Should she be fired?Natalie Monroe has opted to take her fifteen minutes of fame.
A suburban Philadelphia school teacher who was suspended and sent home for blogging about her students anonymously is not only not apologizing, she's back blogging.
Natalie Monroe, a Central Bucks East High School English teacher, says her blog was never meant to be widely read and she had only nine followers -- seven friends, her husband and herself -- when some students apparently discovered it last week.
The 30-year-old teacher says was escorted from the school the next day and suspended with pay, the Bucks County Courtier Times reports.
The school says she could be dismissed, while her attorney says it has no basis for firing her.
Some of her sharper observations in the sometimes profanity-laced blog, titled "Where are we going & why are we in this handbasket," did raise eyebrows.
In one post, she called her students "rude, lazy, disengaged whiners." She drew up a list of canned comments she thought teachers should be able to pick from when writing report cards, such as "rat-like," "dresses like a streetwalker," "frightfully dim" and "whiny, simpering grade-grubber with an unrealistically high perception of own ability level."
Munroe says that she was "misunderstood," The Intelligencer's Christina Kristofic reports, and that she not only does not hate her students, she actually likes some of them.
She says news reports focused only on the worst parts and took them out of context and did not mention the many words of praise for students and the profession.
In her latest post, Munroe makes it clear that she believes she's started a healthy debate, even if it may cost her her job.
Excerpt:
While I never in a million years would have guessed that this many people would ever see my words, and I didn't even intend them to, I stand by what I wrote and think it's good that people are aware now. There are serious problems with our education system today--with the way that schools and school districts and students and parents take teachers who enter the education field full of life and hope and a desire to change the world and positively impact kids, and beat the life out of them and villainize them and blame them for everything--and those need to be brought to light. If this 'scandal' opens the door for that conversation, so be it. Source
Natalie Monroe's blog
11 comments:
In other news, blogger surprised that when she posts to the Internet, the WHOLE world can read it.
"While I never in a million years would have guessed that this many people would ever see my words, and I didn't even intend them to, "
Really? - frightfully dim.
Oh and yeah, she should keep her job. Well maybe.
And she seems to have deleted the controversial posts. So now no one will be able to formulate their own opinions as to whether her posts were in or out of line. No references, no evidence, no nothing renders her case in the internet domain of public net-opinion worthless. She is looking more foolish than ever. Maybe she should be canned after all.
Even the interviews that she did on tv can no longer be accessed.
Geez. I didn't think anyone actually read my blog.... ;)
I don't think she should lose her job. If she named individual students (or gave enough identifying information that one could pinpoint who she was speaking about) then that would be different. But just bitching about students as a group shouldn't be a fire-able offense, in and of itself. In fact, I would imagine that it's therapeutic.
I should put in one caveat to my previous comment, "IF she isn't breaking any part of her employment contract."
Anybody that thinks she should be fired should go sign up as a substitute teacher where you teach alone in a classroom in a public school, and like was said, the life will be sucked right out of you as you experience that the kids and parents run the schools. So, watch every tiny little thing you do, or someone wants to claim you did, or you'll be gone like 45% of new teachers in the first 3 years.
I think she is not a "good fit" for the classroom. Everyone gets frustrated with their job, but you need to be professional enough to deal with it in a private manner. She represented herself and her school poorly. I doubt her actions will allow for her termination, especially if she represented by a union . . . but it would be good if she is gone.
OT: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/16/urban-prep-100-percent-of_n_824286.html
Mahkno:
Inspiring article. Thanks for telling us about it.
Everyone has a right to write his own blog. I think she made no mistake as she did not defame anyone individually. Well, maybe she made one – she did not hide her identity better.
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