The method of delivery of a childs puerile message about an authority figure does not make that message more dangerous.

The medium is the message, no? What if they delivered it via a shower of flaming arrows? AMIRITE?

No, U R RONG. Danger is dangerous, kids’ opinions are discounted by everyone, deadly force is changing the subject, you are not exactly impressing anybody. I suppose if teaching got paid better we’d have smarter teachers.

I am surprised to hear an educator not know that this is how it has always been. The kids are alright.

I don’t think anything I’ve said to you is an unfair reading of this opening line: if I’ve been inaccurate, accept that you might not have been perfectly clear; accept too that folks are often misread on the ‘Nets (same as you’re misreading me by taking my words as mocking or challenging of you as a person).

Again, I don’t think it’s so much of an overreaction on teachers’ part (less still some kind of transhistorical constant of teachers overreacting), as a legitimate concern that many teachers have over the proper boundaries of technology, the “classroom,” authority, etc. It’s also about the future viability of our profession.

As for projecting:

It speaks volumes of your respect for your audience and conversational parter.

Indeed, projection happens: QED. Let me explicitly say I have respect for you, and even for your argument here, even though I disagree strongly. I guess you feel challenged and mocked, so let me disavow any responsibility for that: nosce te ipsum as they say

You apparently have no idea how many kids you will turn off if your default reaction to challenging ideas is to mock the speaker.

Mockery is a two-way street, as much a problem of perception as something that’s *really* there. Students are predisposed to feel mocked by intelligent adults, who knew? Just like how intelligent bloggers are predisposed to feel mocked by other intelligent bloggers with whom they blog! I think this is called psychodynamics. Anyhoo, students’ misperceptions, projections, etc., while factors teachers deal with, are emphatically not our primary responsibility: we certainly don’t cause this behavior, although we can indeed deal with it effectively.

Oh, and I’d argue that phrases like “the kids are alright,” especially when invoked as a nostrum or panacea, is legitimately a Who reference. Maybe pick your nostrums more carefully next time. (Joke: pick your nostrums, eh, eh?) Really, I have no quarrel with you.

schools are not prisons. schools have no authority whatsoever on students after school. and if you suck at your job be prepared to take criticism. being a student is not a job. being a teacher is.

back in my day we did not have facebook but we protested all the same. and stupid teachers had to watch their backs after the bell ringed. i bet that bad teachers are better off today. a facebook rant is always better than an egg in the face or seeing your description as an asshole spray painted on every street around school.

You’re right. Most people have *know* idea what it’s like to be a teacher. Do tell us. It might be enlightening.

Funny how this Music teacher thinks that the internet would not be a good way to deal with bad instructors when this is the STANDARD in College education

http://ratemyprofessors.com/

Funny how ignorant teachers in grade k-12 are about things that happen only a year after their students leave.

This AP student did what every AP student should do. They acted like a dedicated college student.

It would be like a government office worker attending a protest against their department’s governmental policies. Would the department they work for be able to put them on unpaid leave for expressing political opinion? Legally, I would think not.

If this was a totally private school, then I’d say they could suspend the student for anything they were contractually able to. If they had a rule that students agreed to follow as condition for attending the school (ie, “no publicly criticizing teachers”); then suspend away.

That’s not the same for a public school. Students are clients, as US citizens, and are entitled to do anything they want to outside the walls of the school. Hence, I think this was a great ruling. If it had been a private school, like I said, it would have been a bad ruling.

What if your neighbours started making posters that were just opinion, and began posting ‘YOURNAMEHERE is the worst neighbour I’ve lived near’. And then their friends joined in. And complete strangers. And then it appeared on Boing Boing.

If I googled my own name and found that some kid made a Web page that dissed me or my teaching, I would feel sad and frustrated. Hey c’mon Xopher, education is not commerce. Not where I live at least.

If you want to criticize/ discuss your teacher competence, I doubt public Internet ranting is the way to go.

…

How did that matter reached a federal magistrate, though?

That’s what any teacher at my kids’ school would do… and I’d support it, if it was well done. If the teacher came off like a moron or mispelled words on the page, that’d show something, neh?

This AP student did what every AP student should do. They acted like a dedicated college student.

I’m definitely going to have to take issue with the “dedicated” bit there. I’ve got a listing on ratemyprofessors.com from my grad student years – and probably one now too. Not too much there in total, but what there is isn’t complimentary. (Business Calc only seems to arouse passion in those who hate it.) I also have a reasonably good idea which students posted the reviews. They are those who cheated on exams, tried to bribe me, and several who just didn’t like my fashion sense.
My point is that unsolicited student reviews are, often as not, ad hominem attacks which have more to do with the student’s failures and prejudices than anything else. If you doubt me, just take a look at the reviews of transgendered profs – it ain’t pretty.
Anyway, I think the ruling was right, but we should make no mistake: this particular kind of speech is mostly worthless and too often veers into territory that would, in other situations, be called workplace harassment or schoolyard bullying.