Riddle me this, Batman

There is a website where parents, students, and the general public can file complaints about their teachers called teachercomplaints.com. There is no monitoring of the site, no policing, no registration. You are free to post whatever you want about a teacher there. In fact, it encourages people not to go through proper channels to file complaints. ANd it's been featured on several news programs. Ugh.

"Why Rate A Teacher or school (which can be maniputalted [sic]) When you can File A Teacher Complaint!"

(and doesn't this show why we need teachers? Hello - spelling, inconsistent capitalization, punctuation?)

Nobody (except me, apparently) outside of the education industry has any problems with this site, as it's been featured on several news programs. There are several self-congratulatory pages on the site linking to the news coverage.

And yet, when a teacher posts to her personal, anonymous blog that her students are lazy, she gets suspended over it. Her blog had no personally identifying information, did not name students, and did noy identify herself. People were just up in arms that a teacher could possibly say such horrible things about her students.

A couple thoughts. First, don't we all bitch about our jobs, our co-workers, our customers at some point? Don't many of us do that on our blogs? I know I have done it several times. Why are teachers not allowed to do so, especially if they are doing it anonymously? Yes, I get the whole, "If they feel that way about their students, I don't want them teaching MY son/daughter." I get that. Really. But the truth is, high schoolers/teenagers are lazy, apathetic creatures. I know this personally. I have two of them. And guess what? Little secret? My high school teacher husband thinks so, too.

Second, it's incredibly hypocritical to say that we can bitch publicly on the internet about teachers, name names, all without moderation and then turn around and say that teachers can't do any public complaining. Hypocritical to the nth degree.

Oh, and as if the quote above isn't enough, if this is any indication of the people that post there, my only advice to them is that perhaps had they paid attention to their teachers in school, they wouldn't misspell words or use poor grammar on a site dedicated to trashing teachers.

Click the pic to see the bad shit full size

(originally posted on my personal blog 3/21/2011, unlinked intentionally)