I have been biting my tongue. I have seen too much of it on Twitter and through social media in teacher blogs that going into a new year, I want to be able to say I at least said something. Many times we go past the line of constructive criticism and are comments are disrespectful.
For example, I recently saw a tweet that referred to another teacher’s blog post as “crap” (they did not use the term crap). This was made by another educator on Twitter. If we saw a student do that to another, would we think that is appropriate. Granted, I did not agree with the article, but if we are truly are on here to “learn”, comments like that mean nothing. If we are to push education further, a comment left discussing alternatives to the ideas used and how their could be a better way would have been more helpful. Not only would they have been more helpful to the author for reflection, but also to the one commenting. Sharing our understanding with others, helps our own learning (is that not what we always tell our students?).
I could have easily linked the twitter comment on this post, but would I be any better “outing” someone on my blog than the person that made the comment. Our code of conduct within our union says that if we have a problem with another educator, we talk to them directly. I do not think it would go over well with my staff if I publicly ridiculed the ideas of others. Is this not amplified on the Internet? The thing I do know about comments such as this actually make the person who made the comment look worse than the people they are publicly ridiculing. Karma remembers.
I remember getting ready to present at the Reform Symposium thinking about the ISTE presentation and watching the Twitter feed of the opening keynote. At the time I did not think much of it, but I remember it being quite harsh. Then came my presentation. Although the feedback was very positive on the Internet, I remember being terrified before and after the presentation going back and looking through the tweets. What if this was a student giving a presentation that bombed? Would it be acceptable to harshly criticize in a public forum during the presentation when the child has no chance to respond? Like our students, we all have parents, family, and friends. We all have people that care about us and we would feel embarrassed in front of with these comments.
I have been in conversations with my brother Dr. Alec Couros regarding this and how being an “echo chamber” is not helpful either. I 100% agree with this as well. Ideas need to be challenged in a respectful manner, just as we (should) teach our students. This is where real learning comes from. The whole reason that we are moving towards blogfolios for our students is so that they have the chance to share ideas and thoughts with one another. What would be your expectation for your students? Do we have the same expectation for ourselves?
As educators, we are the role models of behaviour so it is important that we act the way our students expect to act. In an article that was shared with my by Sarah Edson entitled, “There’s Only One Way To Stop A Bully”, it states:
…our research on child development makes it clear that there is only one way to truly combat bullying. As an essential part of the school curriculum, we have to teach children how to be good to one another, how to cooperate, how to defend someone who is being picked on and how to stand up for what is right.
If we are treating one another in a defamatory way, are we really the ones to teach this etiquette to our students?
While I am in the process of working with my staff to use more social media themselves, how reluctant will they be if they know that they can be harshly criticized in 140 characters or less? This will cause a huge challenge to the reluctant user if they find themselves in this situation.
Some of my own personal rules for my presence on the Internet include not harshly criticizing anyone on Twitter. Yes there are those instances where my love for Wham and wearing capris are made fun of on Twitter but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about saying another educator’s post is terrible on Twitter. I publicly praise articles, but I know that any tweet I send out could be misconstrued so I am cognizant of this. I try to treat all educators, no matter where they are from, that they are in my own school union, and treat them with the same code of ethics that I would follow there.
Yes if you are posting your ideas in blogs such as this, they should be open to constructive criticism. I consider that part of the reason I choose to share these ideas in the forum I do.
To the teacher that I watched get so harshly criticized, I apologize for not saying anything to the fellow educator (privately) at the time or even sharing my thoughts on your post. At that moment, I was really no better then the person who was so publicly criticizing you. We often learn from our mistakes and I promise I will do my best to learn from this one.
