Something else however gained my attention today. I saw a follow up article regarding a teacher who had been suspended over her personal blog. I went back and read a few of her posts. There were several posts with recipes, feedback on shows on food network, etc. But there were also posts made about her day to day life as a teacher. Both positive and negative. The whole point of a blog if you ask me. I've found, as I'm sure some of my fellow bloggers out there have found, that blogging becomes a sort of therapy. A place that you feel safe expressing your thoughts, fears, and true emotions. For me, blogging started as a way to outlet the frustration I've been feeling not being able to help my sister. In this particular bloggers case, it was a way to unwind the stress of work and provide herself with a creative outlet. She's an English teacher for heaven's sake, of course she's going to find writing an enjoyable activity.
The media is focusing on her negative posts. These negative posts are then taken out of context and assumptions are made. Then of course parents are in an uproar because of her attitude towards the student body. In one of her posts, she wrote about her frustration with canned comments she's required to use on a students report card. Her frustration was with the internal struggle she had forcing each student in the "pleasure to have in class" category and other comments schools deem appropriate to tell parents about their children. She created a list of wishful comments that she'd like to use instead in some cases. Yes, they SOUND horrible, but how many of us don't have that horrible thought about our own jobs/lives from time to time? (These were THOUGHTS not actions... how can a witch-hunt take place over someone's THOUGHTS?)
She posts very similarly to the way I try to post. I TRY not to use school district names, though Munster made that very hard for me to continue with all this talk of laptops and dealings with Dell. I DON'T use ANY names of kids that I write about. I express my true opinion regardless of what someone else might think. These were all qualities that I noticed about her posts and yet she's under fire for evoking her 1st amendment right to free speech.
Regarding her "negative" posts --- she's right. There are some kids that I ran across that I WISH I could tell their parents that I hope they enjoy working as a garbage man someday - cause with how they are behaving socially that's all I can see them fit to accomplish in life. (I'd never come out and say it to a parents face, but some negative comment like that does jump out to the tip of my tongue for time to time.) The kids that she refers to, are the kids that most often turn into bullies and hurt the kids she posts positively about.
Seeing the backlash makes me stop and think twice about what I've posted and how it might be received. I'm glad she's had the courage to face the media and stand behind her opinions. I wish her the best of luck and applaud her for continuing to blog. (And in case you're wondering... I choose to continue to blog)
This is the risk you take when you blog. I try my best to be respectful and word things carefully. I also never blog about work (the teacher's first mistake) unless I have someting positive to say. It's hard though.
ReplyDeleteI can imagine in that kind of profession it would be hard because part of the job description I'm sure is to have good morale character 24/7 to be an example for your students. It's unfortunate.
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