I was listening to the radio this morning and heard a debate (on a country music station of all things) going on about a teacher who had recently been in trouble for “tweeting” about how one of her first grade students came in with a runny nose and how that had “ruined her whole day”. A few months back, a bay area teacher was under fire for tweeting about how her summer school high school english students are “effing stupid” and “kill me”. And today again in Yahoo News, there was a post about how a 20 year veteran teacher went on a racist rant on Twitter and gotten fired.
People get fired every day for the things that they post online. Whether it is forgetting that you are friends of your boss or that you follow the restaurant that you work at on twitter, it seems their are humans make terrible internet decisions every day online (see hilarious pictures at the end of this post). The question becomes, why do teachers make front page media when they make mistakes? Isn’t that unfair? We’re only human! There are thousands of pedophiles getting busted daily by cops, drug lords dealing to young people, parents abusing their children, but the minute a teacher tweets something inappropriate, the press stops and stares. Is this another societal “double standard”?
Yep. Deal with it.
You are a teacher. You are working with a child for 6-8 hours (if not more, per day). Often, this is more time than these children spend with their parents at home not counting sleep time. They look up to you, emulate you, respect you, and copy you. Especially with elementary and middle school, most of these kids loooooove you. Can you imagine their little heart broken faces when they find out that their runny nose ruined your day? That you think that they are “stupid”?
Yes, it is a double standard.
Back in college, (yes this is a #fbf story), I was in a sorority all 4 years of my undergraduate degree, doing usual sorority things, as well as the fun fulfilling charity work and activities the media does not portray. During my Junior/Senior years, I was the head of the “Standards Board”. This is the board of women who sit and make sure that the sororities image is maintained and bylaws were followed. This is when social media was just becoming a HUGE thing. I had to call in young women for inappropriate behavior and pictures weekly. This meant that if I messed up, it was a. big. deal. I was held to a different standard back then. This was not a fair situation, but like teaching, it was never meant to be. There were reasons that in the 1910’s they had rules like this:
(Crazy right?)
You are in charge of the world’s future. You tell them right from wrong, what is acceptable and what isn’t. How to be a better person. How can you do this while also being a giant hypocrite?
Nowadays, the world’s future leaders also, tweet, and text, and go on facebook. They will find out what you say, their parents will, your bosses will. Would you have written those things if you knew that? Why write them at all?
In my opinion, teachers who say terrible things about their jobs regularly either A) Should not be in the teaching profession, or B) Were really too dumb to realize that their information is public, and therefore, refer to A.
We all make mistakes. Teachers have tough jobs. Do I deserve glasses upon glasses of wine after long, complicated IEP’s, being slapped by students, and mountains of paperwork? Sure. Do I need to go online and describe how the parents were “totally stupid” and the kid is awful and how much my life sucks? Absolutely not.
Usually, when I have a ‘ranty’ post to write, I re-read it and consider, is this really how I want to come across? As a teacher, and as a human being? Internet common sense dictates that you ‘think before you post’. I would take it a step further and say that if you really need to think that hard about if your words are appropriate, then don’t post it at all. Isn’t this what we teach our students anyways? That if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all…
Society will always judge teachers like they judge Taylor Swift. We are all good people, doing good things, unworthy of press time, until BAM, we do something wrong, unclassy, or scandalous. That is how the media and society works. The bad will always outweigh the good in people’s eyes. Did it matter that the lady tweeting racist remarks had been an upstanding teacher for more than 20 Years? Nope. Did it matter that the Bay Area teacher was working with an underprivileged population and her students all loved her? You bet not.
Society will do what society does. But teachers can outsmart society, and don’t give it something to talk about.
The tweet that got the Texas Teacher fired, and the article:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2829375/Texas-teacher-fired-racist-tweet-Ferguson-police-shooting-raged-white-detractors-kill-themselves.html
People who forget they “friended” their boss….
People who forget to switch their Twitter account out from their day job…
People who are not very good at their jobs in Social Media Relations…
And a teacher who really needs to stop posting. just stop.
Or see here for more bright people that will make you feel better about your posts about your cats 🙂