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Re: [Phys-l] Should teachers blog???

The machines that are used by legislators are supplied by the government, so
the same logic should apply there. Indeed under sunshine acts their
communications should be more public.

The national lab policy essentially says that the communications may be
subject to IN HOUSE monitoring, but not necessarily released as part of the
freedom of information act. Indeed secrecy acts may trump FOI for national
labs. So this cited statement has little to do with the problem of FOI
disclosure of teacher E-mails.

Legislators are doing public work, so their communications should be public.
Teachers, MDs, and lawyers are dealing with private personal information
that should not be made public except with the consent of the individuals,
or when necessary and relevant to combat law suits. MDs in public hospitals
probably do not have such disclosure possibility when communicating with
patients, even though their computers are supplied by the hospital.

My point is that sending a note to a parent may not work because the note
can and often will be intercepted by the student. Of course E-mail can also
be intercepted, but there is a record of it being sent, so if the parent is
irate because they were not informed of a problem, the teacher can readily
produce some proof of an attempt to inform them. Work E-mail is a very good
way to establish immediate communication, but a telephone call might be
problematic. Can it be done in class, between class periods, or after
school. Will the person be at their desk, or would a message be heard by
others? Also there is often no school telephone in the classroom and
teachers should not communicate using personal phones.

The problem is with the concept that all E-mail sent from a school machine
should be considered public and available to any requestor under the freedon
of information act. There should be no problem of review by appropriate
officials. Of course the teacher could get around that partially if they
have a Gmail account, but that might be prohibited by the school.

My school had no such restriction because it was a private school. It would
seem that electronic communication is replacing snail mail and telephone, so
this issue will be more pressing with time. The balance between privacy and
public disclosure needs to be addressed more sensitively.

The teacher who blogged about in bad in class behavior had apparently
already tried communicating with parents, and got no response, or the
parents approved of the behavior. It was also obvious from the story that I
quoted that the school had some bad policies. E-mail communication with
parents may not solve her problems, but it is a valuable tool that should be
available without fear that it will be made public under FOI. Please note I
am not trying to reopen the issue of the appropriateness of her blog.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


There might be better support for this viewpoint if the e-mail were the
sole method of communication. It is not. The e-mail uses equipment
provided, or made available by the school; it is, at least to some extenr,
tax-supported means of communication. Thus, in a public school system,
every taxpayer has supported the teacher's ability tocommunicate by
e-mail,
Here's a copy of the policy at national labs - (I have no
complaint):
----------------------------------------
This is a Federal computer system and is the property of the United States
Government. It is for authorized use only. Users (authorized or
unauthorized) have no explicit or implicit expectation of privacy.
Any or all uses of this system and all files on this system may be
intercepted, monitored, recorded, copied, audited, inspected, and
disclosed to authorized site, Department of Energy, and law enforcement
personnel, as well as authorized officials of other
agencies, both domestic and foreign.
By using this system, the user consents to such interception, monitoring,
recording,,copying, auditing, inspection, and disclosure at the discretion
of authorized site or Department of Energy personnel.
Unauthorized or improper use of this system may result in administrative
disciplinary action and civil and criminal penalties. By continuing to use
this system you indicate your awareness of and consent to these terms and
conditions of use. LOG OFF IMMEDIATELY if you do not agree to the
conditionsstated in this warning.
====================================================

Regards,
Jack

"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley




On Fri, 18 Feb 2011, William Robertson wrote:

I think the major issue here is public versus private. I agree with
you (in another post) that private emails between teachers and
students and teachers and parents should not be subject to public
scrutiny. They should have the same protection as a private phone call
or letter. When it comes to complaining about particular students,
teachers should use common sense as has always been the case. Is it
okay to complain about a particular kid in the faculty lounge? That
depends. If there are only a couple of close friends there, then fine.
If half the faculty is there, then it would be wise to keep your mouth
shut. People everywhere vent about their jobs, and they generally vent
to their spouses, their friends, and their neighbors. I would never
consider railing against my publisher in a personal blog that goes out
to the entire world. My publisher would rightly consider whether or
not to continue working with me if I did that. Similarly, if I had
worked with a particular school district and told everyone on this
list to avoid them, that would be stupid. I would lose business
quickly because no one would trust me. That's very much like a teacher
complaining about a particular student on a blog. All of his or her
students would soon lose trust, and that teacher would be much less
effective. I think it's fine for a school to have a policy forbidding
this.

It should be fine to blog respectfully about general trends among
students regarding their abilities--that's more of a professional
observation than a personal complaint. It's a shame that you know of
examples where teachers are admonished for that. But what I saw in
that thread was teachers saying that if students could disparage their
teachers in a public forum, then teachers should be able to disparage
their students in a public forum. Seems childish and unthinking to me.