Explosive article exposes an online scandal involving students, teachers and parents.
This week's New York Magazine revealed how students at a fancy private school in NYC (whose celebrity parents include Eliot Spitzer, Sean "P. Diddy" Combs and Kenneth Cole), created Facebook groups dedicated to slamming and slandering teachers.
When teachers logged onto Facebook anonymously and saw what students were writing about them, they told school administrators they were being viciously attacked online. When parents were notified, they were mad as hell--not at their kids, but at the teachers. One parent said, "What you did was like breaking into my
daughter's room and reading her diary." The teacher replied: "No, what your daughter did was the equivalent of posting something in Times Square."
In this teachers vs. students/parents battle, the students and parents definitely won this round. Although one student in the Facebook scandal withdrew from school, the others received slaps on the wrist. Two kids served one-day suspensions; the rest were asked to say sorry. In fact, one of the Facebook ringleaders is now student body president.
What do you think? Should kids be able to say whatever they want on their Facebook pages, or should they be held accountable?
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Email10 comments so far | Post a comment now >>
Most adults in our society don’t have any respect for our leaders (for example the crowd booing our president when he threw the first pitch at a baseball game). Why should these same parents expect their children to respect those who have authority over them? I am all for freedom of speech. But at what point is it all just about disrespect? We don’t have to agree with the decisions our leaders make, we don’t even have to like them. But we do need to respect them, and I for one will be teaching that to my kids.
- Ginny
Amen Ginny!
- April
If teens are truly mini-adults in the making, they’re gonna have to learn to draw the line between voicing their opinion and disrespecting someone. Teachers for the most part aren’t full public figures like politicians whose job performance CAN publicly be critiqued—BUT WITH PROOF as well.
- Nelinda
these are kids talking smack about their teacher. It’s been happening for ages in hushed tones in hallways and notes. We are living in a different time. the internet and facebook are just another channel of communication these days. if kids were caught passing a note about their teacher they would probably get a slap on the wrist too… but this isn’t even in school. kids will be kids. yes they need to learn better, but most of us just figure out how stupid the whole highscool gossip melodrama was with age. it’s something we grow out of. I don’t think anyone is in the wrong here. the teachers have a right to look and the students have a right to talk. its their choice if they want to use that right for something so silly and pointless.
- Anonymous
Do I think kids should be accountable for what they are willing to write and present to others? Doesn’t matter, they will, just like everyone else. If you don’t want people to know for certain what you think, you don’t commit it to writing. An utterance is deniable, writing with your name on it is not. The question is, Who should hold them accountable? Is there anything libelous in there? I’m not lawyer, so this is not fact by any means, but opinions are exempt from libel, so long as you don’t make unsupportable, or unsupported, statements, last I checked. “My teacher is mean” is an opinion, “My teacher called me names in class” is fuzzier only because it depends on witness testimony, “My teacher banged the principal in the bathroom” requires evidence to avoid being actionable. If it is an opinion only, I’m sorry that it hurt someone’s feelings, but they do, in fact, have a right to their own opinion, and the school should not be empowered to keep them from expressing their own, nonactionable, opinions on their own time. Actionable opinions are, of course, actionable. Should the parents hold them accountable? I should hope so, but it is not my place to tell them how to do their job, unless we are now defining allowing your child to cuss on the internet as child abuse. As a parent, I feel you have an obligation to teach your children proper behavior, but the fact is that posting on FaceBook is the equivalent not of posting on the large signs of TimeSquare, but of putting one pinned up notice on one billboard in one restaurant booth in TimeSquare. Could everyone in New York read it? Yes, but very few will ever come into the possibility of contact with it, and few of those will bother to read it. FaceBook has 9 million users (according to the teacher with the comparison) and, while I know her pain is important to her, the teaching abilities of one teacher at an extremely exclusive private school are not going to interest all 9 million people. Seriously, when was the endorsement of the guy you ran into on the street enough to change your opinion? Most people look at a foul mouthed teenager and see a foul mouthed teenager, not a responsible, well reasoned adult argument.
- Karen
First of all kids need to vent sometimes. And Facebook is the way this group chose to do it. So they were not intending any kind of harm towards the teacher. Like and earlier post said it is equivalent to writing a letter and passing it in the hallway. I have a facebook, and it is NOTHING like posting it on a Billboard. For one only your friends or people in your network can see your page. So even if Facebook had 9 million viewers not everyone on facebook can see these kids pages. I think this whole thing is dumb and the teacher should get over it and move on. Student will always be talking about their teachers its just how things work.
- Chelci
Well, if it is determined that the it is not wrong for these children/young adults, or they are given a minor disciplinary action, you would think that it would then be alright for that same teacher to be able to go online, give her opinion on that childs abilities, along with their parents, and etc, whether in her opinion that child could be counted on for a job in the future and so on and so on….why not do it if there is only going to be that same slap on the hand for the teacher?
- stone
You should hear what teachers say about other teachers. Makes you wonder if those teachers deserve respect. Respect must be earned.
- Juana Venada
It starts with a parent teaching a three year old that is it cute and funny to act ignorant(the Bush video), and winds up with a bunch of spolied kids thinking that they can say and do anything they want because they are SOOOOOO SPECIAL. The sad reality is that these kids will not be successful in life becasue they have not earned anything for themselves, but have been handed everything based on the accomplishments of their parents, or what or who the parents can buy. The parents will be shocked one day when little Johnnie or Susie tells them F*** OFF, as they have been taught that they are ALWAYS right, that no one deserves respect, not even their own parents.
- Prof Educator
What if it gets to the “Hey, we should get her fired” point? I’ll be staying tuned to that Facebook.
- teacher
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