Insulting your students in Facebook may indeed be permitted under freedom of speech, but that doesn’t make it right. Teachers should know better than to make hurtful comments about their students. If they are caught doing so in a public forum such as Facebook they should apologise not scream “free speech“:
On this Independence Day, a controversy over free speech among teachers using Facebook is making headlines after their online discussion referred to a student as possibly being “the evolutionary link between orangutans and humans.”
Now, the state of Florida will investigate the matter.
Bay News 9 obtained a Facebook conversation from mid-May among teachers at G.D. Rogers Garden Elementary School in Bradenton, Fla.
The exchange reportedly began with music teacher Lauren Orban writing: “I’m fairly convinced that one of my students may be the evolutionary link between orangutans and humans.”
The Bradenton Herald says several other instructors then jokingly joined the conversation, with second-grade teacher Emma Disley pressing Orban to share the student’s name, writing, “Please tell me who you are talking about. This made me laugh out loud. Haha.”
Another second-grade teacher, Laura Beth Cross, wrote, “even though I can probably guess, please tell.” When Orban revealed the student’s initials, Cross responded, “Yup! Just who I suspected!”
But the conversation came to a sudden halt when Jauana Johnson, the school registrar, jumped in to write, “What the hell is that suppose to mean?”
What if Ms. Orban’s students had written insulting comments about her on Facebook? Would she have considered that as simply an expression of free speech?
If we do not stamp down on this kind of conduct we may as well give up trying to fight cyberbullying altogether!
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