see no reason to involve the principal at all. In fact, my principal would have been irritated that I bothered her with something like this and didn't handle it myself if I thought it was inappropriate.
That is insane.
I have now worked for 18 years in public education and I have never heard of such a thing. I have never gotten a bad evaluation (ok, I got "needs improvement" this year in the area of technology, which I deserved because I struggled with how much it has changed in the 10 years I took off to raise my kids.) But overall, my evaluations have been good.
Let me try this again and I apologize to anybody who took my previous post seriously. It was meant to be waaaay over the top and to make folks curious about the link.
Basically, there have been studies done that refute the premise of the OP. In reality, swearing is an indication of higher intellect, not lower.
Wait. . . what? I don't recall making any premise. I most certainly did not claim that my student wrote cuss words because he was too dumb to know the difference if that's what you are saying. He most certainly did know what he was doing.
As a data point, read some of Jeff Shaara's novels. He writes about men at war, in the middle of combat. Now, we all know in fact that in that situation people use very bad language. However, Shaara is able to write whole books full of dialogue without using any worse language than "damn". I don't know why he has chosen to do this, but it works.
You got a poor eval because a student wrote a few cuss words and you didn't inform your principal? And you were held responsible for something a student did outside of your classroom?
Unless it was particularly egregious, I see no reason to involve the principal at all. In fact, my principal would have been irritated that I bothered her with something like this and didn't handle it myself if I thought it was inappropriate.
That is insane.
I have now worked for 18 years in public education and I have never heard of such a thing. I have never gotten a bad evaluation (ok, I got "needs improvement" this year in the area of technology, which I deserved because I struggled with how much it has changed in the 10 years I took off to raise my kids.) But overall, my evaluations have been good.
Well he is a brand new principal--his first year of this ever. I thought he was doing a fine job but when I saw my evaluation I would have sworn that it belonged to someone else. I think I am pretty honest with myself and what my strengths and weaknesses are and I know that putting out curriculum is a strength even tho this can be one of the most difficult aspects of a sped teacher's job. It can also be one of the most creative so I enjoy doing this but I got a 2 out of 5. 40% is flunking for any teacher and I'm not even sure how he knows what my curriculum looks like since he rarely darkens my door and I got a great eval last fall. My assistants were shocked as well. Also got scored low on student engagement and discipline, even tho those are also strengths. 3/5 on technology, even tho like you I am pretty clueless. The only thing I got a 4/5 on was being there on time and I am seriously challenged on that--I barely get there on time most mornings so it felt like a slap in the face.
One thing I did immediately after the eval was to gather up a bunch of curriculum materials for the 5 subjects I teach and turn them in. I didn't get mad--just calmly handed him the envelope. He said my curriculum looked fine but didn't change it and he told me that it wasn't a bad eval and that he likes to do that so there will room to improve.
This will probably be a good place to explain that despite my advanced old age, I am going into my 5th year of teaching.
Wait. . . what? I don't recall making any premise. I most certainly did not claim that my student wrote cuss words because he was too dumb to know the difference if that's what you are saying. He most certainly did know what he was doing.
Sorry, I meant to reference David Stone's assertion that cursing is indicative of a limited vocabulary (less intelligent) when it appears that frequent and creative cursing is actually evidence of higher intellect.
If it were my student, I would emphasize that the swear words themselves are not an issue (especially if the ideas of the essay show a lot of critical thinking) but that they are more appropriate in casual and intimate speech and writing and/or creative writing.
So, if the point of the essay was for students to write using a formal register to express their ideas, then I would have a conversation with the student about language registers and I would teach him/her that it is generally expected that, for a school essay at any level, the writer employ a higher or more formal register.
But it all depends on what the point of the assignment is and on what you are ultimately assessing.
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I just don't like getting a bad evaluation b/c of something that my students did outside of my classroom, like I was supposed to predict sex on the bus based on the fact that I got a paper with cuss words in it. I will say that the words were very much in the context of the assignment and he got an A on the assignment b/c it was so well done and he put his heart into the topic. 
I most certainly did not claim that my student wrote cuss words because he was too dumb to know the difference if that's what you are saying. He most certainly did know what he was doing.
