Can a Student Call the Superintendent a "douche-bag" in Her Personal Blog?

Judge Rules On Student's Slur -- Courant.com

This case from my state was percolating in the news at the end of last school year. I will direct you to the article from the Hartford Courant for the current state of affairs. The short version is that the student was active in school affairs and a  popular spring activity was canceled because of some kind of screw up by the adults at the district level. The girl reacted in her blog and wrote the above slur about her  Supt. School found out, she had to have her mother come in, had to apologize, had to pull down the post(s) and was not allowed to run for class secretary. Banning her from running from office was the last straw. She protested and went to court. Case raised all kinds of on campus /off campus free speech issues that the judge has to sort through.

My take? As I wrote last spring, adults have to step up and not be thin skinned. It was an educational opportunity that the student certainly seized and is learning from. And I hereby declare that as a teacher I have at times been a douche-bag, the principals I work for at times have been douche-bags, and my central office staff have been douche-bags. And we will be again. I only hope the folks in her school district learn as much as she will from this case.

 

Back to the Wired World

I purposefully stayed away from the keys over the late summer. I wanted a break and I wanted to see if after a couple of years of social and professional blogging what would happen if I stopped. Would I want to continue? Would I miss the daily checking of others blogs and posting my ill formed and half baked thoughts.

Obviously, I am back. I found that the structure of the school year settled my daily routine and I was again curling up with the laptop in as part of my evening routine. I still don't know if what i have to say is professionally y relevant to anybody, but I enjoy reading the more powerful voices and I like pointing out some things of professional to me interest here.

I have some goals for incorporating Web 2.0 this year that are already being crowded out by the drumbeat of daily demands. I hope to have more here as I go along. Last week looked sooooo, promising, for implementing new ideaS and then all of a sudden, this week exploded.

However, I will get back to visiting Second Life and I am determined to continue my fledging work with Classroom Blogs and Wikis. More when I know it....