I don't blog about school, and generally limit myself to speech on social and political issues that merit the highest level of First Amendment protection? Here's why.

It's almost like Googling someone: Log on to Facebook. Join the Washington, D.C., network. Search the Web site for your favorite school system. And then watch the public profiles of 20-something teachers unfurl like gift wrap on the screen, revealing a sense of humor that can be overtly sarcastic or unintentionally unprofessional -- or both.

One Montgomery County special education teacher displayed a poster that depicts talking sperm and invokes a slang term for oral sex. One woman who identified herself as a Prince William County kindergarten teacher posted a satiric shampoo commercial with a half-naked man having an orgasm in the shower. A D.C. public schools educator offered this tip on her page: "Teaching in DCPS -- Lesson #1: Don't smoke crack while pregnant."

Just to be clear, these are not teenagers, the typical Internet scofflaws and sources of ceaseless discussion about cyber-bullying, sexual predators and so on. These are adults, many in their 20s, who are behaving, for the most part, like young adults.

But the crudeness of some Facebook or MySpace teacher profiles, which are far, far away from sanitized Web sites ending in ".edu," prompts questions emblematic of our times: Do the risque pages matter if teacher performance is not hindered and if students, parents and school officials don't see them? At what point are these young teachers judged by the standards for public officials?

In states including Florida, Colorado, Tennessee and Massachusetts, teachers have been removed or suspended for MySpace postings, and some teachers unions have begun warning members about racy personal Web sites. But as Facebook, with 70 million members, and other social networking sites continue to grow, scrutiny will no doubt spread locally.

The annals of teachers-gone-wild-on-the-Web include once-anonymous people who've done something outlandish with a blog or online video. Many people, especially in the Richmond area, remember high school art teacher Stephen Murmer, fired last year for painting canvasses with his buttocks in images on YouTube.

Of course, many of the tens of thousands of Washington area teachers put social networking sites or personal Web pages to constructive uses. Others push the limits.

I suffer from serious mixed emotions on such web pages. I'm a strong supporter of freedom of speech. However, I also recognize that we teachers are in a public role where our outside conduct can have an impact in our classrooms and schools.

Early on in my career, a colleague gave me some advice. It amounted to the following -- don't do anything where your students of their parents will find out about it if you don't want to explain it to your principal. Now this crusty old fellow was talking about patronizing the numerous bars and strip clubs that were to be found in one of the communities served by my school (something I didn't do -- but which had gotten a young ale teacher fired the previous year). But it was good advice -- and is even better advice in a day when all it takes is a few key-strokes and mouse-clicks to have activities exposed to the world.

Posted by: Greg at 10:46 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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