Young teachers are discovering that posting sexual jokes, vulgarity, nudity and comments about “retards” in online profiles is not a wise idea, reports the Washington Post.
Click “View Photos of Erin,” and you can see her lying on her back, eyes closed, with a bottle of Jose Cuervo tequila between her head and shoulder. Or click on her “summertime” photo album and see a close-up of two young men flashing serious-looking middle fingers.
“I know that employers will look at that page, and I need to be more careful,” said Webster, adding that other Prince William teachers have warned her about her page. “At the same time, my work and social lives are completely separate. I just feel they shouldn’t take it seriously. I am young. I just turned 22.”
And you’re not at a kegger any more.
Update: Darren defends the right of teachers to live like other adults.
When people justify such things by comments along the lines of, “I am young. I just turned 22,” it tells me more about them than they realize. They think they’re justifying their actions, but they’re really saying a lot about how they view the lives of teens growing up. The line implies, “Well, I’ll eventually change, but everybody is like this up until this point.” The fact that they believe that everyone is like that says a lot about how they’ll shape teens (or even younger kids) in their care, IMO. It says that they see their party lifestyles as normal things that should be tolerated until someone gets older, because “everyone” does it.
I know that my view is a minority in this culture today, but I think it’s foolish and crude and dangerous to live that lifestyle at any age, whether it’s 12 or 22 or 32. It’s not the lifestyle that my friends and I lived when we were teens or college students. We knew plenty of people who did live that way back then. When I look at people from those two groups today (25 years later), I can see a huge difference in how they’ve tended to go in different directions insofar as values, personal lives and even long-term happiness. It’s not true in every case, but the tendency is very strong. Does it mean that those of one group are better than those of the other? No, but it suggests that choices made at a young age suggests what future choices might be, based on what they’ve been taught and what they’ve decided about themselves by that point in life.
As I said, I know this is a minority view. The media and other parts of the popular culture make it the normal and accepted things to engage in a lifestyle that I think is dangerous and mostly created by peer pressure. But I know that I have much more confidence in a 22-year-old who knows better than to have EVER posted such pictures of herself (and even more confidence in one who never lived that life) than I do in 22-year-olds such as Erin Webster.
And people wonder why you have news reports of young, female, teachers having sex with their students. They consider them their peers.
Yikes.
And people wonder why you have news reports of young, female, teachers having sex with their students. They consider them their peers.
Ms. Webster is a substitute teacher at Parkside. Hopefully, she won’t be given a full-time position.
Yikes.
David M, I don’t think you are in the minority at all. I think (realizing I could be wrong) that you are part of the Quiet Majority.
And I pretty much agree with your stance.
Nicksmama, excellent point about young teachers considering their students their peers. I hadn’t considered that.
It all starts with that marshmallow.
Even if a teacher believes that their boss shouldn’t hold their personal life against them, I can’t believe that she would be naive enough to believe that her students wouldn’t see the video and treat her differently. I would think that classroom management issues would convince her to express a more ‘respectable’ persona.
I agree that the teachers in this article showed poor taste and judgment, not to mention immaturity. Those are pretty clear-cut cases.
At the same time, there is grey area. To what extent does the profession dictate what a person can do on his or her own time? If a teacher writes stories, poems, or plays with mature, complex, or unsettling themes, should he or she refrain from publishing them? If a teacher has controversial opinions that could upset parents, should the teacher avoid expressing them publicly?
I imagine most would answer: “Of course not!–so long as the teachers separate their own life from their school life, and respect both.” Yet it’s perfectly conceivable that a principal would google a teacher to see what comes up, and decide that, well, this person doesn’t quite fit with the school culture.
Schools need to build and communicate a strong ethical code while honoring the ambiguities and unresolved questions within it. Education programs should include a practical and philosophical course in professional ethics.
i have long believed that there are two basic kinds of Baby Boomers: those whose parents paid their way through college, who had all the time and money to drink, fool around, and participate in the sexual revolution–and the other group like me who worked their way through college, were often the first in our families to go to college, and who didn’t “screw” around in any sense of the word. I see these two groups reflected in long time marriages versus others my age who have had two or three mates, live-ins, or whatever.
One kind of nice pay off that I noticed at the last reunion (40 years!) is that the drinkers and smokers and indulgers in other things look OLD compared to the others who have lived happy, but more moderate lives!
I think that the issue at hand is not the morals, ethics, or off-duty behavior of younger teachers, but of their intelligence and common sense.
Openly putting job-endangering information about yourself on the web where anyone can see it is just plain stupid. New teachers have a reputation for partying hard to relieve the stress associated with the job, but putting it where students, parents, and administrators can see it is a foolish mistake. As an administrator I would be more concerned about the display of the information than the lewd behavior itself.
MySpace…When a mirror just isn’t enough. Our newest educators, like the elders, reflect the society that spawned them. Narcissus is the new god of self-esteem.
In response to “rho”: there are more than two kinds of baby boomers. Many baby boomers came of age as their parents divorced. Those from unstable, fighting, broken families often had a harder time finding their way, from what I have observed, than those from stable, happy families, whether rich or poor. Yes, some were indulging themselves without a thought of others or tomorrow, but others were struggling to make sense of their lives. There have been many outcomes: some found their way to rewarding occupations and long-term relationships; others continued to flail desperately; and many lived somewhere in between. I agree that those with less privilege often tended to work harder and indulge less. But there was considerable variation.
Much, I imagine, rests on what one makes of one’s experiences and actions, positive or negative. I agree with Mike Curtis about narcissism, the “new god of self-esteem.” Narcissism is not only self-infatuation but lack of perspective on the self. To a degree we are all narcissistic. No one has enough perspective to make perfect decisions at every moment or to see oneself in relation to the larger world. No one is immune to mistakes, no matter what anyone says. But over time the present gains dimension. One learns to relate it to the past; to foresee consequences of actions; to perceive options, and to treat oneself and others with compassion and honesty.
The young teachers mentioned in the article apparently lacked this sort of perspective. That doesn’t mean they won’t gain it over time. This experience may prove transformative for some.
I have more perspective than I did at age 20, and look forward to much more still. I never expect to reach a point where I no longer make mistakes, or where I understand everything.
And here I *just* edited my Facebook privacy settings, to, among other things, have a special filter just for students (one former student has friended me and perhaps someday there will be more). It’s not that hard, people. They give you an awful lot of control over who can see what.
Diana:
I think you raise a valid point regarding the grey area. Perhaps one key is to look at irresponsible behavior vs controversial behavior. I have read of teachers being fired for poetry that students read (on the web, that the teacher wrote). These are people I would likely defend.
On the other hand, there comes a point–being employed in one’s first job is a good point of coincidence–when behavior matters in a different way, and consequences get very real. While teachers lives are not so public as movie stars or politicians, it is best to maintain a broad swath of privacy around things that one would rather no display on the bulletin board in the hall.
Has there ever been a time or profession, outside of politics and the entertainment industry, where public displays of questionable behavior weren’t a bad idea?