Fired For Blogging?

From: websitemakeoverworkshop.com

I like to tell people I started blogging to complain about my students. Actually, in the eight months I've been blogging, I think I've only written about my students a handful of times. There is one blog out in the blogosphere that is a master satire of current education, Teachbad.

After I started reading Teachbad earlier this year, I passed on the web site to a few colleagues. They were all in agreement that the blog spoke the truth (sometimes satirically and sarcastically) about the environment in which many of us teach. It's nice to know that there are other teachers that struggle with the same issues that we struggle with.

So, it was very shocking to see that the author of the blog, a DC teacher, wrote an article on The Washington Post's web site stating he believed he was among the 200+ teachers fired in DC due to his blog. The article goes into detail about the evaluations given to the Teachbad author from his master teacher vs. his administrator, and why he feels those evaluations orchestrated his exit.

It was interesting to read the comments below the post. Not every teacher was on Teachbad's side. Several said that he should've taken the time he spent writing his blog to improve his teaching. I'm sorry--we shouldn't have to spend every waking hour thinking about teaching, although many of us come close to that anyway. Other teachers pointed out that there are consequences for free speech. I'll have to concede that point. In my class, we talk about athletes and celebrities getting into trouble for tweeting something they shouldn't (paging Rashard Mendenhall).

I hope Teachbad gets a chance with another school district. He comes across to me as a teacher that really cares about teaching, but is bummed out by some of the inane regulations that all school districts seem to share (and DCPS appears to have many administrator-generated issues). We all can share his pain.

Adapted from my blog: ramblingcteteacher.blogspot.com

Tags: Teachbad, blog, teaching

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Comment by Anthony Bernard Ouwendyk on October 17, 2011 at 5:37pm: The school district board members and their regulated teachers will soon enough be relegated rather than regulated to the unemployment lines as teachers follow students online for an independent thinkers education shared by those who took early leave rather than comply. Change is not only as god as a rest, but inevitable for ALL professions as we head into true Enlightenment which the whole world wants, but not today. Well, as you know or soon will see, the thing we feared has finally come upon us... peace, prosperity and love will bring health, wealth and happiness to all who survive the flood of change and the aftershock and cleanup will keep the unenlightened busy until they retire or see the light too. It's here now, the knowledge, or tech-knowledge that will revolutionize the way everything works as a well-oiled-machine following binary code, or risk rejection as an un-useful piece of code. Deleted or over-written with new instructions by automated students of the previous wave of status quo regulators who also had to have their bits and bites adjusted in an earlier version of adaptation 7.1.0 Welcome to the Third Millennium which has somehow slipped by our conscious minds due to false Y2K virus warnings and the occasional attack on our way of life and a few wars and rumors of wars etc. It took until 1812 in a previous century and 1914 in another century for a sign of recognition that change was 'taking place' rather than asking permission to do so. The calendar hasn't been of much use but to tell us how old we are, instead of where we are in the scheme of things already established but seldom recognized by the aver-age living being as THE time and ages of things to which there is a season and a purpose under heaven. Does anybody really know what time it is? Changing is not only for clothes, vehicles and meals but for all things. Rambling along myself a bit, eh?

Fired For Blogging?

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