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BS: Your Career, Dead
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Subject: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 19 May 07 - 09:39 AM I can't believe the naivete of the current news coverage about the lady who wanted to be a schoolteacher whose dreams are all up in smoke because of what she posted about herself on MySpace. Wasn't it just yesterday that we all knew that what's posted on the internet can come back to bite you in the butt?!?!?!?!? Now it's covered as an issue of "fairness." I don't think so! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: skipy Date: 19 May 07 - 09:55 AM Depends what she posted! Skipy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 19 May 07 - 10:03 AM ... and just what resolution the pictures were... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: katlaughing Date: 19 May 07 - 10:16 AM For those of us who don't have a clue what your are talking about it: Teacher in training Stacy Snyder was denied her education degree on the eve of graduation when Millersville University apparently found pictures on her MySpace page "promoting underage drinking." As a result, the 27-year-old mother of two had her teaching certificate withheld and was granted an English degree instead. In response, Snyder has filed a Federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania university asking for her education diploma and certificate along with $75,000 in damages. So what, you're probably asking yourself, could have been in this picture that was so abhorrent as to make Stacy Snyder unworthy of teaching children? Was she force-feeding a 6-year-old bourbon from a bottle or spiking a middle school dance's punch? Not even close. The picture in question turned out to be of her at a Halloween party in 2005 dressed as a pirate and drinking an indeterminate liquid "from a plastic 'Mr. Goodbar' cup." But underneath was a caption which read "Drunken Pirate" and that caption apparently lead faculty to assume she was too "unprofessional" to educate young minds. Word was sent to the Millersville administration, and Snyder's "lifelong dream" of being a teacher ended less than a day before being achieved. Now, clearly schools take underage drinking seriously. Their primary objective, after all, is the education and well-being of the students in their care, and as such they do whatever they see fit to achieve it. However, it seems unclear how keeping her out of the classroom because of an ambiguous photograph helps in that mission. Are public schools really attempting to keep students under the illusion that no members of their faculty have ever been under the influence of alcohol? If so would, say, a MySpace page of wedding photos with a faculty member making a toast, be grounds for termination? Obviously this is an extreme example and there are limits and lines that must be drawn between acceptable and unacceptable, but it is difficult to imagine how Ms. Snyder's "Drunken Pirate" would fall on the inappropriate side. Given the shortage of teachers in America and the difficulty in recruiting quality applicants to the profession, it seems like the school may have compromised its primary objective for the sake of unrealistic zero-tolerance principals. By Emil Steiner | May 1, 2007; 12:10 PM ET | Category: OFF/beat Politics Have to say, if the above is accurate, I agree with the writer. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: mack/misophist Date: 19 May 07 - 10:17 AM She posted a picture of herself at a costume party, drinking out of a paper cup. It was labeled 'drunken pirate'. Her college used this as an excuse to with-hold her teaching certificate. She was of legal age at the time the picture was taken. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 19 May 07 - 10:24 AM how could the picture as described "promote underage drinking"? I wonder what a lawyer would say to that reason for denying her the certificate she earned. Looks like the school authorities chose their words carelessly. good luck to her. sandra |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: katlaughing Date: 19 May 07 - 10:47 AM HERE'S the terrible picture. Ridiculous! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Rapparee Date: 19 May 07 - 10:48 AM Someone, as Tennyson said, had blundered. I don't think that she'll have to teach or do anything much for the rest of her life. The only question, as my wife the lawyer says, is "How many zeroes on the check?" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 19 May 07 - 10:58 AM Obviously she has now 2 degrees - the one she worked for and the one they gave her gratis - unasked... :-) Hey if they can give out Honorary Doctorates free - they can give out any other degrees they want too! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Alice Date: 19 May 07 - 10:58 AM I hope she wins. That was a total over reaction. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Sandra in Sydney Date: 19 May 07 - 10:59 AM the only thing 'wrong' with that pic is the red eye, & that's literally a technicality. The rest of the face looks like a normal everyday face, with nary a sign of drunkenness. I hope she gets lots of zeros in her payment. sandra |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Metchosin Date: 19 May 07 - 11:03 AM I thought Prohibition had ended in the US....or perhaps the University is the exclusive supplier of teachers to Saudi Arabia.....nah, she'd be wearing a veil....wouldn't she? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 19 May 07 - 11:06 AM Not long ago I heard some religious nutter complaining that evil people were trying to turn America into "a secular society" - I thought that's what the US Constitution did... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 19 May 07 - 02:13 PM She will win the lawsuit. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Don Firth Date: 19 May 07 - 02:29 PM How do they know it wasn't coffee in the cup she was drinking from? Don Firth |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: RangerSteve Date: 19 May 07 - 02:35 PM It's a Mr. Goodbar cup. She's promoting eating, and possibly, overindulging in chocolate, which leads to obesity in children. OH MY GOD, INNOCENT CHILDREN WILL SEE THE PICTURE AND THINK IT'S OK TO BE FAT AND DRUNK. STRING HER UP. Better yet, string up the people running that dimwit college. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: kendall Date: 19 May 07 - 02:45 PM I had a teacher who came to school reeking of booze. He was one of the best teachers I ever had. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 19 May 07 - 02:48 PM In getting an MDiv, one can only attend seminary to get the MDiv with continuing Bishop's approval for the three years that degree involves. That approval process is long and arduous from the start and continues until authorization to be ordained, because it's necessary in order to receive episcopal endorsement to preach, teach, and practice the faith on real live people. This has always been the case in hierarchical religious careers, and is even more the case nowadays with rampant sex abuse scandals, risk management professionsals, malpractice insurance, etc. For example, a background check is now part of the process early on, as are psych evals (at least in our denomination). If a teaching certificate is governed by similar requirements, there's the issue. The teacher candidate may have indeed earned an academic degree, but what was expected for a teaching certificate? Take a look at it from the view of a parent whose child has been caught up in a scandal involving their teacher, a teacher whose certificate has led to tenure and who cannot be removed from the faculty without a lengthy and messy process. Say you are the parent of such a child, and you find that a certificate to teach was given a few years back to that person, even though the grantors of the cert knew that there was a clear public record of her unsuitablity to work with very young children (which may have included more than the MySpace item and may have been investigated more fully, appropriately, and factually). Don't tell me that we here at Mudcat wouldn't be set to howling over how could she have "slipped through the cracks" for so long! My son fell into such a situation. My office in the school system just happened to be next door to the classroom in which he spent most of each day. I could HEAR his teacher's abusive approach verbally. Her targets were always little boys (and often, BTW, African-American little boys). I could hear her shrill voice raised to tell them they were stupid. One day she dragged my son bodily into my office in mid-rant to tell me how awful he was, shoving and scraping him in through the partly-opened door! Although the principal was a friend and colleague, and he believed my account, there was very little he could do to affect her tenure unless he saw these things himself. Now, he'd inherited her from his predecessor and the stories about her were common knowledge among parents and faculty. Kids would be moved out of her room if they could not tolerate the abuse. The story offered was that she just had been teaching for far too long and wouldn't resign till she qualified for retirement benefits. Maybe she should never have been teaching, at all. A, I think we don't know all there is to know about this individual case. B, I think it's naive to think our online lives will not and should not play a part in our careers. C, Get real! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Jeri Date: 19 May 07 - 03:40 PM It's naive to think nobody will notice the stuff about us on the Internet. I also think it would take a pretty sick, paranoid mind to think THAT picture, with or without a caption, might foil one's aspirations of becoming a teacher. I have lots of pictures of people drinking things. I have some photos of people drunk. I even have some embarrassing photos of a sober people. I wouldn't think any one of them are bad enough to keep a person from teaching. From The Chronicle of Higher Education: Although Ms. Snyder was of legal drinking age when the photo was taken, Millersville administrators deemed the image "unprofessional," and they refused to award her an education degree and the teaching certificate that came along with it. (Instead they issued her a degree in English.)A picture of a person drinking at an adult party, even -gasp- alcohol, 'UNPROFESSIONAL'?! Anybody here even think a college student at a party should have to worry that a picture of them doing nothing more than drinking out of a cup would lose them their future career because it didn't look professional? She DID have a pirate hat on, but she wasn't dancing around naked with a lampshade on her head. I'd be willing to bet that pictures of the college administrators apparently drinking an unseen substance could be found. (Probably without pirate hats though.) I also think she'll win the case, and I wouldn't rule out the possibility of another college issuing her the certificate out of an abhorence of close-minded unjust, control freakiness. (You should see some of MY college pictures, and I STILL got a security clearance!) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: gnu Date: 19 May 07 - 03:41 PM "A, I think we don't know all there is to know about this individual case." So??? String her up based on conjecture that there is "more"??? Sorry, Susan... I guess I just don't get your point here. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 19 May 07 - 03:48 PM "A picture of a person drinking at an adult party" If that's all it takes, then there's the reason to impeach Bush. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 19 May 07 - 04:08 PM First, my point is that this is a thread that was started about how the internet can affect our careers, not just about the case currently being ballyhoo'ed. Of course I don't think the particular photo should be sole cause for denying a degree... But there is a difference between a degree and a certificate to teach, and I'm curous what's actually underneath the actions the college took. Of course there's more to it-- nothing in life is as simple as the news stories about this case make it out to be. So I'd like to know more, and I think it's naive to think that what you post online can't affect your career. (This is just the latest story about THAT.) I also think Mudcat has a healthy but sometimes overzealous orientation toward individual rights, an orientation that can obscure the bigger picture. If people are innocent until proven guilty-- like the teacher who has gotten all the press on this one so far-- then isn't the school innocent until proven guilty, too? Not at Mudcat. We want to uphold RIGHTS here, as the independent-minded folkies we are, so we're always far more likely to come down on the side of the poor little wronged ed student vs. The Big Bad Institution. With no information other than her allegations, so far Mudcat's willing to convict the school in advance of the lawsuit. But I promise you, no school's chancellor woulkd allow them to put the whole college's finanical future at risk with an unfounded denial of a degree. They may not be in a position to tell us all, so I am sure blogs everywhere are out for blood. I'm gonna take the crazy position of actually waiting to see what happens with the lawsuit, thanks. And I promise you, when it's a kid who's victimized by an unfit teacher, the ship will tilt the other way-- with just as little information as we have about this case. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Jeri Date: 19 May 07 - 04:12 PM I think there's likely something going on beneath the surface as well, as if they were just looking for the slimmest excuse to not grant her the certificate. The problem is that it's the slim excuse that has to stand in court, not the vague under-surface whatevers. She might be a complete loon, but at the moment, she's coming off as the 'good guy'. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: GUEST,dianavan Date: 19 May 07 - 06:00 PM This is insane! We drink after school (in the staff room) on St. Patrick's Day and at the end of the year as well. I doubt if its legal but who would bother to make an issue of it? There is no law against alcoholic consumption at a party and nobody (including the college) has a right to deny her a teaching degree based on on an internet photo of the teacher. Even if she were an alcoholic, a picture on the internet proves nothing. She is doing nothing illegal. Susan - If you have issues about a teacher and the principal doesn't support you, you have two choices: 1)Contact the teachers professional body and lodge a complaint 2) Move. 3) My guess is that you stayed, made a nuisance of yourself and embarrassed your child. Were the problems resolved? To hammer this teacher (the drunken pirate) with a personal issue you have had in the past makes no sense. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 19 May 07 - 07:35 PM Don't you guys have trades unions any more? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: heric Date: 19 May 07 - 08:00 PM Not for students. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Sorcha Date: 19 May 07 - 08:09 PM Hey, our kids school had a teacher who kept his flask in the bottom of his desk drawer. He taught more drunk than he did sober. Retired, finally, with tenure of course. There was also the teacher at the same school who'd give the girls all A's if they wore revealing clothes. Our daughter refused and got D's when she actually deserved B's. It would have done no good to complain, the Admin already knew about it. Only took his wife 25 years to divorce him. There was also the wrestling coach who patted front bottoms instead of back bottoms. Our son experienced that just once...said, if you do that again, I'll deck you. Coach never did. Small towns. Nothing much ever 'happens' there, but what you hear makes up for it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: skipy Date: 19 May 07 - 08:15 PM No, she must not teach, she is evil, she likes a drink, she joins in, she dresses up and takes part, she could well become part of a team! She must be evil! Good luck to her. Skipy |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: GUEST,.gargoyle Date: 19 May 07 - 09:41 PM Read "North Star" (current best seller)
This woman had more than her knickers twisted into a knot.
Sincerely,
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 19 May 07 - 10:46 PM oops, corrected post: Susan - If you have issues about a teacher and the principal doesn't support you, you have two choices: 1)Contact the teachers professional body and lodge a complaint 2) Move. 3) My guess is that you stayed, made a nuisance of yourself and embarrassed your child. Were the problems resolved? LOL-- yes, they were. Since you "asked"-- In my job, I reported directly to the district superintendent and the principal was a good friend-- I had credibility. When this teacher pulled this, I raised my eyebrows from behind my desk, asked her to let go of my child, and thanked her for her report. She left my office (and my son) to go back to her classroom. From then on, I simply used my telephone: I dialed down from my office, to the principal's, when there were goings-on he should hear, and he came right up to hear and see for himself. She retired that summer. THAT was between THEM. I never bothered mentioning it to my boss. The next year I was given a much larger office down the hall when a classroom became vacant. I only needed half of it, so I moved a large, comfy couch and a folding table in, and decorated it in bright but restful colors. It was across from the formal teachers' lounge.... but I had better coffee, an intentionally encouraging attitude about their inherent power as teachers, and a listening ear. And so my office became the de facto faculty and staff lounge as well as a place to bring behavior-disordered kids who needed the occasional kindly break from their classroom, also across the hall. These teachers made sure to let me know, tactfully, that they appreciated how I had handled the "Doris" situation the year before. (Of course they also appreciated the jobs my referendum-passing work had helped them retain the year before I went on the supt.'s staff; about 1/3 of the faculty were scheduled to be cut until that referendum unexpectedly passed.) Later that year, I quietly mediated a staff revolt/principal's demands over new curricula being introduced along with a prematurely-"required" whole new teaching method the faculty had not yet gotten confident about trying. It kept that good faculty and that good principal out of the disciplinary tracks they were pushing one another towards, and allowed for a better working realtionship between them such that the principal became the district's new director of personnel and contract negotiator the following year instead of losing his job. He served effectively in that role for quite a long time. Since you asked. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Big Al Whittle Date: 19 May 07 - 11:32 PM college is doing her a favour....awful job! Most of my teacher friends simply forbid their children to even consider it as a choice of profession. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: GUEST,dianavan Date: 20 May 07 - 05:00 AM Susan - That story is a little different from your post of 19 May 07 - 02:48 PM, "Although the principal was a friend and colleague, and he believed my account, there was very little he could do to affect her tenure unless he saw these things himself. Now, he'd inherited her from his predecessor and the stories about her were common knowledge among parents and faculty. Kids would be moved out of her room if they could not tolerate the abuse. The story offered was that she just had been teaching for far too long and wouldn't resign till she qualified for retirement benefits." Regardless, it has nothing to do with the student who has been denied her teaching certificate for a perfectly innocent photo on the internet. Like I said before, your experience has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. It doesn't even correlate, let alone prove cause. Yes, there are plenty of teachers who should never have chosen to teach but this is not the case with this young woman. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: JohnInKansas Date: 20 May 07 - 05:32 AM Re the original question: Millersville University A quick look does not indicate this is a "university for nut-cases." I didn't immediately find what they say about requirements for a teaching certificate, but in most states there are fairly specific regulations regarding the issuance of such certificates. It does appear to be a member of the Pennsylvania State School System, and not a private college that might be more inclined to impose unusual "moral criteria." Millersville University Statement on Ms. Stacy Snyder Lawsuit - - - is typically non-committal. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 07 - 09:05 AM ... your experience has nothing to do with the topic of this thread. It doesn't even correlate, let alone prove cause.... Well, since I started the thread, I think my whole life experience has to do with the topic of it. It doesn't have much to do with your attemtp to HIJACK the thread into a personal attack on me, that's true.... but you did ask what happened in the situation I used as an example about the ways we look at issues, so I indulged you with a little slice of the reality of my experience. Remember, YOU ASKED. And "prove cause"? I don't have that role, or that interest in the individual situation. A lot of folks are limiting their responses to their feelings about the individual situation they have been hearing about in this thread and in the news. I invite a broader discussion-- if people don't care to have it, of course that's up to them. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 07 - 10:57 AM Here's the skinny on how the school can evaluate this teacher candidate. In the certification process, the applicant must submit many itmes to their file. One is "COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY VERIFICATION FORM PDE 338 C (HTML) or FORM PDE 338 C (PDF) Completion of Approved Education Program For Use by Applicants Prepared by PA Colleges/Universities." How important is that form? See the fine print: PRINCIPAL PURPOSE(S): To be used for registration and maintenance of records of all certificated persons as having met qualifications for teaching. ROUTINE USES: Used by the Pennsylvania Department of Education for the (1) evaluation, registration, and maintenance of certification records, (2) identification and collection of criminal/disciplinary records for certified educators and candidates for certification, and (3) provision of certification data to authorized personnel and agencies. DISCLOSURE: Mandatory. Withholding requested SSAN will result in denial of a candidate's application for certification. In other words-- no form, no cert. This is parallel to requirement toward ordination in our denomination, BTW, as I indicated above might well be the case. And what's on that form that supports the school's action? This: PART B: PREPARING COLLEGE/UNIVERSITY RECOMMENDATION The endorsing signature of designated certification officer confirms that the candidate is known and regarded by the preparing institution as a person of good moral character and possesses those personal qualities and professional knowledge and skill which warrant issuance of the requested certificate. Bingo. "... AND possesses those personal qualities...." Remember that for professionals, admittance to the profession is a privilege, not a right. When you go to teacher school, you should know that this is going to be part of your reality as a teaching professional. Just like ordination-wannabe's-- Surprise!! You are going to be looked at and looked at, and you are going to find that your profession will have limitations placed upon you for the protection of the people who will be in your care, that apply to you in ways you may not like and that are not in place to safeguard fairness toward you, because it's not all about you but about your fitness to serve in the capacity to which you aspire, alongside others who have submitted themselves to those standards. It's not just about the hard work you did to earn the academic degree-- it's also going to be about whether you belong in the profession. The lawyers and judges who will now get involved in this lady's case have all had to meet similarly stringent requirements to be admitted to practice in their professions. This is simply the reality of professional life. MySpace doesn't really count towards a positive evaluation in professional life. Don't like fine print? It's what can keep your kids safe from unfit teaching candidates, clergy, and doctors. It's what keeps you safe from incompetent counsel and counselors. Human beans tend to like fine print when we are looking for a way to protect ourselves, but not so much when it's protecting others from us. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: artbrooks Date: 20 May 07 - 11:03 AM Thank you, Susan. I suspected that there was a clause like that somewhere in the process, but I appreciate your bringing it to the surface. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 20 May 07 - 11:17 AM So fine print can be exploited. This is a revelation? Remember, Susan, this case is supposedly based on encouraging underage drinking. Still waiting for any proof that this teacher did that. Do you feel that all teachers must be teetotalers in their private lives? As has been pointed out, it's already not that easy to attract and keep good teachers. This case, and any requirement like the above, will not help. Sure sounds like another school bureaucracy gone wild (soon to be a titillating TV series?) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: artbrooks Date: 20 May 07 - 11:39 AM The connection to underage drinking is fairly simple, if one has that kind of mind: Teacher drinks->teacher is supposed to be a role model->teacher's drinking encourages students to drink |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 20 May 07 - 11:43 AM Bureaucracy gone wild. QED. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 20 May 07 - 12:13 PM Then take the kids away from their parents. They learn about underaged drinking at home. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 07 - 12:14 PM Do you feel that all teachers must be teetotalers in their private lives? Life is a little more complicated than that. (Do I think members of Congress should never email with teenagers on private time?) Let me respond in terms of a situation in which I did play a role. At a conference that was, in part, a screening for admittance into the beginning of the ordination process, a potential candidate for the priesthood asked me if her Prozac would knock her out of the process. Her question demonstrated, right off, good judgement by asking about this, somewhat privately as an aside during a break, but not secretly. She asked me how to handle the situation-- not how to evade it, and not to keep her question secret. As one of the co-teachers of the class that had led to that workshop, I answered that while I could not speak for the governing body that would evaluate her, my best sense was that what would knock her out would not be the Prozac, but negelecting to volunteer the information that she had been prescribed it after the very difficult death of her dad. She did volunteer it with that commission as well as in her psych eval which she 'passed.' The question looked at by the governing commission concerned was, "How did that time support your spiritual life and your healing from the grief of your loss? And what would you say to a parishioner who asked you about it?" She was prepared to discuss that, and not looking for ways to hide either the Prozac or her inner experience. You see, what mattered was not the Prozac per se, but what is called in church circles 'the candidate's availability to the process' and her 'transparency.' The commission involved, of course, was only able to take that view because it is, essentially, a healthy one with positive dynamics. The balance of the process for that candidate to the priesthood has unfolded quite positively, and I look forward to attending her ordination next year with her class. Perfection is not required. Being realistic, however, is highly recommended. As I've steered by, "Bosses [in your profession] don't like surprises." Another example. "Will it be a problem that I was married 4 times?" "Probably not, but it will for SURE be a problem that you have already trumpeted your "life experience" as a lawyer without disclosing that you left the profession for some other profession when you were disbarred, and that your examining committee has been waiting to see whether you volunteer that. And it will be a problem that you assured your committee that you were ready for ministry and had moved on from your two previous marriages... when the courthouse records and the community's memory of you is that you lied last week on your marriage license application for your FIFTH marriage, that your new husband doesn't know about your marital record, and that your marriages and career failures have involved your very-public alcoholic meltdowns. And it will be a problem that your recovery process is not yet far enough along that you are able to use that recovery experience in your ministry to others struggling with addiction, because you are still covering yours up." So do I think teachers have to be teetotal? Of course not. I do think they need to be aware of how skittish the profession becomes every time a pretty young teacher shows up on CNN as a party animal as the background to her studnet-sex-abuse charges, and be smart enough especially in these times to keep a drinking party off one's own MySpace page. They say some women have paid their way through law school via a lucrative stint as an exotic dancer. More power to them-- but do you think it's a good idea to put it in their resumes? ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: jeffp Date: 20 May 07 - 12:36 PM I have a friend who performed for years at Renaissance Festivals as the "Merrie Minstrel," who sang about drinking and lasciviousness in all forms and was renowned for his on-the-spot making up of verses in response to audience ideas. In real life, he was, and still is, a middle school English teacher. He had to retire from performing a couple of years ago. Why? He no longer had time as his responsibilites at the school had increased substantially. I personally know several public school teachers who frequent the Ren Fest and have no qualms about drinking and partaking in bawdy entertainment. Withholding a certificate over that picture is absolutely ridiculous. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 20 May 07 - 12:46 PM Don't you guys have trades unions any more? Not for students. That really true? Strange country indeed! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 07 - 02:29 PM I personally know several public school teachers who frequent the Ren Fest and have no qualms about drinking and partaking in bawdy entertainment. Bet they have tenure all sewed up, too. They've paid their dues. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Richard Bridge Date: 20 May 07 - 02:37 PM Absolutely barking mad. And wholly consistent with the way America elects its politicians. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: artbrooks Date: 20 May 07 - 02:42 PM And this has exactly what to do with politicians? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 20 May 07 - 02:56 PM About as much as it has to do with teachers. It is a thread about one teacher. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: katlaughing Date: 20 May 07 - 03:28 PM Where is the proof, judging from the picture, that she was drinking anything alcoholic? Why would seeing that picture send a wrong message to children? For crissakes, my English teacher in high school had us all over for green beer on St. Patrick's Day; her son was a year ahead of me. They were of "fine, moral character" and upstanding, well-respected citizens. She only let us have a few sips and our parents knew in advance. This is ridiculous judging from what has been available. kat |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: heric Date: 20 May 07 - 04:40 PM We're talking about one person who wants to be a teacher - even while advocating rape, pillage, and other debauched practices such as keel-hauling. She might likely support slavery. She probably has syphilis. And you're all okay with that? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 20 May 07 - 04:42 PM What's the problem? Sounds lots like Ann Coulter to me. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 20 May 07 - 04:49 PM "They say some women have paid their way through law school via a lucrative stint as an exotic dancer. More power to them-- but do you think it's a good idea to put it in their resumes?" Do you think it a good idea they lie? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Captain Ginger Date: 20 May 07 - 05:03 PM Mind you, if she'd had a gun in her hand she would probably have got her teaching certificate immediately. "...and not for the first time, he thanked the stars above that he didn't live in America..." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: katlaughing Date: 20 May 07 - 05:14 PM heric, ya think she's been working at Gitmo, too?:-) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Rapparee Date: 20 May 07 - 05:34 PM I dunno about Pennsylvania, but teachers here (as well as the folks who work in the public library) MUST pass a background check by the local cops. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 20 May 07 - 05:40 PM It's the same everywhere. The suggestion from a few people is that teachers are supposed to qualify for sainthood before they even THINK of becoming teachers. We should be requiring virginity checks on new teachers soon. Can't have the soiled in front of students. Speeding ticket? Well, you did break the law . . . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 20 May 07 - 06:28 PM I dunno how these guys would have reacted to the marriage Feast at Cana. Turning gallons of water into wine - how irresponsible can you get... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Rapparee Date: 20 May 07 - 06:44 PM I can turn wine into water.... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Lonesome EJ Date: 20 May 07 - 06:52 PM Heric is right. Maybe it was more of her advocating piracy than anything to do with alcohol. Piracy is still against the law you know. She's damn lucky she didn't get strung up from a yardarm if you ask me. The last thing we need is our schoolchildren stumping around on peglegs with filthy parrots on their shoulders growling out "strike yer colors or go to Davy Jones, ye blackguards!" Bad deal says she. Good riddance says I. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: katlaughing Date: 20 May 07 - 08:14 PM Uh-oh, there goes "Speak Like A Pirate Day!" |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 20 May 07 - 08:48 PM Susan-- A "drinking party" on your own time--yes, even if it's put on "My Space"--should not be enough to disqualify you as a teacher. As in the case of the ham sandwich, this is overreaction by "the authorities". Or do you disagree? If so, why? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 20 May 07 - 09:02 PM Just as well she wasn't pigging out as well, then... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: heric Date: 20 May 07 - 09:33 PM Yeah, there's a thought: Gitmo on your resume. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 20 May 07 - 10:14 PM Ron Davies, I've already said what I think about that particular case, and I KNOW you can read; so I will simply refer you back to any or all of my previous posts in this thread. ~S~ |
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Subject: That Barque has sailed. From: GUEST,JTS Date: 21 May 07 - 12:42 AM EJ said. "Heric is right. Maybe it was more of her advocating piracy than anything to do with alcohol. Piracy is still against the law you know. She's damn lucky she didn't get strung up from a yardarm if you ask me. The last thing we need is our schoolchildren stumping around on peglegs with filthy parrots on their shoulders growling out "strike yer colors or go to Davy Jones, ye blackguards!" Bad deal says she. Good riddance says I." Disney is selling piracy to kids as if it were craque in a playground. http://disney.go.com/disneypictures/pirates/ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 21 May 07 - 12:45 AM Yeah. Next the kids will want to participate in school plays. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Big Al Whittle Date: 21 May 07 - 12:55 AM I was a teacher for a lot of years. If this character really wants to be teacher - they'd better get used to lifetime of propitiating idiots, and trying to 'look like a teacher'. The Role of the Teacher 101 - perhaps they don't do that course in colleges any more. The kids expect it, the politicians, the parents....and they watch you like a hawk for any deviation from the path of dull conformity or harmless dottiness. This is why nobody has noticed that our children don't learn to read any more, and know damn all about the history of their own country. They're too busy spying on the teachers to report infractions of the code of orthodoxy. In my day we were taught by gentlemen with frayed cuffs, some of whom were borderline violent pschopaths - and many of them were crap teachers, but in those days there wasn't a squeak of complaint from any quarter. During Margaret Thatcher/Keith Joseph's reign - there was some attempt turn the clock back to this golden era, where everybody at least knew they had encountered a teacher - even if they hadn't actually encountered any education. When is someone going to have the sheer energy to approach the school system with Cromwellian zeal and demand teachers with real expertise in teaching - rather than endlessly bitching about what they look like and act like. For as long as I've been around - the situation is like if you hired someone to rewire your house and you kept bitching about the state of his overalls. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Barry Finn Date: 21 May 07 - 01:09 AM She was 1 day away from recieving her degree. So other than the photo, up till then there is no reason to deny her, I'm guessing. Why shouldn't we here on mudcat give the school a fair chance before condemning them? It seems that it didn't take the school long to condenm her & the school is the one who took action, so if they want to explain themselves, so as to be seen in a better light then they have a responsibality to first put forth any other reasons for their actions other than a photo which so far hasn't been done & now won't be till after the law suite is over, I'm sure, otherwise this needs to be seen as the knee-jerk reaction that it is. My she recieve her degrees & more money than asked for & may those involved in preventing this lose their jobs so that this idiot reactionary behavior ends. As to teachers treating children in the manner above, teachers I believe nation wide are now mandated reporters & they are because of the many who've turned a blind eye to abuse for one reason or another. To not report this behavior is not only morally unexceptable but it's now also illegal. The children need to be protected from the schools that don't have policites against (which federally they are all supposed to have & follow). These types of actions taken by universities & colleges, places of higher education need to practice what they teach, "learn with an open mind", & if they run afoul, whatever the reason need to held accountable & redirected. Barry Barry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Barry Finn Date: 21 May 07 - 01:17 AM Finially, where does this type of school administration end? If you don't lead a life style that's deemed appropriate, you flunk? If you don't vote correctly? What about those that dance funny when out of state? Barry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Lonesome EJ Date: 21 May 07 - 01:45 AM Well, Guest JTS, Disney isn't the only one glorifying pirates and piracy. Johnny Depp anyone? Errol Flynn? Lionel Barrymore? Dustin Hoffman? The list is endless. It's unfair to single out Disney when our whole society is in what amounts to a Pirate Frenzy. And to those who think it won't have an impact? Sheer naivete. Pirates were noted for their colorful tattoos and where do we see them? On the arms and torsoes of our teenagers. Pirates frequently sported such cosmetic hardware as earrings, noserings, etc. And what do we see sparkling on the nostrils and lobes of our young people? You tell me. The colorful bandanas? The skull'n bones image? Need I really say more? Eyepatches and matches-in-the-hair? No, not yet, but can they be far behind? Piracy for too long has been depicted as all high adventure and good sport, seven league boots, buried treasure, bottle of rum and all the sort of things the left-wing media likes to ballyhoo as the joys of buccaneerism. Well, me hearty, let me tell you it's a different story when you're caught red-handed in your scalliwaggery and forced to pay the piper! These modern day Blackbeards had best wise up before, as they used to say, they're forced to "dance a ditty on the Devil's Deck". Confoundment to the pirates and those who glorify them, so says I. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: The Fooles Troupe Date: 21 May 07 - 01:46 AM So this is what it is like to live under "The American Taliban"? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 21 May 07 - 09:08 AM So this is what it is like to live under "The American Taliban"? This has nothing at all to do with the fairly recent phenomenon of the rigid religious right's capture of Amercian media and policy-making. It's always been tough to be a teacher who's "different." There has always, as far as I know, been a "moral code" imposed upoin the profession. I think the present case is not exactly the ideal poster child to change that.... there have been teachers who were gay, or black, or pregnant, or disabled, or radical for their area's politics, or single parents, or divorced, or.... I'm not awake enough yet to recount them all. Every one of those prejudices has been wrong, and every one of them has been upheld at one time or another in the local community that had that prejudice, until the prevailing societal view changed about that particular prejudice. Until that time has come, a lot of folks have been, to one degree or another, in some sort of closet or another because they understood what they were up against. And it's not only the teaching profession that works that way. Professional life works that way, in case y'all hadn't noticed. My point in starting this thread was not that a particular person was being subjected to this pattern-- I don't have enough facts to know why the school moved as they did, and I have said that I will wait to see how the lawsuit shapes up. My point was that it's naive for young, career-minded folks to think that the internet won't bite them in the butt, in the present atmosphere of instant Googling in place of more carefully-documentable background checks-- that the outraged tone of the coverage is naive. But don't let the loudness of the media hype fool anyone into thinking this is something new or particularly due to the RRR. Pennsylvania is by and large a pretty conservative state, despite the more liberal areas for which its famous. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: katlaughing Date: 21 May 07 - 09:44 AM Hey, LeeJ! I was in my twenties before my first tattoo AND a very young tomgirl when I got my first cowboy bandanna. Didn't have nuttin' ta do wit them salty dawgs! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: GUEST,Seiri Omaar Date: 21 May 07 - 10:55 AM More information: Lancaster Online The Smoking Gun |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 21 May 07 - 11:04 AM Oh, I see... it's a folkie cause-- "What do we do with a drunken pirate" was probably what she was thinking. Folklore! :~) Maybe later I can find the "Code of Professional Practice and Conduct for Educators" cited, unless someone beats me to it. I guess it leaves me wondering-- to which of MY former drinking buddies' classrooms would I have entrusted my son? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 21 May 07 - 11:08 AM Cursory glance (my emphasis): Section 4. Practices (a) Professional practices are behaviors and attitudes that are based on a set of values that the professional education community believes and accepts. These values are evidenced by the professional educator's conduct toward students and colleagues, and the educator's employer and community. When teacher candidates become professional educators in this Commonwealth, they are expected to abide by this section. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Willie-O Date: 21 May 07 - 11:42 AM Unbelievable...my first reaction was: what kind of a hick university is Millersville? There is "more to the story" all right, and it isn't about Ms Snyder's conduct, or that inoffensive picture (I submit that what made the picture a lame pretext for the vindictive action taken was the word "drunken". Read the "Lancaster Online" linked story above...she was a victim of political pressure from the school board (where she had been a practice teacher) on the college, and apparently her faculty "advisers" were looking for some dirt on her, and took the best they could find to the administration. We're hearing every day about how people's "personal" comments made online come back to haunt them, and I agree that many people, especially young people, are naive in what they reveal about their personal lives and thoughts online, but this whole case is so ridiculous that it totally negates Susan's point in that regard. And have I missed something or am I just lucky to be living in Canada? Teachers, including long-serving ones, are regularly fired for abuse of students...there are clearly drawn lines these days delineating appropriate and inappropriate behaviours in the classroom and community. Unless the American Taliban has firmly taken hold in Pennsylvania, this case falls so far short of that line that it should get laughed out of court in half an hour. One alternative reading of the situation presents itself--again, this is speculative: what if, as defenders of the ridiculous case presented keep implying, Ms Snyder actually acted inappropriately in the classroom in such a manner as made her supervisors uneasy--but they didn't want to confront the issue directly, for whatever reason, so they came up with this crock? If so they will have to live with the whole thing backfiring on them, and they need to go study Remedial Public Relations to learn how not to make a touchy situation into a media nightmare. If they had a real concern for the implications of the innocuous photo and its d-word caption, there is an appropriate level of response--they should have phoned Ms Snyder and suggested that she remove it. W-O |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Richard Bridge Date: 21 May 07 - 11:44 AM So what it boils down to is that to be normal is unacceptable in a teacher. Taliban is too mild a word. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Wolfgang Date: 21 May 07 - 11:45 AM I know of teachers who have abused their position, mistreated children, molested children and have graded for other reasons than performance. A picture of a young lady drinking from a paper cup and subtitled "Drunken pirate" is a sure sign that she will do all of the above or even worse. Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 21 May 07 - 11:57 AM Any personal information posted to the Web can be twisted to suit the agenda of the narrow-minded. If you post a photo of your puppy on Myspace it opens the posibility that someone is going to call you a cat hater. It's not a logical conclusion, but since when have people behaved logically? Don't give 'em a chance to use their illogic against you. Keep all personal information that could remotely be construed as "dirty laundry" off the Internet. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 21 May 07 - 12:17 PM Here are some pictures of the Millersville University Mascot", a Pirate Parrot called Scully. I don't know if he's drunk, but he definitely looks like he's on something. I can't see how they can keep him on, he's a terrible role model to young parrots. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Stringsinger Date: 21 May 07 - 12:17 PM The religious Right-wing nuts are out to destroy the public school system in the US and replace it with their Private (hell) one. Morality is their weapon. Religion is their weapon. They are looking for targets in the way Joe McCarthy did in the early Fifties. Their first attack will be against teachers....particularly those who reflect the progressive viewpoints. Ja Wohl and Zeig Heil. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Willie-O Date: 21 May 07 - 12:44 PM "I guess it leaves me wondering-- to which of MY former drinking buddies' classrooms would I have entrusted my son?" I guess you're not telling us where you're really coming from Susan. Did you have a wild debauched past before you got religion? You're hinting around a lot but maybe you need to start a new thread without this distracting example to tell us what's on your mind. Or if it's not about you, I'd suggest you find an example of truly mind-boggling indiscretion online that led to consequences...and baffled surprise by the participants and the media. Personally I have no qualms about my kids being in a classroom with any of my past or present drinking, or smoking buddies who have become teachers. (of course, that's a subset of my acquaintances that includes practically everyone I've known who came of age in the 70's, and now includes some of their adult kids too!) Those who have gravitated towards the education profession seem to have done well at it, some exceptionally so--and I don't recall any of them having to leave in disgrace. Best W-O |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Grab Date: 21 May 07 - 12:45 PM It's always been tough to be a teacher who's "different." That's the problem though, Susan - she's NOT different. The allegation that she's "different" and therefore unsuitable is the core of the hypocrisy behind this school's claim. To take an example, to show how easy it is. Have you ever been to a Halloween party and dressed up? Were you offered a glass of wine? Did someone take a photo of you and Hardiman with glasses of wine while you're having a good time with your friends? Hey presto, you two are both thrown out of the Church for indecent behaviour. You might have been stone cold sober and nursing one drink all night, but someone got a picture of you holding drinks and that's it. BWL's comment is probably the safest way to behave - never post anything personal online, else people will use it against you. But that means no more Mudcat, no more online discussions with friends from around the world, etc.. It'd be a damn sad day when we had to go to those extremes, all because some anal little prig wanted to exercise a bit of power. Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 21 May 07 - 05:09 PM Graham, I'm well aware of what can happen, when I post here. I think the teacher candidate in question was not, when she posted and titled that photo. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Willie-O Date: 21 May 07 - 05:53 PM Livejournal. Blogspot. Facebook. Then get into dating sites if you want to get more personal yet... Whatever...there are tens of millions of users out there posting about their personal lives every day. That's the purpose of these sites. The vast majority of which are quite boring and trivial, exactly like that photo. What is troubling is not that people expose some facets of their lives, but that when those with malicious intent want to smear someone's reputation, it is so much easier to do. I think Stacey Snyder is a friggin saint. Because this much I know: She's a single mother who had kids at a young age, and worked through university to provide a better life for her family--strangely enough, both those things can make you a target for criticism, and in this case, much worse. Admit it--SHE DID NOTHING WRONG!!!! Her so-called "advisers" and the other words-fail-me (but they seem to be safely employed, unlike Ms Snyder) --let's say, either malicious- or gutless wonders who are denying her the credentials she earned are to blame here. And there ain't a policy you can quote that will change that. W-O |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Stringsinger Date: 21 May 07 - 05:58 PM This would be funny if it weren't so stupid. Maybe the picture could be used as an ad for Victoria's Secret. F. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 21 May 07 - 07:03 PM From one of the "related stories" in the Lancaster paper, I get a better sense of how this young lady may have managed to undo all her hard work. When you're student teaching, you're evaluated not only on what you do or don't do, but on how well you take direction from your supervising advisors (see my bolded emphasis, below.) And I hadn't realized till this evening that she was student-teaching in a HIGH SCHOOL. You don't treat your high-school students as your peers and enlist them in your cause when you think you're being treated unfairly!!! There is a serious, serious boundary confusion at work here, if what is reported below is accurate. If what is described is accurate-- and I still don't know that it is-- her actions demonstrated both a lack of professional boundaries with students as well as an inability to work with senior faculty and administrators. (Find me a principal who wants THAT combination set loose in her or his building, and I'll show you one with her or his OWN problems ahead. Find me a superintendent who would tolerate it, and I'll show you that school system's next wannabe janitor.) Do these boundary issues happen? Of course they do. Kids in high school... can be pretty mature, and/or act like it. I know a number of people I went to school with, who years later told me about the fairly longterm relationships they'd had with a couple of popular young faculty members, when HS juniors and seniors. Did it harm them? I don't know, and they don't know either, they say; I do know that the teachers were in no hurry to let word out about it. It's a slippery slope. If you identify with the young adults in that situation, it probably seems silly to worry about it. If you identify with one of their parents, it's probably scary. If you identify with the school's administrators-- maybe that's why these popular young faculty members didn't get tenure??? But this young lady's unfortunate situation looks very much to me like the ministry-aspirations situations I described upthread-- the issue is not only the inappropriate-to-her-evaluators photo, but (much more-so) the complete lack of understanding of what might have been wrong about how she handled the whole matter. At best-- in the best light possible-- if the story is accurate, she lacks the maturity to which she aspires. I agree that the photo isn't so bad-- but sending her students to it????? (Whoo-hoo! Ms. Snyder's COOL!) And, I think, from her reaction as described below, she's begun to learn a valuable lesson. Maybe someday she'll get another bite of that apple. She also has said that she perceived that the lawsuit was the only way to get her certificate (in another "related story"). I hope someone a lot wiser adivses her to the contrary-- IMO, the lawsuit is the worst thing she could do to get into the profession. And-- with an apology in print where she takes all responsibility, a judge may well find that she herself negates the suit. ~Susan .... school district solicitor Howard L. Kelin said Tuesday that criticism of the [Conestoga Valley High School] teachers contained in the lawsuit is unfair. Kelin disputes the allegations [that] the teachers, Deann Buffington and Nicole Reinking, influenced the college to withhold the degree. Snyder was given a poor evaluation based on her performance while teaching at the high school and was warned not to direct students to her MySpace page, which contained the questionable photographs, Kelin said. Despite being warned to maintain a professional relationship with her students Kelin said, Snyder continued to direct students to her Web page. "Snyder required 'significant remediation' as a teacher, and her evaluation reflected serious performance problems," Kelin said. "Contrary to what is alleged in Ms. Snyder's lawsuit, nobody from the school district threatened that it would not accept any more Millersville University student teachers unless it punished Ms. Snyder. "Nothing like that ever occurred. Whatever Millersville University decided to do with the evaluation and other information provided by the school district was up to Millersville University." The university and Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education have declined to comment on the case. Kelin also said the photograph released along with the lawsuit was not the same one Buffington and Reinking submitted to the university. The photograph they submitted, Kelin said, shows Snyder holding a plastic cup and making a hand gesture while wearing the pirate hat. Snyder mentioned on her Web site that she had been warned about posting online messages to students, Kelin said. According to a statement issued by the school district, "Snyder's Web site invites students to continue looking at her page, and in apparent response to Ms. Reinking's advice that such an invitation was unprofessional says, 'I don't think that they would stoop that low as to mess with my future.' Ms. Snyder's Web site says further that students keep asking her why she will not apply to teach at Conestoga Valley and asks, 'Do you think it would hurt me to tell them the real reason (or who the problem was)?' " Snyder submitted an apology to the high school and university after being told she would not receive an education degree or teaching certificate. The school district released a copy of the letter. "I wanted to express a variety of emotions to each of you: regret, empathy, confidence and responsibility," Snyder wrote in the letter dated May 12, 2006. "I have a large heart that only wants help others, not harm them. "This incident has caused me to open my eyes and realize that I am the only person to blame. I have to take full responsibility for my actions and live with the consequences determined by the administrative staff from Conestoga Valley High School and Millersville University." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: heric Date: 21 May 07 - 09:03 PM A small aside about taking responsibility: "To date, Defendants have not provided Plaintiff with a copy of the picture in question. However, a similar picture is attached hereto as Exhibit "R." From Snopes @ page 9, Complaint, paragraph 29. Note the deceptive use of the word similar. It was her website – her photo. And she came up with a "similar" one. Not "a true and correct copy of . . . " What were they (she and her lawyer) thinking? That the evaluators would just forget about the hand gesture? Be unable to prove it existed? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: heric Date: 21 May 07 - 10:09 PM She filed the lawsuit on April 25, and was giving newspaper interviews no later than April 26. She allowed all "journalists" to believe it was all about the picture we've seen, and nothing else. (Par. 29 is on p6, not p. 9) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: M.Ted Date: 21 May 07 - 10:59 PM Somewhere along the way--in the trial, or on appeal, some judge who spent the day dealing with drug dealers, child molesters, gang bangers, spouse-abusers, murderers, and the lot, is going to remember that college seniors make mistakes--and rule in favor of the plaintiff. And somewhere, there will be a principal who is willing to give her another chance. It may take a while, though. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: catspaw49 Date: 21 May 07 - 11:58 PM The person in the second picture is blowing up into the asshole of a ceramic opossum. Will this preclude him getting a job at the zoo or working for the highway department picking up road kill? Please notify me of your thoughts on this issue as soon as possible. Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: GUEST,dianavan Date: 22 May 07 - 12:43 AM Well, yeah! What was her lawyer thinking? Why show a different picture? This is almost like perjury. A hand gesture might make a difference but lying about it is totally unacceptable. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Lonesome EJ Date: 22 May 07 - 12:43 AM I assume the bottle of bleach in the background was used for sterilization purposes on the possum. As long as proper hygeine is shown, you would have no problem at the DOT. Zoo regulations however preclude any activities relating to "blowing into any orifice on any animal's body, or simulating the act of blowing into the orifice(s) of any animal, or(and here's the kicker)simulating the act of blowing into the orifice of any animal effigy." That's my take on it, Spaw. At least you're not a goddam pirate. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Barry Finn Date: 22 May 07 - 01:12 AM Is what she did a criminal offense? If not then who's to say she did something wrong? THis is what comes of those that want others to do as they do. Has this done harm to anyone? Has she corrupted the body & souls of the youth? If she has then the youth are in serious trouble & so are their body & souls. I'd be seeking the jobs of any that prompted this type of idiocy in my school district. The shcools in this country are so far behind as it is & this is where they choose to make a stand! Here's a case of the masters failing the students. Barry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: catspaw49 Date: 22 May 07 - 05:38 AM Thanks Leej.......As always your sage advice is both comforting and aromatic. So is your rosemary and fennel advice, and although the fennel can be a bit sharp and pungent, it is still to the point. Good news on the pirate front too huh? Spaw |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Big Al Whittle Date: 22 May 07 - 05:47 AM everybody does SOMETHING wrong occasionally. Luckily we aren't all in the power of people who make us pay for our mistakes - though some of us are. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Richard Bridge Date: 22 May 07 - 06:39 AM Specify Hand Gesture. Winston Churchill anyone? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Black Hawk Date: 22 May 07 - 07:20 AM What worries me most when reading this thread is the fact that the PO (along with other school staff) ignored abuse until it affected her own child. I would not want any of these people to be involved with my children or others! Ignoring abuse is tolerating it - tolerating it leads to accepting it as normal. Next stage, abusing. As the PO said, posting things on the net (like mudcat) can bite you in the rear. She has admitted tolerating the abuse of others. Biter bit? WYSIWYG My son fell into such a situation. My office in the school system just happened to be next door to the classroom in which he spent most of each day. I could HEAR his teacher's abusive approach verbally. Her targets were always little boys (and often, BTW, African-American little boys). I could hear her shrill voice raised to tell them they were stupid. One day she dragged my son bodily into my office in mid-rant to tell me how awful he was, shoving and scraping him in through the partly-opened door! Although the principal was a friend and colleague, and he believed my account, there was very little he could do to affect her tenure unless he saw these things himself. Now, he'd inherited her from his predecessor and the stories about her were common knowledge among parents and faculty. Kids would be moved out of her room if they could not tolerate the abuse. The story offered was that she just had been teaching for far too long and wouldn't resign till she qualified for retirement benefits. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 22 May 07 - 08:37 AM I prefer to recollect that story as an example of: <> How a single individual can make a difference without suing the teacher and the district <> How the rest of the faculty learned how they might have helped their fellow teacher reach an early retirement <> How the system can be impacted from the inside in ways parents can never impact it because they aren;t there to see what needs to be seen <> How eager and grateful the principal was for the tactful and trusting assistance I provided by cluing him in on when to catch this poor lady's burnout behavior Remember that the teacher I described had long been a great teacher, had had a good record of working with most of her career-long roster of students, and deserved to be treated with respect. Is it her fault that the classroom management methods she had learned many years previous had been eclipsed by our fast-changing society and escalating fears of school violence? Tenure is a powerful thing-- I honestly don't think they knew how to get around it, until I showed them a little creative thinking. It does give me pause, though, still today-- that what I did, I had to do not as a parent, but as a colleague.... that as a parent, if my son had drawn her before I'd gotten that office-- there is not much I could have done. Still-- I'm so glad that there were non-legalistic options open to me, and to her peers and principal. She exited into what I hope was a career option of tutoring (or something equally less-stressful), where her gifts could benefit students. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Richard Bridge Date: 22 May 07 - 08:37 AM |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Richard Bridge Date: 22 May 07 - 08:37 AM That was 100! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 22 May 07 - 10:13 AM some judge who spent the day dealing with drug dealers, child molesters, gang bangers, spouse-abusers, murderers, and the lot, is going to remember that college seniors make mistakes--and rule in favor of the plaintiff. I too hope she gets a second chance, but it's not likely that the judge who hears the suit will be from the criminal bench; it will be a civil trial, if it is heard at all. I dunno if it is like this in teaching, but in ministry (in our denomination), the prevailing rulings defer to canon law (the church laws one agrees to abide by when one enters the process). That canon law is shaped by experienced members of the profession and, in our denomination, voted upon by clergy and laity-- not a closed process in a "good ole boys" network. If it's the same in teaching certification, the basis for her suit will be tricky, because the state's certification processes are clearly articulated and candidates are expected to know them. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 22 May 07 - 10:15 AM Since it appears that the young lady's problems were brought on by unprofessional chumminess with her high school students, perhaps a compromise solution would be to allow her to re-attempt student teaching at a younger grade level. It sounds like she lacked the maturity to put a safe working distance between herself and her almost-adult students. She may do just fine with middle schoolers. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 22 May 07 - 10:26 AM Yes, but are certs issued with grade-level limitations? One of the factors here is one that faces all professions I know about. That is, that once you accept someone into the ranks, you're giving them the keys to the candy store and it's hard to get them back if it doesn't go well. In the Red Cross, for instance, that was an important consideration-- when does a volunteer qualify to become a paid staff member who may transfer from unit to unit? A lot goes into that evaluation, because once you put someone on staff, you've sort of put the stamp of the whole Red Cross movement's approval on them, and then they may migrate into sensitive responsibilities based on that apparent endorsement. And-- changing Human Resources law is making it tougher for employers to give honest but negative references when they're warranted. Even without tenure in the picture, it can be tough to protect the public from someone who turns out not to have been worthy of the second chance they may have gotten somewhere along the line. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: M.Ted Date: 22 May 07 - 10:42 AM WYSYWYG: The Lawsuit was filed in Federal Court--(PA is under jurisdiction of the US 3rd Circuit Court) where both Criminal and Civil cases are heard. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Bee-dubya-ell Date: 22 May 07 - 10:52 AM No, certifications are not grade-level specific, but most teachers make personal decisions regarding to what grades they want to work with. If she were to be successful with middle-schoolers (whereas she obviously failed with high-schoolers) wouldn't she feel that she has "found her niche"? Why would she want to apply for a job doing something at which she failed (teaching high-shool seniors) instead of something at which she succeeded (teaching middle-schoolers)? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Barry Finn Date: 22 May 07 - 11:16 AM Keep the state & church seperate! Nasty business when the two cross paths. Barry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Metchosin Date: 22 May 07 - 11:46 AM Maybe she watched too many reruns of Welcome Back, Kotter. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: PoppaGator Date: 22 May 07 - 02:11 PM The way I read the available information about this case ~ including, critically, the newspaper coverage ~ it looks to me that this was a personal vendetta against the student teacher on the part of one or both of the two faculty members assigned to supervise her at her student-teaching assignment. Perhaps the student-teacher is and was a truly flawed individual, unfit to be unleashed upon the student population, and the supervising teachers searched out, and found, whatever little hard evidence they could find to back up their instinctive abhorrence of this person. On the other hand, it is also possible that only one of the two supervising teachers was opposed to this young lady's certification, but that she enjoyed sufficient seniority, influence, and determination to run roughshod over her colleague and others at the school, and was thus able to turn a completely unjustified hatred, an expression of her own bluenosed and borderline-psychotic personality disorder, into a matter of public policy. Either is possible, as well as anything anywhere in-between, but I believe that the latter (or something like it) is much more likely than the former. Let it be observed that the young lady is pictured at a Halloween party portraying a "drunken pirate." She is not much more likely to actually have been drunk than to have actually been a pirate. By the logic upon which her punishment is based, a person costumed for Halloween as Dracula or Frankenstein, or for that metter as The Devil, would be assumed to be "promoting" bloodsucking, mayhem and/or sin among the "underaged." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: GUEST,dianavan Date: 22 May 07 - 04:21 PM "Tenure is a powerful thing-- I honestly don't think they knew how to get around it, until I showed them a little creative thinking. It does give me pause, though, still today-- that what I did, I had to do not as a parent, but as a colleague.... that as a parent, if my son had drawn her before I'd gotten that office-- there is not much I could have done." Thats a very incriminating statement, Susan. As a colleague, you would be bound by the code of ethics. I'm sure you were not given an office in the school so you could creatively think of a way to destroy someone's career. Had you been a member of the same union, they would have told you that there is an appropriate process for lodging a grievance or making a complaint. There is a professional body which governs the conduct of teachers and determines if there is a need for discipline. You took advantage of a position of privilege and trust to carry out a personal vendetta. As far as the teacher in the pirate photo - Student teaching is very stressful - more stressful than teaching. You are constantly under scrutiny. You are observed, critiqued, and videotaped. If she passed the criteria for a bachelor of education, she should get it - she paid for it and she earned it. End of story. Its up to the school if they want to hire her. Her performance on the job will determine whether or not she remains. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 22 May 07 - 06:48 PM Dianavan, This is not the first thread that has led me to conclude that you are determined to judge folks by your own skewed view of them, regardless of what the facts may have been. Your policy seems to be, judge first, collect facts later if at all. Right in this thread, first you are sure that I did one thing, next you are sure that I did something else entirely. In fact, I did neither. I simply did something else! Apparently, I am somewhat beyond your limited view of what people are able to do. I thought at one point that perhaps I had not given enough information, or had communicated it poorly. But I think now that nothing I could say would satisfy your moral outrage, because you are determined to have it. The situation I was in, and the action I took, bears no resemblance to your portayal of it. The fact that I was effective and appreciated in my position in that school district and in other sensitive positions I have held, and that I am still invited to play sensitive roles, is a reality you will not be able to conceive of; I don't feel it necessary to explain it to your satisfaction. You won't find much satisfaction in attacking me personally in a thread, again, as you have now done twice here-- because this is the last post I will ever direct your way, again. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Barry Finn Date: 22 May 07 - 08:01 PM If abuse is seen by a mandated reporter it is by law the duty of that reporter to report the abuse~ Not to wait to bring in another reporter to discuss the merits of the situation. If a teacher is inherited & nothing is done about it the the non reporting principles are as much at fault as the abusive teacher. Abuse needs to be stopped & reported as soon as it's seen. No excuse. This is not politics. Abuse iof any kind is serious & leaves it's mark. Barry |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: M.Ted Date: 22 May 07 - 08:02 PM Something that puzzles me is that, rather than give her another chance at student teaching, at another school, with a bit of remediation in between, they basically threw her out of the education program and out into the street. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 22 May 07 - 09:39 PM Susan- "someone who turns out to not be worthy of the second chance they have been given" So, Susan--do you feel this woman does not deserve another chance? Sounds like you're insinuating that. Yes or no? If you don't think this media attention--not to mention the incident itself-- will focus her attention and make her toe the line, I think you're mistaken. From now on there will be lots of people (like you?) ready to lower the boom on her at the slightest opportunity. And she knows it. As has been pointed out, she is a single mother who is trying to have a career also. Seems she deserves some support in this. Somehow your attitude does not sound exactly Christian. Unless Jonathan Edwards is your role model (no, not the the singer). It's no wonder some people who proclaim their Christianity don't give Christianity the best reputation on Mudcat--or outside. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Big Al Whittle Date: 23 May 07 - 07:07 AM I would hazard a well informed guess that there are damn sight more teachers being abused by pupils than vice versa in the English education system at least. The level of ignorance at the imbalance in this situation is a fair indicator of how fit someone is to comment on the subject. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Black Hawk Date: 23 May 07 - 08:21 AM Barry - my thoughts exactly. I am having a debate in PM with the PO & have already made that point! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 23 May 07 - 10:12 AM I have nothing to debate. I have no interest, as I think I said upthread, in debating. I do have an interest in exploring the naivete behind this one, individual story. The story itself, to me, is merely the present example of a power dynamic many of you seem to be exemplifying. It IS am imbalance-- one of my main ponts! I have repeatedly invited a broader discussion; clearly I underestimated Mudcat's ability to discuss a complex situation. My bad! This thread has now become a referendum on a teacher certification decision where NONE of us has facts or a role to play, and a referendum on what ONE Mudcatter should have done almost 20 years ago with no understanding of the situation, or what I actually did. It's gone beyond ridiculous, now baiting me on my religious integrity! (WTF???) In any event-- I'm STILL going to wait and see how this young lady's case unfolds, and I'm STILL going to refrain from debating the particulars of that case, and I'm STILL going to shake my head and continue to do those things in life that I am trusted to do. This thread, in fact, will go in my resume file! ;~) ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 23 May 07 - 10:16 AM PS-- translation: enjoy the thread you've hijacked, I'm outta here! :~) ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Grab Date: 23 May 07 - 11:05 AM Is telling people that you have a MySpace page really getting too close to your students? It's about as socially deep as handing out a business card. That goes double if the content is unchallenging - and fancy dress parties at Halloween in a rather innocuous costume would certainly fall into the "unchallenging" group. It's also worth noting that action was taken *after* teaching had completed. As for the apology - if your entire future career is resting on it, wouldn't you eat some dirt, even if unwarranted, if it would get your career back? Graham. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: artbrooks Date: 23 May 07 - 01:25 PM One point that seems to have slipped by without much fanfare: the caption on the original MySpace photo was apparently "Drunken Pirate", and the school where she was teaching had "The Pirates" as the school theme and mascot, as others have "The Bears" or "The Rams". A student at that school would think of him/herself as a Pirate, and calling ones self a "drunken pirate" sends a specific message. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: M.Ted Date: 23 May 07 - 02:32 PM artbrooks: for the record, the Conestoga Valley High School teams are called "Buckskins"--Millersville University is/are the Pirates-- |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Richard Bridge Date: 23 May 07 - 02:38 PM Hello, what hand gesture? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Peace Date: 23 May 07 - 02:45 PM Did it approach this? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: artbrooks Date: 23 May 07 - 02:52 PM M. Ted - you are correct,that's where she was a student, not where she was teaching. The point basically remains the same. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: heric Date: 23 May 07 - 06:35 PM Richard there is only one hand gesture in the US. We are quite unimaginative and lack in diverity there. (Well, there's the index finger through the circle thing, that would make it a fun trial.) |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 27 May 07 - 11:10 AM Interesting, Susan, that you still didn't find time to tell us point blank whether you felt this young woman deserves another chance in teaching or not--regardless of bad judgment she may have employed in this particular situation. You've been all over the map--it would be good to have a clear statement. Religion has very little to do with this issue, but, as I recall, there is something about forgiveness in Christianity. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 27 May 07 - 05:00 PM I guess you missed my statements on that point, again, Ron. See, you have to READ my posts to see what I think, and-- possibly-- even think about them. I don't think in the simplistic terms you choose to use to cast your judgments my way. That's one reason I move in the circles I do, sorry. But since you refreshed the thread, back to the topic. Here in our environs, we've been finding lots of examples of the main point of this thread-- how any professional career can be killed (fast and early), by similarly-unthinking behaviors at similar points in one's career-- how to kill your career as a funeral director, doctor, nurse, school administrator, dentist, attorney, etc. These are practical matters, not matters for my (or Hardi's) personal judging. It's just how the world presently works. To a soul, every single professional we've discussed this with has been readily able to share how underdeveloped boundaries or lowkey ethics mistakes, made by those who are still-in-formation who didn't learn these realities in their development, have killed a career before it started. Profession by profession, professional folks seem to relate well to the present instance much as I did, with sympathy and a fair degree of surprise at the degree of naivete the "news" has reflected. We used to have a good number of professionals among us at Mudcat. I guess it got too ugly here for their pleasure, or this might have been a very different thread. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 27 May 07 - 05:26 PM Susan-- I see you still have not found time to answer the question: Do you think the teacher who is the subject of the thread deserves another chance in teaching? Yes or no? No long involved philosophical discussion necessary. As I said, you've been all over the map-- and one simple answer would clear the air. Or are you perhaps thinking of running for political office soon--so need to hone your question-dodging capabilities? I assure you, you have mastered the art. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Jeri Date: 27 May 07 - 05:40 PM Ron, that's not what she was posting about. She was talking about realities and you want an angle with which you can argue. Give it a rest. I don't think the reality IS that she, as a college student, did anything worth nipping a career in the bud. What we think SHOULD happen doesn't matter. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 27 May 07 - 05:54 PM What Jeri said. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 27 May 07 - 06:57 PM It all sounds like an episode of the Simpsons. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Jeri Date: 27 May 07 - 07:38 PM McGrath, there are some days when EVERYTHING sounds like an episode of the Simpsons. WYS thinks (I believe) it should have been logical to assume the photo on the web page was enough to withold the teaching certificate. I still don't agree, but I don't think it was the smartest thing to do either. Right or wrong doesn't matter. The final word on whether she shoulda/coulda forseen this and whether or not this one photo & caption (likely consigned to oblivion if not for the Uni's reaction) constitutes setting a bad example, will be the courts. Somebody should have told U of P to not have a cow... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 27 May 07 - 08:39 PM No, I suspect that the photo was poor and immature judgment, leading to closer scrutiny and cascades of poorer and poorer judgment, resulting in a deep, self-dug hole she seems intent on digging deeper. But that's only from the coverage-- I still maintain that we don't actually know the facts in this situation, and that opining as if we do is ridiculous and totally reactive. I think it's as silly to sit in positive judgment of her as to sit in negative judgment, and I won't be bullied into joining others in doing it. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 28 May 07 - 10:53 AM Fine--that tells us what we need to know. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Richard Bridge Date: 28 May 07 - 08:13 PM Oh, no, there are many hand gestures. Some examples (I am sure there are others): First finger towards camera = "Your country needs you" (as in Lord Kitchener) First finger tapped into viewer's chest = do as you are told Thumb and index finger forming circle = excellent Thumb and first finger forming circle = all fingers curled and thumb placed between first and index finger = male masturbation, or masturbation of a male (Incidentally, the one I first thought of in this context) Fist, little finger partly extended partly curled = little dick Form ring with thumb and first finger, place on forehead = dickhead First and index fingers form a "V", front of hand to viewer = Victory (after Churchill) Ditto, back of hand to viewer = fuck off Fist, index finger upward and pointed, back of hand to viewer = fuck yourself Fist, either first or second finger extended straight, front to viewer, fingers pointing up = One sharp (key of G) Ditto, first and second up = 2 sharps (D) First second and third = 3 sharps (A) All four = 4 sharps (E) All 5 = B One finger down = one flat (F) Two = B Flat Three = E flat Four = A flat Five = D Flat Thumb across throat = you (viewer) are dead Index finger flipping lips = cunnilingus First finger across throat = "you are dead" or "turn off engines" or "cut recorded sound accompaniment" Knife hand, chop downwards = you must stop (whatever it is) Point first or index finger down onto desk = listen to me Index finger, curled, tapping side of head = you are (or third party is) insane ("Doolally Tap") First finger, circling by temple = you are (or third party is) insane ("Curly Wurly Cuckoo") Fist, first and little fingers extended, jabbed in air = excellent (metal music) or reference to anal fisting - or, in Meditteranean countries, the horns of the cuckold. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 28 May 07 - 10:03 PM Can I get that as flash cards please? ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: heric Date: 28 May 07 - 10:29 PM haha ho ho I was just thinking it would make a good poster similar to those signal flag ones. I admit to using the Doolally Tap on the road, and now I can name it. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 29 May 07 - 08:39 PM Then there's the command "Look me in the eyes" with two fingers pointed to the other, then to one's own eyes. (I say "command" because when I've seen it used, it is very much a command.) Not quite how the Howard fellas use the two-fingered approach-- that would be another story. :~) ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 29 May 07 - 09:09 PM Illustrated, with subtitles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xHSe1ogHYUw ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: McGrath of Harlow Date: 29 May 07 - 09:30 PM Then there's the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" one. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: PoppaGator Date: 30 May 07 - 01:40 AM I agree with what Susan said in the very first post ~ be careful what you show the whole world about yourself on the internet, it might come back to bite you. I disagree with much of what she added subsequently, however, or at least with how I interpret her. I think that denial of the degree and the teaching certification is unconscionable. While the young woman's judgement and conduct may well have been less than perfect, she should simply have been counseled rather than condemned and denied a career. That's why they have student-teaching assignments. I hope she sues and wins. Once upon a time, being a "single mother" amounted to being a social outcast, a tramp, etc. More recently, it has become almost a badge of honor ~ not only is there nothing wrong with it any more these days, many portray the circumstance as pratically heroic. It's undoubedly wrong to endorse either of these extremes in a given case, and of course we don't know everything about this young woman and her situation. On the one hand, the fact that she got pregnant without securing a commitment from the father-to-be not just once, but twice casts some doubt upon her maturity and judgement. (Would it make a difference if we knew whether one or two fathers were involved?) On the other hand, the fact that she mangaged to complete the coursework for a college degree despite the challenges of raising two young children speaks well for her energy, dedication, and resourcefulness. It would certainly seem that she learned something from her difficult experience. Just as I did a week or more ago, I still get the very strong impression that she's been victimized by a bluenosed old biddy who harbors the more old-fashioned viewpoint towards "fornicators," and who has accumulated too much seniority and influence to be effectively opposed. The fact that the girl resorted to groveling after other avenues of appeal were closed to her means nothing to me. What else was she going to do? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 10 Mar 08 - 03:14 PM Eliot Spitzer. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: PoppaGator Date: 10 Mar 08 - 05:10 PM Um, could you elaborate a bit? It's almost a year since this thread was dropped, and now we get back into it with an obscure reference consisting of just two words, the first and last name of the Governor of New York. I wonder if anything about this Pennsylvania case has been resolved by now. Should have been... T |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 10 Mar 08 - 06:16 PM Um, "how to kill one's own career" was ALWAYS my idea of the topic. It soon got hijacked to focus on the one case I gave as an example. Spitzer has been kind enough to firnish another. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: PoppaGator Date: 10 Mar 08 - 06:25 PM Aha, now I understand. I saw the newly-created Spitzer thread only after posting here, anyway ~ but still didn't get the connection. BTW: Any news on the Drunken Pirate student teacher sicen we last dicussed her case?? |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: JohnInKansas Date: 10 Mar 08 - 10:37 PM Later reports on the "pirate girl" have indicated that the university presented additional, and fairly substantial(?) justifications for withholding her diploma. Regretably, I didn't save links when they appeared. Not exactly a "career stopper," but in a similar vein: Teen appeals vulgar Web speech punishment gives, as an example, a high school student who was threatened with suspension, and removed from participating in several student activities for referring to school officials as "a bunch of douchbags" on her MySpace page. As in the prior case, the story has changed slightly since first posted; but she was removed from the Student Council, and from the ballot for class secretary. She won the election on write-ins, but was prevented from taking the office. Case in appeals court. Another case of possible interest: Town abuzz over mayor's racy MySpace page. The mayor had posed for some pictures for use with an entry in a "body builders" contest prior to becoming mayor. A friend/relative posted the pictures to "spice up the old ladie's sex life" sometime before the election. The town found out. In this last case, the mayor has been "fired," ostensibly because of the "filthy pictures" but later articles have noted a "significant disagreement" with other town A later article on the mayor had a "sample picture." Not too impressive, but once again I didn't make adequate notes. Her name in Google likely would bring it up. Rumor has it that Bill Gates (the Mickeysoft one) has a page on FaceBook, but it's been tagged "private" so you have to "be his friend" to see what incriminating stuff is there. John |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Stilly River Sage Date: 10 Mar 08 - 11:06 PM I couldn't find any updates when searching on "Stacy Snyder" and her lawsuit. It's all still news from last year. Spitzer just knocked the stuffing out of several careers, I'd be willing to guess. And then there's the question of who leaked the story? One of Bush's pals? SRS |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 11 Mar 08 - 12:04 AM Oh, thanks so much JiK! I noted that mayoral one when it was hot news, but I couldn't recall it when I refreshed this thread earlier today! ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Oct 09 - 10:07 AM In a story about "data mining--" Big Brother is the term I grew up with but if it's renamed it's not the same thing, right? ;~) -- a CNN talking-head reports that: According to a "Career Builder survey," 45% of employers use social networking sites to research job applicants, and 1/3 of them (ONE THIRD!) rejected applicants based on their online research about the applicant. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Alice Date: 03 Oct 09 - 10:30 AM We have had a recent scandal in our town from the news that city employees were being required to give up all log in names and passwords they use on the internet when they apply for a city job. A special investigator was hired to investigate the city human resources department, their actions and policies. The latest news is that some of what employees had complained of was a misunderstanding, but it still isn't clear what the city HR dept. was looking at on the internet. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Rapparee Date: 03 Oct 09 - 11:05 AM Hello, EFF and ACLU!! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Alice Date: 03 Oct 09 - 11:09 AM Just found front page news in the local paper this morning: Hiring Probe This problem in Bozeman was reported in national news this summer when applicants finally brought it to pubic attention. "...The police department began using that form in October 2007...." ..."The city began asking job applicants in every department for their online information in June 2008." "A few times, when an incorrect password for a few candidates was discovered, the candidates were pulled from the room and asked to sit with the official and try to remember their passwords, the report states." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Alice Date: 03 Oct 09 - 11:13 AM Well, reading that article, it isn't clear to me what the mayor means by misscommunication. It seems that the mayor just didn't know what the HR department was doing! So, she calls that a need to fix communication.... WTF? They were invading the privacy of job applicants! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Alice Date: 03 Oct 09 - 11:18 AM The HR department has an application form that requires all log-ins and passwords for email, bank accounts, blogs, fora, networking sites. That's the problem. The mayor says the problem is lack of communication. "Teh stoopid." |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Oct 09 - 11:43 AM Pubic attention is always, um, revealing. :~) ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Rapparee Date: 03 Oct 09 - 12:03 PM Let's see: requiring an APPLICANT to provide information about things that really aren't anyone other than the APPLICANT's business...so that the HR Department could access the personal email and bank accounts of the APPLICANT...and doing the same for the City's employees.... Can you say "How many zeroes on the checks we'll have to write?" Can you say "New HR Director and perhaps a new mayor?" STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOPID!!! My USERNAME: G3757UfF3D My PASSWORD: g0FVkur531f Note that in the interest of login and password security I use a combination of upper and lower case numbers and letters, as well as funtion keys. It takes a REAL computer genius to use lower case numbers. Oh, yes -- they have to be input in straight ASCII code. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Stringsinger Date: 03 Oct 09 - 02:11 PM Susan, the logical conclusion I reach is that if the teacher was not advocating the use of alcohol, what she does on her own time is her own decision to make. If it was a Halloween Party and she was just impersonating a character, then the claim against her is fraudulent. As for the inept teachers that resort to abusive methods in the classroom, they certainly should be called-out by the principal regardless of their tenure. Publicity from authorities can have a powerful affect on the behavior of the teacher especially if it gets out to the parents. The educational system in the States is in peril with the advent of the charter (private) schools taking over public education. Here, ideologues such as Bill Bennett and Neil Bush are threatening the free dissemination of informative schooling. They are attempting to "write the scripts" for American history and science through the marketing of their textbooks. So there is a bigger issue here. That would be the tenuous position of anyone entering the teaching profession today. Their creativity in the classroom would be thwarted. In case anyone thinks this is not an important issue, they should note what is happening in Los Angeles, today. Other cities such as Chicago are following the lead of charter school establishments being supported by local mayors. Tenured teaching is a problem for inept teaching but charter schools will exacerbate this problem by insisting that teachers be "reviewed" and censored. This episode that the Internet has posed as a problem may be a propaganda issue in favor of these charter schools. Frank |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Bonnie Shaljean Date: 03 Oct 09 - 02:54 PM More about the Stacy case in this thread: BS: Big Brother is watching YOU http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=107398#2226062 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 03 Oct 09 - 11:22 PM Frank, the Stacy case was an EXAMPLE of the ACTUAL point of this thread, as I stated in it several times and as my recent post refreshing it reflects, I think, pretty clearly. (Does no one READ threads anymore?) ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: ARC Story From: wysiwyg Date: 12 May 10 - 08:56 PM Well, a lot of weird things have happened to careers since this thread first ran. (Hello, Tiger Woods, are you home yet?) Someone suggested I tell this story. And it's all true-- it happened to me. For a time I managed a local Red Cross chapter. I had been brought in to straighten out a few things left over from my predecessor's very long tenure. The local board had hired me despite-- I learned later-- not getting an OK from the national governing org to hire a new manager. (I didn't find THAT out till I'd been in place 6 months!) It seems the financial and other situations were more dire than I was told, and National had thought they would just close our little chapter up-- making everything neat and tidy (tho non-functional due to geographic constraints here in these mountains). Well, I set to work to rebuild the chapter from the ground up. There were funds to raise (I tripled them), new board members to recruit (I worked local and parish contacts to do that), and administrative irregularities to make right (I did that and then called in the national auditor for a report card). One of the new board members had.... issues..... some of them medical.... some of them medicated.... self-admittedly over-medicated.... and, well, ISSUES. I began to regret recruiting her, but.... in Red Cross you never, ever "fire" people if you can avoid it, and the chapter board chair agreed with me that her term should go ahead and run. She never attended meetings, so I figured she was just an inactive member whose term would run out. [shrug] We needed a working board (not a titular board), so I just thought she would take up space another active board member might have done well with... whatever! Well, one day... another board member came in when no one else was in the office. She blindsided me with a question. She said later she had done that on purpose to see how I took it. She asked me if it was true that National had made it a condition of our rechartering, that I resign immediately. I had just talked to Regional's manager that DAY (my immed. supervisor), and he had said that the only reason he would recommend our recharter was that I was there! I had made a lot of changes I can't go into here, but he knew them all, because he had helped coach me thru the toughtest ones. And he had helped me keep the good name of the Red Cross out of the mud in the way I did it, because he agreed with me that we could certainly not raise funds for disaster relief if we made the name of the chapter into MUD! :~) So I replied, startled by her question out of left field, "No! Why would you think that?" She then quoted the story she had been told, all about the evil chapter manager who had done this, and that, and more... according to the storyteller's "secret contact at National." I about died laughing, and said, "She must have an out of date contact. That was my predecessor her contact was talking about, who has been gone now for about 2 years. Would you like to talk to my contact people at National and Regional? and Disaster Services, the Blood Services folks, and the Military Communications people at National-- some of whom have tried to HIRE me?" "No, she said, "I don't think I need to." === Well, the board member with old contacts who had (I guess) been confused-- eventually left the org. Later she mounted an interesting attack on me in the parish, as well. That one was similarly from skewed "information," to be kind about it. I stayed in the chapter as long as I cared to, continued to raise the chapter's ability to serve the county it served, continued to deliver many of the services personally because in tiny chapters that's how it goes-- and never forgot how ICKY a few confused people can make things-- if no one checks out their icky tale of woe. And that ability to laugh my ass off when warranted has served me well in Church work, where people can mount attacks for all kinds of reasons, sometimes with the best of intentions. An early-learned lesson Hardi and I reflect on, often, is that "They know who to call." As long as people who are nearby-enough to know you continue to ask for assistance, quietly, when THEY are under some icky stuff-- you have to remnind yourself that you are probably doing OK no matter how deep your own icky stuff gets. If the phone is still ringing, if most dogs like you, and if you still win more Solitaire games than the odds say you should-- you are probably not yet the pond scum someone makes you out to be. But I also learned, long ago, to cover my ass. Because sometimes people stay icky no matter what the reality may be. And that is one way (a small part) of keeping a career from going "dead." Depends on the career, of course, but another BIG part is doing the WORK, and doing it well. They have a nifty saying, some of the Black grandmothers I work with. "Check yourself." I'd always thought it meant "hold yourself in check." Naw, they explained, it just means check yourself out, check up on yourself, check over your [whatever], and then git ON with things. Jes' check yourseff girl and boogie on. ~Susan |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: Ron Davies Date: 13 May 10 - 08:44 PM just a few quotes stick out to me--cruising through this old thread First we have somebody who was a teacher for quite a while--and therefore likely knows more than most of us about the topic: A teacher these days is like somebody who you " hire to to rewire your house but you keep bitching about the state of his overalls." That rings true. Oh the other hand we have, from another source "not worthy" and "This thread in fact will go in my resume file". Sounds amazingly like Madame DeFarge. And this was of course long before the rather murky confirmation from unknown sources that the young woman did not "deserve" to be a teacher. |
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Subject: ADD: In Order To by Kenneth Patchen (poem) From: wysiwyg Date: 16 May 10 - 12:52 PM Thread needs MUSIC! So does the following poem-- any takers? I nominate the following to be the "national anthem" poem for all whose jobs get nuked by career-dead stuff. Fonts added by me. My Bishop asked me to "undo something" (my paraphrase) last year that I had definitively not done. His response afterwards indicated that somehow-- I had carried that out, and well. TBTG and K Patchen! ~S~ ================= IN ORDER TO by Kenneth Patchen Apply for the position (I've forgotten now for what) I had to marry the Second Mayor's daughter by twelve noon. The order arrived three minutes of. I already had a wife; the Second Mayor was childless: but I did it. Next they told me to shave off my father's beard. All right. No matter that he'd been a eunuch, and had succumbed in early childhood: I did it, I shaved him. Then they told me to burn a village; next, a fair-sized town; then, a city; a bigger city; a small, down-at-heels country; then one of "the great powers"; then another (another, an- other)—- In fact, they went right on until they'd told me to burn up every man-made thing on the face of the earth! And I did it, I burned away every last trace, I left nothing, nothing of any kind whatever. Then they told me to blow it all to hell and gone! And I blew it all to hell and gone (oh, didn't I). . . Now, they said, put it back together again; put it all back the way it was when you started. Well. . . it was my turn then to tell them something! Shucks, I didn't want any job that bad. ===== SH Kenneth Patchen, "In Order To" from Collected Poems. Copyright 1954 by Kenneth Patchen. Reprinted with the permission of New Directions Publishing Corporation. Source: Selected Poems (New Directions Publishing Corporation, 1957) and http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=175618 |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: wysiwyg Date: 11 Jul 11 - 10:34 AM refresh for Michelle, see last several posts |
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Subject: RE: BS: Your Career, Dead From: LilyFestre Date: 11 Jul 11 - 02:56 PM Note to Susan. I'm not interested in your delusions of grandeur. Thanks, but no thanks. Michelle |
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Subject: Strokebrain, ACOA Families, and Careers From: wysiwyg Date: 21 Apr 12 - 03:40 PM It's always amusing to look back and see the tangle of misunderstandings that the internet can magnify, and assumptions people will make, about motives, that are "as far from the truth "as a hog from the moon" (told to me as an old Native American saying). This one is in honor of a brother of mine, lest more mis-assumptions cascade: === PS to the below-- 1. There area a number of elephants in this room = All of the H----'s and all of the O-----'s I know are either first-generation ACOA's and/or 2nd generation ACOA's = ACOA means Adult Child of Alcoholic/Addict = blunted feelings, patterns of resentment, victim-type thinking/martyrdom. 2. I have done some work in counseling directly on my ACOA background, [Hardi] has done some and provided much for others, and ("know us") we both have been promoted into large ponds of influence as a result. 3. How's your ACOA sh*t going? Which grief stage are you in now (attached [Kubler-Ross doc])? How are you sleeping? === ~S~ |
