Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Blogging Scandal

How much truth can teachers tell? An interesting kerfuffles has broken in Philly, where a public school teacher has gotten herself in some trouble for what she thought was a discreet blog where occasionally, she would vent frustrations about her job, her administrators and yes, some of her students. I haven't perused the offending posts in question, but apparently they were quite blunt- which brings me back to my original question:

How much truth can teachers tell? It's the age old dilemma we face in the age of the internet- anything you write on here, anything at all, is out there for all the world to see... and education is damn tricky. Like economics and health care, I don't think there's any certainty about what the right answer is- and nor are there any silver bullets. But we gotta ask: has the quality of our teachers declined over the years? Or have we been so concerned about the self-esteem and feeling of our children that we forgot to set some basic expectations about actual learning and things like effort?

Don't get me wrong: when I have kids, I don't want to be a crazy person about it- but you should have an idea about what your child is capable of and then ask them to live up to their potential. That's not unreasonable I think.

Kids, follow the link, read and discuss.

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