Professional Suicide?
January 19, 2008 by googtweetblog
(edited to include: Due to immediate feedback via comments, I retract my high-horse comment of “which I refuse to do on principle” in relation to blogging anonymously and took down my pictures and last name on my About page. Alas, my poor blog challenge progress will be compromised, as will my principles - much more detailed post to come)
A comment on Twitter last night regarding the use of Twitter and blogging by teachers made me start thinking……….and worrying. The direct message from a twitter-colleague made mention of the fact that unions in certain states discourage blogging by teachers. So I ask, am I within my rights as a (probationary) teacher to blog about my experience? This article “Teachers to be warned over social networking sites” from the The Herald in Scotland make me think that perhaps I’m not, and I have huge problems with that. The article states:
“Teachers across Scotland are to be warned about using social networking sites and chatrooms as part of proposals for a new code of conduct for the profession.”
and
“Ronnie Smith, the general secretary, said: “We welcome the intent of the GTCS in seeking to clarify the professional expectations placed on teachers and to make these explicit to teachers, parents and employers.
“It is important that the code reflects changes in society and takes account of advances in technology and other evolving circumstances which can impact on the way that teachers do their jobs and the ways in which they interact with pupils and others, both within and outwith the formal school setting.”
(Note: I read an article similar to this regarding a case in the U.S. but can’t find it - if you’re familiar with it, please pass on the info!)
Now, the underlying cause for the action in the article was because of a teacher communicating in an inappropriate way with a student. I get that. I have NO contact with students on the internet outside of our class work and projects and never communicate with them online outside of school hours. I don’t have any issues with restrictions on inappropriate communications.
What I worry about is that because I’m a teacher, society may dictate that it’s inappropriate and unprofessional to be blogging at all about my profession. Now, in my opinion, what I’m writing about is completely unobjectionable, but how can I be sure? I’m a first year probationary (as are all first year teachers in Wisconsin) teacher - is it worth the risk that someone will find my reflections to be unbecoming of an educator? Right now, the answer is yes, it’s worth it. The tweet I received on Twitter last night did lead me to protect my updates on Twitter and remove most of my links to my Twitter ID on this blog. In my opinion, I use Twitter in a completely appropriate way, but as the tweet from a PLN colleague said, it’s possible that someone else may not agree. I’m struggling to find the balance between self-expression and reflection and “professionalism” as defined by some organizations. As I said in my post yesterday, I believe in transparency and truly do want my name attached to my work here, but is this professional suicide? Am I being as ignorant as the kids who put their home addresses on their MySpace or FaceBook pages?
I need this blog for reflection, collaboration, and most of all, learning. I’m attempting to teach blogs both in my middle and elementary classrooms as well as the professional development arena and this blog is where I’m learning. I’m taking part in a challenge to make a better blog - isn’t that something that should be applauded? The article I quoted in yesterday’s post brought up the issue of Gen Y teachers being discouraged in today’s teaching environment and it’s hitting home even harder as I’m thinking of this issue. I honestly don’t know how happy I would be to remain in the profession if I were censored in my completely-professional professional development writings. (Again, I’m 100% for making sure that teachers aren’t communicating inappropriately with students in the online arena and I make sure I don’t publish anything I would be worried about a student reading.)
Now, remember what I blog about: education and technology. I use no student, school, or administrator names. I am reflecting on my teaching and learning experiences. I included a disclaimer on my About page stating that my views in no way reflect my employer’s…………..short of not blogging at all or blogging anonymously, is there something else I should be doing to protect myself? If this isn’t the appropriate medium for my work, what is?
Note: I have been supported wholeheartedly in my classroom blogging with students but have never made mention of my professional blog. Therefore, I have never discussed the matter with my administrators or union, so am in no way stating that they have already objected to my work. I’m just questioning society as a whole.
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Kate-
I have been pondering the exact same issue. My blog post(still in my head) was to be called “Blog at your own Risk”. My perspective comes from being a Grievance Officer for my teacher’s local. Probationary teachers have no protection under tenure laws. NONE. There does not need to be a justifiable cause for dismissal. There is no requirement to prove just cause. I could tell you nightmarish stories of dismissal meetings…..My concern is grad programs and teacher prep courses mandate blogging as a de facto instructional element without providing the warning that the university system while you are still a student is a ’safe zone’ There are PLENTY of untenured professors who blog anonymously because they too live in fear of being dismissed if they are too critical of policy, politics, administration. The case you mentioned might have been the dismissal of Meg Spohn PHD at DeVry University in Colorado. This article gives more details of the perils of blogging in the workplace.
http://tinyurl.com/2zwwdz
Your thoughts/concerns have convinced me to write my post!
Kate,
Here is a link from the Pennsylvania State Education Association
http://tinyurl.com/226fus
which addresses some of the questions you raise.
I have read elsewhere that teachers posting online should be careful not to include any information that might be interpreted as derogatory or confidential about the district, staff, students, parents, or community.
I’m close to retirement, so although I don’t blatantly criticize my school, if some of my remarks are interpreted as less than positive, I don’t worry too much about it.
We do caution our newer, untenured teachers not to engage in controversial activities while they’re unprotected by tenure (e.g. wearing buttons in support of our support staff as they negotiate a new contract.) Tenure is granted at the whim of the superintendent and the BOE. Just cause is a very flexible term.
Consider carefully before you leave a permanent record floating in cyberspace!
diane
lbilak -
Thanks so much for the reference to Meg Spohn (here’s her accounting of the incident: http://www.megspohn.com/?p=288) and the article about blogging in the workplace. I plan to research this much more and will do a follow-up post soon. I look forward to reading your post, I hope you’ll come back and post a link to it here!
Kate
Diane -
Thanks so much for your advice and starting my thoughts on this during our twitter exchange last night. I’ll check out the link and include it in my next post on this.
Thanks for the linklove!
I think that the more folks who blog, the more acceptable blogging will have to become. Individual administrations can violate a few individuals’ freedom of expression, but they can’t hit us all. Sooner or later, they’ll be forced to give up, and we win. It’s happening, and the more of us who blog like it’s not a weird thing to do, the sooner that acceptance will come. Fire up that blog, my fellow educators! Do it! Do it NOW!
Meg -
Thanks for the encouragement, I’ll keep at it
Kate
I’m anonymouse here because I want to share a non-school, but painful, blogging story. When I started blogging, I thought long and hard about whether to be anonymous or use my real-life name in my blog-life.
Eventually I plumped for real-life, and began blogging. The first six months (starting in December 2003) I had an average of 12 visitors a day. This didn’t concern me, as I was dumping a lot of previous collected thoughts into the blog — I was more interested in making my previous writings searchable by me than in readership.
I did make some attempt to conceal identities, but not consistently. In other words, sometimes I used real names for family members, and sometimes not. I didn’t think much of it. At the time, there was a lot of Sturm und Drang in the larger family circle, and I was writing about it on the blog. Mostly I concealed identities, but sometimes….well I forgot.
Fast-forward to the summer of 2005, when I met Lisa Williams in person. We talked about protecting our childrens’ privacy and identity, while being authentic in our writings. It occurred to me that I should go back and either delete entries, or be consistent about anonymity, image tags, and so on.
Too late. The Tuesday following the BlogHer weekend, I had a very painful interview in an attorney’s office retained by a family member. This person had directed her personal assistant to go through my blog, post by post, and print out any that mentioned the family. The family demanded that I delete the blog. I declined but I did delete all the family-related posts.
With hindsight, I shouldn’t have used my real name, and should have taken much more care to make anonymous the other family members I mentioned.
The moral of this story is — be as anonymous as you can be. Don’t mention the state you teach in, and obfuscate as many details about your past as you can.
“Dick Dalton” is a SpEd teacher in Georgia –here are his thoughts.
[...] disconcerting because there are no clearcut answers at this time. There was also this blog “Professional Suicide” that opened my eyes to the problems of these tools for [...]
Another article about teachers and web 2.0 tools: Columbus Dispatch Nov. 10, 2007 and some comments from a school administrator and from me at the start of href=”http://www.newteacherhotline.com/nth/17″>this podcast.
Writing is learning, and as long as you are appropriate, you should continue to do it. Say nothing you would not want parents, school board, and students to read. My employer lauds the fact that I blog.
Well — I spent a painful day just today with a similar topic — email –
and someone sent me the link to this website and I noticed this topic so I thought I would check it out..
So here goes.
I am an outspoken individual anywhere — I believe in stating my opinion –
no stabs behind the back — straight up —
However with saying that –
it doesn’t matter whethere you are a private individual — a company employee — or a teacher….
public comments about individuals or your employer may come back to haunt you.\
Just look at all the people who have lost jobs over email — and use of computers.
Look at all of the negative publicity about teachers and inappropriate contact between teachers and kids….
When I was at the school — I never knew what went on —
I dealt with my world which was the library –
fighting for my program — my piece of the pie for funding — etc.
Now —
the district office —
shall I say lawyers — lawsuits —
Folks you have no idea and you can’t talk about alot of the stuff…
You have to have policies and procedures to protect the district — did the districts come up with most of them by themselves — no
School Board Associations send model policies and they are usually based on laws and/or court cases…
Procedures are then put into place that have to support the policies…
Did it ever occur to anyone why almost every school district does just about the same thing —
you may get in my district we do it this way or you may get a state comment –
go look at your board policies — they reference laws and/or court cases…
Now do I like alot of them — no…
and frankly for awile the first few years at the district office — they were sort of on the border for me….
I used to just get stressed when someone would sau we don’t have a policy for that or we can’t do that till we take it to the board for approval — or that goes against board policy…
Well — after my first experience in a meeting with the board attorney and the rest of the folks who had to be involved –
belive me
that goodness —
Now what does all of this have to do with blogging and alot of the other things folks have referenced like teacher websites, etc.
My meeting today was on ediscovery laws — and the fact that school districts are not exempt…
we now have to deal with email archiving and how you can’t delete — and you have to be able to find what is requested — and how do you decide what is archived — who is going to do it –
and on and on and on
And the real kick was — it is supposed to include — jump drives, phone messages, PDA’s, and more….
While the information age is wonderful =— it also has brought out a whole new realm of lawsuits…
So while as librarians we are looking at freedom of information and intellectual freedom
school districts are trying to protect themselves and really their employees —
Before you criticize your district for they policies and procedures — think about dealing with attorneys and lawsuits –
and while I don’t agree with everything — and I too comment about foolishness –
see what you can find out about why the policy is in effect — is there a law — has there been a lawsuit –
and sometimes districts take the conservative approach and sometimes they take a looser approach –
see what solutions you can find… before you criticize
ask to see how we can lete kids and teachers have access to all of these new tools and exciting ways to learn..
why does the district have those policies or procedures in affect –
maybe knowing the reason and trying to work together — you can make some progress….
sometimes you can’t on a specific topic — but hey you didn’t lose the war
try soemthing else –
All I am saying is in any situation — try to determine the other person’s position and see what you can do — to find a way to work together –
Working in fear– or anger is no way to enjoy your job
no matter what it is…
Anonymous - thanks for sharing your story, it sounds like a tough time for you. I’m attempting to be very professional in my blogging and not post anything I wouldn’t be ok with an administrator (or my mother!) reading. Thanks again for sharing your experience
Candace - thanks for sharing the resources! I’m now very comfortable with what I’m writing and have shared the link to my blog with many colleagues.
Paula - you make a great point. I do understand why some districts feel they can’t allow blogging, although I don’t necessarily agree with it. I am lucky that I was able to come to a happy conclusion on this, as I wouldn’t have been satisfied working somewhere that suppressed my right to use blogging as reflection. I also read your comment on Vicki’s blog and bookmarked the link you left there. Thanks for the resources.
Kate