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

["John Clement" <clement@hal-pc.org>]

The particular teacher who is being possibly censured did not identify
either colleagues or students when she made the comments.  She certainly was
a bit unwise in her choice of words, but she did not make a disparaging
comment that could be traceable by an outsider.  However apparently some
parents think that particular comments were made about their child.  But
there is no proof of this.  So they are self identifying their child as
being a target.  That is like saying I know a faculty member who has a
drinking problem.  Everybody may know who I am talking about, but I did not
identify the person.

Faculty are very reluctant to report problems, even when they are staring
them in the face.  There was a faculty member who taught human sexuality and
would tell student comments in the lounge and chuckle over them.  This is
the sign of a possible abuser, but nobody would rat on him.  He was known to
be vindictive and had an in with the admin.  I did have a friend point at
his room and say that no learning went on there.  I did report some of this
to another faculty member who had much more pull than me, but nobody did
anything.  The admin would never listen to me and were more likely to turn
on me.  I would normally not report a colleague, but in this case maybe I
should have done it.

So if the particular teacher who blogged unwisely, could be shown to have in
class problems, she could be let go.  Of course if they cite the blogging,
she might have a legal case.  I would certainly agree that indentifying
specific students as being stupid... would be actionable, and I suspect the
courts would too.  But as I have already said, I don't believe that people
are stupid, just because they do some stupid things.  People can become less
stupid acting.  Incompetence likewise is a partially fixable problem, unless
it involves some physical defect.

The school should have not made a case about the blogging.  Someone could
have quietly approached her and said that her comments while legal might
cause problems in her class by making students unruly, and parents unwilling
to help her.  If she were a good teacher, then the school should try to work
it out quietly.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


> I didn't say the schools should be able to forbid blogging, but rather
> blogging statements that harm individual students in some way.
> Disparaging comments about particular students would come under that
> category, I think. Should the school not be able to control teacher
> activities that harm the teacher's ability to do his or her job?