Also somewhat ironic

There's nothing wrong with complaining about your students on a blog.

I'm not researching this, so if you came across more/different more info, please share.

Apparently a high-school English teacher has been suspended and may lose her job because she complained about her students in general (not by name) on her blog (she also didn't name the school). In one post she said:

"They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."

Sounds like my students. Some are wonderful and a pleasure to teach. But when only three students bother to do the reading for the day's discussion, the wonderful ones disappear. And I'm not even talking about the few who beg for multiple chances, don't turn in the work, and miss many, many classes. The majority of students will do as little as possible to get by and complain when I expect them to think and give them challenging material.* (Of course it's hard! I'm asking you to push yourself. You wouldn't be learning anything if we only wrote the kind of papers you're already good at writing!) And my students are legally adults!

Apparently the students found her blog and turned her in. A former student said:

"Whatever influenced her to say what she did is evidence as to why she simply should not teach," [redacted because this isn't about the student] wrote in an e-mail to the AP. "I just thought it was completely inappropriate."

He continued: "As far as motivated high school students, she's completely correct. High school kids don't want to do anything. ... It's a teacher's job, however, to give students the motivation to learn."

I think this student's comment aptly demonstrates the entitlement she complained about. The student assumes that students can't motivate themselves. The student also assumes teachers can't be effective teachers if they are annoyed by their students, that being frustrated by our students means we should be barred from teaching. (I can't imagine what this must be like for a high school teacher. Teenagers are just horrible human beings; I say this having been one myself. I wouldn't have wanted to teach me, and I was a good kid.) This quote also explains why motivational-teacher movies like Dead Poets Society hurt us. A teacher's job is not to inspire. It's really not. We are lucky when we have an inspiring teacher, but that is not her/his job. That's just her/him.

Because her blog has been taken down, I haven't read it and don't want to spend the time tracking down its ghost pages. I don't know if she crosses any lines, but calling your students whiney and annoying is just part of teaching. Humans are whiney and annoying, especially when they have to work. Learning is work, but you can't motivate people to learn. You can bribe them to do tasks or punish them when they don't, but learning is a self-motivated action.

It is so emotionally draining to teach; I couldn't do it if I didn't have an outlet for my frustration.


*there are also a few who are terrified of failing. I mean panicked-emails-in-the-middle-of-the-night-that-make-me-glad-I-don't-give-out-my-home-number terrified. I mean boxes-of-tissues-strategically-placed-around-the-office-because-of-all-the-crying terrified. Stop scaring your children! It's okay for them to fail if they try. Grades are just bribes; learning is what is important. (The students who learn the most in my classes are not the A students.) And I say this as an insecure people-pleaser with anxiety problems because I may not be smart enough and someone might not like me. I know that of which I speak.