Teachers, Facebook and First Amendment

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Permalink Reply by Elden Esmeralda on July 9, 2008 at 5:48am

Aloha Kim,
Thank you for your post. It is interesting that Myron and I were talking about a similar subject as we walked around the Newseum the other day. It essentially amounted to the fact of at what point does the public have the right to connect our personal lives with our private lives. Should a person be fired if he or she has a DUI on a Saturday morning. I am sure if the person is the bus driver I would have to initially say yes. Should an arrest be an automatic qualifier for dismissal. In yesterdays discussion we talked about the case study in the schools regarding the use of inappropriate t-shirts. There was a feeling that before we band the use of the t-shirt there had to be some EVIDENCE that this could cause a disturbance. Is any single occurrance enough evidence.

I must admit some of the postings were very out of the ordinary, but who am I to judge. I am sure there are people out there who would not aprreciate half of what I do in my personal life. Thanks for allowing me to share.

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Permalink Reply by Michael Hardy on July 10, 2008 at 7:42pm

We as educators can only enjoy a private life when we keep our private life private. I don't believe we can just take the teacher hat off when we leave school. The nature of our profession is that we are public servants and as such role models. Obviously personal online speech is not necessarily private. We need to model sound decision making. We can do whatever we want ... in private.

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