Teacher Blogs The Politcally Incorrect

Those Twitter and Face book student comment blogs that trash, often vulgarly, other students or some authority figure are quite the common thing these days. But hold on to your slide rule! A Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (and they call it "the City of Brotherly Love"?) English teacher took to her blog the other day to publish scathing, profanity laced rants about her “rat-like” students, co-workers, and administrators. And as result, parents and school officials got wind of it and Natalie Munroe was suspended from Central Bucks East High School.

Hmmm She wrote a private blog published outside of work time, away from work space, yet negative and critical about those at her work site. What should the electronic age groupies make of this? Can a teacher be suspended and, as may happen in this case be fired, because he or she criticizes her campus work environment, co workers and students? Are Nathalie's comments protected free speech, since there were made away from the school and done without school resources or imput. Should parents or students offended seek litigation to resolve any claim of injury, rather than a school taking away a job from a teacher simply because she criticized it while away from work?

Here are some of Natalie's blog posted comments: her students are “out of control” and “disengaged, lazy whiners”, “There’s no other way to say this: I hate your kid,” “Rude, belligerent, argumentative fuck” and said of one student, that she brought about "scornful feelings that reach a fever pitch", "she dresses like a streetwalker" and of one parent duo, "don't they know how to raise kids?"

As a former teacher of many years I have heard those and more in teacher lounges and in private conversation. It's the usual grumbling that all workers do time to time as a release from the frustrations of a job. But blogging it for anyone to see is the new age way of griping about a job. Her blog has been shut down by AOL, and the Superintendent of Schools, Robert Laws, says the blog posts should result in Munroe’s termination (even though the district only has begun to investigate the case).

What odd about Nathalie's remarks is that she finds those negative qualities in some teens to be un natural ones. Teens are immature and often exhibit both wonderful qualities and the negative behaviors she criticized. The annoying behaviors she blogged of are manifestations of growing up, as any parents or person who works with or is around teens can attest. Nathalie seems clue less and lacks humor about teen angst. Where was the humor in her comments? There is none, giving evidence that Nathalie is a frustrated teacher who released her frustration, foolishly, in an online blog. Making such a fuss about what she did might be a huge over reaction.

The parents who demand her firing and are so upset are also over the top. In none of her comments did Nathalie specifically name or in any way identify a student. I wonder if the parents who are so upset about the blog have a fair level of denial about their children's behavior away from home. Maybe the parents got upset after they recognized some of the more undesirable traits of their own children in her comments.

Perhaps the best thing to do in this case would be for the school system to just tell Nathalie not to do it again and to evaluate her as a teacher based on her classroom effectiveness with those "little brats".