Should teachers be held to a higher level than other college educated adults? Should doctors and nurses be suspended for smoking or being fat? Does the truth hurt? Who is offended more, the students she called lazy? or the parents she said were trying to be their children's friends instead of their parents? Times are changing, but are we doing our children service by letting them have "everything" and saving nothing for them to work toward? Are we being soft by giving in instead of holding them accountable?


http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/02/09/bucks-schoolteacher-suspended-over-blog-about-students/

http://philadelphia.cbslo...-students/

There's nothing wrong with being perfectly honest. But teachers, more than anyone else, should demonstrate good tact. I have no doubt that the students she was berating were everything she said they were, but her discussion should have been more private. I think.

Sounds to me like she's in the wrong profession. Luckily for everyone involved, it sounds like she'll be finding a new one.

There's been several threads on here about "amazing teachers" - I don't recall anyone saying "I had a teacher who thought very little of me, and I lived up to that expectation".

I don't see how perjorative comments such as "rat like", "frightfully dim", "appears smarter than she really is" are objectively truthful: they are subjective statements that serve to simply cast the student in the worst light possible - it's particularly egregious since the students in question have no way of rebutting the statements.

The teacher is a bully. She needs to be gone.

[This message has been edited by Bridgier (2/16/2011)]

It sounds to me like she hates her job. If she thinks children are lazy, whiners then why is she 8 months pregnant? I think she should probably be done teaching.

She's just teaching in the wrong system, or at the wrong level. She might do better at a school where higher standards are required. For all you know, (I haven't researched her) she may be an excellent teacher just overly annoyed with having to deal with obnoxious kids. Everybody has to vent a little, somehow. She went just a little too far perhaps, but did not actually slander any specific person.

Well, maybe she should have been coaching swimming. Now, would you prefer she called a kid a "rat faced shockingly dim slacker" to his face, or just wrote about it behind his back online?

Well you know, back in the day a kid might be called all of that and worse in front of thirty peers and gotten a whack on the head plus a kick in the butt. The teacher administering all this might have been one of our most respected favorites.
It has been an interesting ride for me lately, dealing with a bunch of characters. We only kicked two kids off the team this year for behavioral issues. Two others for academics.
A school Activities Director clued me in that "it's all about the life-lesson, screw the trophies."
Oh... That changed everything! We're just trying to make good people out of these kids. That's all.
But I suppose I would be upset to read the teacher's blogs if I suspected one of my own kids was frightfully dim. I might not stop and wonder why he was rat-like. I'd hate to consider that there might have been a parenting issue at root here. No way!

Not another "back in the day" argument. Newsflash...we aren't back in the day. Different times, different issues, different kids, different solutions. Nothing makes one sound older and out of touch than clinging to this tired mantra.

Oh come on Denise, you know as well as I do that the snow was much deeper, the hills much steeper, the weather much colder, as we walked uphill both ways to school "back in the day".

I have worked for twenty-eight years in teacher education. Teaching is a profession, and teachers are expected to behave professionally. This was unprofessional behavior. Sometimes a teacher needs to vent about problem students, but a professional does not post that venting in public. If she really is a good teacher, then she is a good teacher who needs to correct her unprofessional behavior immediately.

I think it's clear that kids "these days" (I really hate saying that...I'm too young to be saying "these days") aren't being held accountable. We sheild them from failure, we behave massively inappriopriately by inserting ourselves into their business so they don't have to take any responsibility for themselves, and this is where that road leads. Instead of taking responsibility for the fact that what she wrote was likely true and doing some internal searching, these kids sought only to be petty and tried to get her in trouble.

She didn't name names, nobody's privacy was violated, I don't see the problem with what she did. The kids and the parents SHOULD be ashamed and should be stepping up to support her. Seems that she's the only person in these kids' lives who cares enough to hold them accountable.

Badmouthing people behind their back is wrong. It's not "telling the truth" or "holding them accountable", it's someone in a position of authority using subjective language in a perjorative manner. It's being a douchebag.

[This message has been edited by Bridgier (2/16/2011)]

Nicely put, Heather. I recently was blown away by the lying and cheating going on in our sports program. Not by the kids. By their parents! I've now been called every name in the book for simply enforcing Montana High School Association rules. Fun job.
One time when I got in trouble for smarting off to my teacher, guess who my Dad later yelled at, me or the teacher?
Wish I could hang around the office and play more here, but I have to go to a ceremony at Glacier High. They're giving away some kind of academics award to the 4.0 GPA bunch. Ironically one of the recipients looks a lot like me. I'm very proud of her and how she was brought up.
In conclusion, if there are any lessons to be learned from our teacher in PA, to me it is: one should blog under an alias if he wants to present an opinion without being persecuted for it. Even if it is the truth, not very pleasant or necessary, but some people can't handle the truth. It's really too bad this happened. There was no malice, no damage, no harm. Was there?
edit
Yes, B, not exactly right, but badmouthing has cause, perhaps reason, that should be investigated.

[This message has been edited by Jeff Denton (2/16/2011)]

Completely missing my point. Subjectively speaking, I may assume that Jeff is "frightfully dim" for appearing not to understand what the term "perjorative" means.

Now, is this the truth, my presentation of the truth, or simply opinion?

Of course, Jeff has the opportunity to rebut my statements, something this teacher denied those about whom she was speaking. To set her up as some sort of paragon of "Speaking truth to power" is silly.

I'm with Bridgier on this one, she's a d-bag. I don't care what the job is, you don't start a blog about how stupid and ugly your clients/customers are and expect not to have some blowback.

Yes, I am curious as to how Jeff would handle one of his employees trashing him or his business on their own personal blog. Me thinks it would be an entirely different story.

Also, she is an adult. The comments made sound like they came out of the mouth of one of the students, not a teacher.

In this case I agree with Bridgier. This lady is not a professional and she sounds like a juvenile. Venting is done to your spouse or close friends, not on line. If she said that I have a particularly unproductive class this year with a few bad apples. That is one thing but to single children out because of their looks and or intelligence or lack of is childish and very unprofessional. She should be fired.

However, I also agree with Jeff. Outside of this issue on a national scale I believe that society is not holding or children to a higher standard. Instead we are lowering our standards for inclusion and politically correctness. When was the last time you heard of a child being flunked? Why is litigation or the threat of litigation, running the function of our schools?

These were comments she said she would like to put on some of the report cards instead of the stock phrases provided by the school district. No where did the article say she was referring to a particular student or students. I'm sure all of us have had encounters with people who fit her descriptions. The only thing she did wrong was putting her thoughts on a blog and making them public. Google "Bucks County, PA" and the article points out that it is the 76th wealthiest county in the United States. I am sure some of the parents feel entitled because of that and that belief has rubbed off on their children. It is my unresearched belief that Bucks County Pa. probably has more than its share of brats. Sometimes one can't help calling a spade a spade.

Looks like everybody agrees that what Natali did was not right. But in our rush to drive a stake and gather firewood we need to think it through a little, and be FAIR. Bridgier is closer to slander than she was, so, Bridgier please help, define "frightfully dim". Bart, may I nominate you to be the expert as to whether there might be any chance that a student in PA fits the description. Also I wonder if any investigation there might include looking around for any signs that a student fits a profile obtained by studying events in, say, Lewistown or Columbine. Could it be, is there a scary kid in her class? If so I wish she'd take it even more seriously, there are lives at stake here.
Denise, I think a person should be sure to have good reason to commit libel against a business. Yes, it would be more proper to call me up and ask me to resolve the complaint, but that might not always work, again I just like to be FAIR. We know that sometimes complainers are just chronic liars and thieves trying to get one over on anybody they can.
Speaking of which, on a similar topic, isn't it wild how a Montana judge let a person off so incredibly leniently yesterday? He said the guy really did no worse than Sen. Barkus, how could he punish him more severely? Would that be FAIR?
It's hard to be RIGHT, but you gotta be FAIR.

That's the beauty of subjective language Jeff - you can fill in the blanks to your heart's content. But "frightfully dim" does sound bad doesn't it?

My next statement is also subjective, in that I haven't gone back and done any sort of statistical or numerical analysis of your posting history, but if I HAD taken the time to do such a thing, it's my gut feeling that we would find that you are more apt to side with and excuse the actions of people in authority, while at the same time generally taking a pessimistic or negative view of the persons NOT in a position of relative power or authority.

You may or may not be frightfully dim, (because obviously, there's no objective way to measure dimness upon the frightful scale), but I think "authoritarian" is a defensible claim.

[This message has been edited by Bridgier (2/17/2011)]

Don't you home-school?

really what did he/she do that was so wrong for all we know he/she was speaking the truth about the kids he/she was dealing with, as an educator there have been time when I have delt with kids who are "frightfully dim" and "not as smart as they appear" but at the time did not have a social network to vent on, just collegues and freinds, if I understand it right the teacher did not use first or last names so really they are free to say what ever they want whenever they want however they want. I personally would tell any of my teachers to be careful what they said on a social network but I would not go as far as punish them for private conversations as long as they didnt use personal information, as a parent I would go to the school and hope my child is not the ones they are talking about and if they are I would be upset with my child not the teacher. Teachers do have to be careful about what they do and say but as long as they don't disclose personal information or do something illegal leave them alone.

"As an educator," I would expect you to use complete sentences and punctuation.

Well, it wasn't so much that the sentences were incomplete, it's more that they didn't.

You're right. I should have said "proper punctuation" as it would have cut up some of those run-on sentences. Capital letters are a nice touch as well.

Is that the best reply you two idiots can come back with.......wow talk about not as smart as they appear

I think I know what the initials "ds" stand for.

Homework assignment: Diagram the following sentence.

really what did he/she do that was so wrong for all we know he/she was speaking the truth about the kids he/she was dealing with, as an educator there have been time when I have delt with kids who are "frightfully dim" and "not as smart as they appear" but at the time did not have a social network to vent on, just collegues and freinds, if I understand it right the teacher did not use first or last names so really they are free to say what ever they want whenever they want however they want.

Perhaps it's a haiku.

Bob, you crack me up.

"ds" - I wasn't "coming up with a comeback" - I was pointing out that as an educator, it should be expected that you can type a coherent paragraph using reasonable punctuation and sentence structure.

You're sticking up for a teacher who badmouths her students publicly for being stupid. I see a lot of irony in that, given that it is your duty to instill in our youth among other things the ability to effectively communicate, so that they don't come off as "stupid." Its a chicken and egg argument. Are the kids idiots, or are the teachers doing a piss poor job educating them?

I would expect that a 5th or 6th grader could get away with run on sentences and sporadic punctuation. Non a junior high or high school student. Surely not a college student. Under no circumstances would I expect to see a college educated teacher writing in such a manner.

I wasn't intending to belittle you personally, but given the context, I piped up.

I have no idea who "ds" is (the anonymity of the internet is nice, isn't it?). I'm hoping that you're not Dan Stanton, as he is hands down the greatest teacher I ever had at CCDHS. I suspect that he is not who I'm talking to, though.