I would think a person should be fired for poor performance and not because they do something on their own time that you personally do not like.
Again, how beholden must a teacher be to the whims of the parents of the students he or she teaches?
Willing to bet there are a lot of teachers out there who I disagree strongly with on any number of issues. I wouldn’t try to get them fired for that alone.
It’s not the parents who seek to make teachers ther role models. Teachers, due to their position as educators, are especially prone to being looked up to, most especially by young children, whether their parents like it or not. So it behooves them to act like role models in many ways.
I have a huge problem with the idea in the bolded section, but don’t take issue with the first clause. I think the bolded clause, when held by a state institution(instead of an individual), is fundamentally incompatible with democracy. If authorities can legally take punitive actions against those who peaceably advocate for the legalization of currently illegal acts, then we’ve turned any sort of reform movement into de facto sedition.
Consider the following:
A public school teacher being fired for being pro-life in her private writings outside the school’s purview and hours.
A state-employed pharmacist being fired for promoting legalization of pot outside business hours.
A prison guard advocating for immigration reform, including amnesty for current illegals.
These are all normal actions, undertaken by thousands of people every day. Are you saying it’s rational, perhaps even desirable, for states to terminate the employment of anyone who speaks out against laws currently on the books?
Enjoy,
Steven
The only way I could see it being a legitimate issue was if it became enough of a distraction in the classroom to prevent her from being able to control it and do her job, or maybe if she was teaching older kids capable of sexually harrassing her for it. It’s easy (and philosophically correct, IMO) to say that those are behavioral issues on the part of the kids, and should not be blamed on the teacher, but for practical purposes it doesn’t really matter. It’s easier to move a teacher than move a classful of students.
Having said that, I don’t think it should matter, and I think some of the quoted parents are hysterical idiots, but once it’s out there, it’s a difficult thing to deal with. If you’re working with kids. you’re working in an environment where parents are going to be ultra sensitive – and often irrationally so – but she should have had the sense to realize that before she made it public.
If that was today’s lesson plan, I’d agree with you.
If it’s a letter to a newspaper, and her lesson plans are devoid of questionable sentiments, then I cannot agree.
But removing her sends a different lesson: Lie, and stick with that lie. It teaches that honesty is not only not the best policy, but that it will be punished. Which is arguably true in our society, but is it really what you want to teach your kids?
So, your solution is to “prove” your position correct by trying to “trap” her yourself? Women get out of prostitution, that offends your dogma that women who go into prostitution are trapped, so you intend to hound them out of their non-sex industry careers? I suppose for your next educational endeavor you can prove to your kids that riding motorcycles is dangerous by beating on some motorcycle rider with a club.
You would need to make some assumptions that when she’s in the classroom her opinions and behavior would differ from what she’s doing in public. If she’s publicly stating that she can decide when to break the law, I have no confidence that she keeps that opinion to herself when in the class. Of course she’s not discussing prostitution in the class, but there are many other laws and rules that should be followed. Based on her public behavior, I’m making the assumption that she also bends and fudges other laws and rules of the school as she sees fit.
For example, if the school has a rule that no food can be eaten in the hallway, then no food can be eaten in the hallway. It doesn’t mean that it’s okay to eat in the hallway if you think that rule is stupid and you’re really hungry.
There’s a difference between saying “I think this law should be changed” and “I think this law is stupid and I disregard it”. The former is part of a good society and the latter is illegal. If all she did was come out in support of the legalization of prostitution, I don’t think she should have been fired. But her attitude of being entitled to break whatever laws she wants means I don’t feel she should be in the role of teaching children.
Couldn’t you wait for evidence she does these things in school? There is no evidence she encourages these things as part of her job.
I’m willing to accept adults do all types of things we wouldn’t want our children to be taught but until you can show me evidence they are actually teaching children these things I’m not going to hold it against them.
I’m not asking her to lie. Just shut up about it.
Where the hell is that coming from ?
Funny, that’s not at all the framework within which we were taught about the U.S. civil rights movement or the movement that led to Indian independence in my grade school. We were taught that sometimes the right way to get the law changed is to disobey it (peacefully, but disobey it nonetheless).
A lawyer can be disbarred for stuff they do outside of their legal practice. A doctor can lose his license for stuff he does out side his practice, a priest can be defrocked for stuff he does in his personal time. I hold teachers in very high esteem and I hold them to high standards.
You can continue to see teaching as just a job. I consider it a profession in the classical sense.
I would hope that one day the government of New York makes it a crime to campaign for Republican candidates for office that advocate changing the tax code. After all, they’re supporting changing a law. Serves those damn teachers right, thinking the First Amendment applies to them - I mean, the fucking nerve. After all, it’s their job to raise our kids exactly like we would, since we don’t have time to do it.
Didn’t John Rocker get in trouble at work for saying negative things about the people of New York City?
What’s not ok about it?
It leads to food particles in the hallway making it more difficult for the janitorial staff to keep up, which, in turn, potentially leads to pests such as roaches, rats, or children.
The doctor and lawyer have to adhere to an explicit set of ethical guidelines that pertain to their jobs and they know exactly what those rules are. This case would not apply to either of them I do not think. A doctor or lawyer is free to advocate a position on their own time as they like.
The priest is a special case. Think of him as being hired to lobby for the Catholic Church to the public. He is supposed to push the church’s agenda and this would seem to run counter to that. If I hired you to lobby for me on positions X, Y & Z and I found you were actually lobbying for positions A, B & C instead I would fire you for cause. You are not doing the job you were hired to do.
Teachers do have ethical guidelines and none of those were broken that I can see in this case. If it were she would not just be losing her job she’d be on the block to lose her teaching license and I have not heard that she is.
Bottom line the issue here is some uptight parents have their panties in a wad. Nothing more.
I’d like to interject something:
I think prostitution is bad AND I think it should be legal and licensed. That’s not incongruent because legalizing it actually takes a lot of the lethality out of it for the prostitutes themselves, and licensure helps to reduce disease transmission.
None of us here like it, but people are going to sell their sexual services for money, and other people are going to buy those same services. This is as predictable as the sun rising in the East.
I think that firing the schoolteacher sends a message to the kids that if you really mess up, you can never come back and be part of “normal society” again.
Some of those kids in that class might end up doing really bad things-hard drugs, prostitution, gangbanging, felonies. Teaching them that** if they do bad things they will never be allowed to rise above that for the rest of their lives** is also not a lesson you want them to learn.
Without reading the whole thread, I’ll give my initial impression of this story. My sense is that she has a criminal past, and is not terribly apologetic about it. In fact, she seems to be in support of other people indulging the same crime, while working to get it decriminalized.
I wouldn’t want someone with a conscience that elastic teaching my child. To my way of thinking, it’s a matter of character. She hasn’t expressed any remorse, or given us any reason to believe that she regrets her law-breaking ways.
There are many things which I would do if they were not illegal. I might even actively support the decriminalization of those acts if a movement presented itself. (Driving 90 mph on an otherwise empty highway comes to mind.) But I wouldn’t/don’t just go ahead and do them, and openly defend having done them, while they are illegal.
Sorry for the poor grammar, I’m not sure how to fix it. Hopefully you get my drift. . .
I bet Rosa Parks was not terribly apologetic about breaking the law either.
Glad the department store where she worked fired her. She had it coming being the unrepentant scofflaw that she is and kids come into the store! Think of the children! :rolleyes:
I’d say more she believes in supporting people who are committing the same crime, rather than suggesting people go out and commit it.
There’s a lot of people you wouldn’t want teaching your child, then. I don’t remember the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., for example, expressing remorse or regretting his law-breaking ways. Nor Ghandi. Nor Homer Plessy. Nor Rosa Parks. And there are many more. Hell, I’m not remorseful nor regretful for any of the laws I have broken, and I think I am eligible to teach.
Of course, I am not comparing the campaign to legalize prostitution with the Civil Rights movement, or comparing her admission of past turnign of tricks with Rosa Parks’ refusal to sit at the back of the bus. But your suggestign that remorse and regret is necessary is a recipe for subservience to the state that I don’t want my children learning.
I don’t expect my son’s teachers to apologize for having commited victimless crimes, nor do I expect them to stop campaigning to strike those laws. Especially when those laws, such as those on prostitution, are based on a very sexist view of the place of women. I’d think the children might gain more from having a teacher willing to fight that sort of battle than they would be harmed by having their morals (more likely their parents’ morals) offended.