rlugbill Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Here is a link to an article that is getting a lot of attention. A high school English teacher complained about her students on her blog. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog An English teacher should have noticed the irony of her whining about whiners. Anyway, what do you think? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jumping In Puddles Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 She didn't identify her students or where she worked and it wasn't an education blog, it was a personal blog and she wrote about some frustrations with her job. I have no doubt that her students actually were lazy, unmotivated and disengaged. She said they talked about drugs and cursed and whined. This is what she lost her job over? :confused::confused: Maybe the administrator should have called her in, told her that it was not professional and was making the school look bad and WARN her that if she continued she would be fired. Why jump straight to firing her? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
elegantlion Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I believe she was fired because she was blogging during school time. There was a thread about this recently. A few people mentioned that is a big no-no for teachers and grounds for dismissal itself. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jumping In Puddles Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I believe she was fired because she was blogging during school time. There was a thread about this recently. A few people mentioned that is a big no-no for teachers and grounds for dismissal itself. ahhh, see there is usually more to the story. ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBM Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 Here is a link to an article that is getting a lot of attention. A high school English teacher complained about her students on her blog. http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog An English teacher should have noticed the irony of her whining about whiners. Anyway, what do you think? Her posts went beyond criticizing a few, particular students. Frankly, from what I read, she didn't like any of them except for a few. I think to be a good teacher, a person needs to have empathy, extreme patience and a slew of techniques to handle difficult students. I think teaching is not a good fit for this woman. My mom taught in a one-room, rural schoolhouse, several small town schools, the Latin School in Chicago, and in a violent school in Detroit, and she managed to like all of *her kids.* Some are cut out for the job, and others aren't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jujsky Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 (edited) I was an English teacher out of college. I agree with everything she said. I also have several family members in education. Much of the downhill progression of the school system over the last 15-20 years can be attributed to whiny, self-entitled students and their whiny, self-entitled parents. My mother sees kids who get a pass from the school to come in late because "they have trouble getting up in the morning." I did too, but I was never able to use that as an excuse -- especially with the attendance secretary as my mom!!!!! What used to be a remedial class when I graduated in 1994 is now a general ed class, and what used to be general ed is now college prep. Parents routinely call and whine to the school and instead of standing up to the parents and saying, "Sorry, this is the rule and it applies to little Junior just like everyone else," they back up the parents and ream out the teachers --sometimes in front of the parents! My mom told me that teachers in her school are no longer allowed to give out a grade of 0% if a student doesn't do their work. The lowest grade they're allowed to give out is a 50%. How is that fair to the kid who did his work and struggled to get a 60%? Also, students in her school are now allowed to make up any test they want. Didn't have time to study for your final exam because you were partying? That's fine -- just blow it off. Not only will you have extra time to study, but you can have a friend snap a quick picture of the test with their phone and send it to you. They can do that if they're careful because teachers in my mom's school also aren't allowed to take away cell phones from students because it goes against their "rights." The school can't afford gifted and talented classes, but they have a special class for troubled kids who don't want to be in school. They go on field trips and retreats all the time, and the district pays for it. There was a girl (daughter of a girl I went to high school with) who made her life-time goal. She wanted to be pregnant by the time she was 15. There are students who defy the fairly liberal dress-code. You know what my mom has been told by parents? "She has killer legs and nice rack. Why shouldn't she show them off?" I know for a fact that 2 years after I graduated, a guidance counselor was forced by the principal to change the grades of a student so he could graduate, even though he routinely blew off classes the last half of his senior year and was failing 2 of them. I know about this because I was best friends with his sister AND I heard it from my mom in confidence who was friends with the guidance counselor and never liked my best friend's mom because she was pushy and demanding. When I was teaching I was called in because I gave a girl 0% on a paper for plagiarism. She was supposed to write a story and she retold the story of Rapunzel. It's not as though she based her story on this classic tale, or did the story with a twist. Nope. It was the same story you'd read in a book. I explained to her why it was cheating (she swore up and down the story was her own idea) and I even gave her a chance to redo the assignment. Her parents called the school, and I was told to grade the original, plagiarized paper she gave me. I routinely heard students talking about drugs, alcohol, and stealing from the Wal-Mart distribution center where most of them worked. You want to know who got suspended the year I worked there? One of the top students in the school for bringing in pepper spray. It was against school policy, but she was being harassed, was scared, and the school did nothing about it. Instead of raising the bar up, schools are lowering it to keep their numbers high in order to receive more funding. Administrators are giving into parents at every turn and not supporting their staff when it comes to enforcing policy. She's venting? I can understand that. It's no different than the venting my mom & co-workers used to do every Friday in a very public restaurant. They vented about the same things this teacher vented about. Good teachers are leaving the field in droves due to lack of administrative support, whiny, self-entitled parents and their children, and NCLB. Those are ALL reasons I homeschool! I'm not sending my kids into that toxic jungle we call "public education." Edited February 16, 2011 by jujsky Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 After reading the article about her on yahoo, I do have sympathy for her. When I first heard the story, I thought her behavior was stupid in that you should not criticize your job publicly. However, this article states she did not use her last name or identify the school or students. It was her personal blog. Now I agree I would have been more careful than that but I am not sure she should be fired. As for doing it on school time, I am not sure if we have all of the facts. I agree it would be wrong to do it on school time or on the school's computers or internet. OTOH if she did it on her lunch break on her on wireless phone that would be different. I do agree that it seems that many students and parents behave badly. When I went to college in the 1980s it was shocking to me how the students behaved during class. They talked, laughed, and generally did not pay attention to the teacher:glare: I do think most kids are good kids but I also believe that there are a lot of negative influences in the media that influence kids to behave badly. I also think it is a problem that many parents don't seem to parent well. Lastly, I think if kids were given more responsibilities at a younger age that would help. I also think the schools should not kow tow to parents and students when it comes to bad behavior. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KidsHappen Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 There was an update on Yahoo about this, this morning: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 There was an update on Yahoo about this, this morning: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog Yes this is the article that made me re-think my opinion on this story:) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MBM Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 There was an update on Yahoo about this, this morning: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog I saw the Yahoo article, too, but the actual postings were not so tame. She was also dissing shy kids, kids who ask too many questions and calling them names. That's not exactly the sort of mature behavior one hopes to see in a teacher. The frustration I can understand, but the reaction went a tad too far, IMO. IMO, though she might have a valid point to some extent, she didn't make a good choice by blogging so openly about it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoPlaceLikeHome Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I saw the Yahoo article, too, but the actual postings were not so tame. She was also dissing shy kids, kids who ask too many questions and calling them names. That's not exactly the sort of mature behavior one hopes to see in a teacher. The frustration I can understand, but the reaction went a tad too far, IMO. IMO, though she might have a valid point to some extent, she didn't make a good choice by blogging so openly about it. :iagree: I agree that she should not have criticized shy kids or those or asked too many questions. I know that I also never would have wrote these things on a blog post as well. It would have been better if she wrote a respectful essay about the frustrations she has with some kids behaving badly which I believe is true from what I have experienced and heard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommaduck Posted February 16, 2011 Share Posted February 16, 2011 I don't have a lot of pity for her. Her comments were beyond whiny, not a single student could win, she blogged on school time and property, and her blog got around to her students. If my husband started blogging about his job, even anonymously, and was calling his co-workers names (which I understand were on her attack list also - coworkers, supervisors), etc, then I would fully expect him to be fired as well. In fact, I don't talk about his job on my FB even though my FB is private and it's not my job. I'm linked to him and it's work. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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