The Houston Chronicle has a great piece on blogging teachers -- ones that are much more education-oriented in their blogging than I am. It was interesting to see what some of the folks I read regularly have to say.

After long days of grading papers and disciplining rowdy children, a growing number of tech-savvy teachers are creating online journals to vent about the stresses of the profession.

Educators who have already embraced the technology — called blogs (short for web logs) — find themselves walking a fine, virtual line of conduct. They strive to entertain and inform, but can't violate their school districts' ethics policies or federal laws designed to protect students' confidentiality.

Most teachers who blog have opted to do so underground — refusing to cite their names, workplaces or other identifying details — to avoid potential professional pitfalls.

"School administrators tend to be pretty vindictive and they don't like people with different ideas from them. People who speak out are not regarded very highly," said Mike in Texas, an elementary school science teacher from East Texas, who started an online diary two years ago as a way of defending public education.

Though he often waxes about the value of the system, Mike in Texas has been known to rant about the "Mother of All Idiot Parents" or his boss, the "Clueless Principal."

"Some days I think I would like to have her job because I know how I would do things, and some days I wouldn't want that job for anything," he wrote in a recent entry. "Or as we say, some days you're the pigeon, some days you're the statue."

I don't blog about school very often, and I follow the trend above of not identifying anything about students. Indeed, other than talking about how I really do teach the best kids in the world, I say very little about them or my colleagues (about half-a-dozen of whom read my blog from time to time). I have had a couple of posts which indirectly identify my school and/or district (one noting the shooting death of one of our students, another commenting on a former student making good in professional sports, and a couple when the district has been in the news), but I agree with the comment about ethics -- I cannot be releasing confidential information, so I avoid the temptation of doing so by NUT writing about that part of my life.

Posted by: Greg at 11:21 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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