Teachers and principals are often targets of their students' online wrath and pranks. In Charlotte, N.C.,
a teacher was falsely accused online of being a pedophile.
The Christian Science Monitor reports:
In one case, a teacher reported receiving a large number of
propositional phone calls and e-mails from gay men after a student
posted the teacher's name and contact information on a gay website.
Another incident involved a parent filming a teacher's backside
during a class skit and then posting the clip on the Internet to the
strains of Van Halen's "Hot for Teacher." The site was removed and no
charges were filed.
Now the teachers are striking back.
The Christian Science Monitor article continues:
Tired of fat jokes and false accusations of teacher-lounge partying
or worse, teachers and principals are fighting back against digital
ridicule and slander by their students -- often with civil lawsuits and
long-term suspensions or permanent expulsions.
A National School Boards Association
(NSBA) study says that as many as one-third of American teens regularly
post inappropriate language or manipulated images on the Web. Most
online pranks deride other students. But a NSBA November 2006 survey
reported 26 percent of teachers and principals being targeted.
"Kids have been pulling pranks on teachers and principals since
there have been schools in the U.S., but now there's an edge to it -- the
tone and tenor of some of these attacks cross the line," says Nora
Carr, a spokeswoman for Charlotte-Mecklenburg schools in North Carolina.
In the growing backlash against these cybergoofs, however,
real-world norms of propriety are being pitted against the uncertain
jurisdictions of the Digital Age. A new test may be emerging on how far
online lampooning can go, say First Amendment experts -- and to what extent schools can control off-campus pranks.
Sometimes the abuse comes in the form of
fake MySpace pages or YouTube videos.
Click here for more background.
It would be interesting to hear from local teachers who have suffered
from online student pranks. Your local teacher's union might be a starting
place.
Here are the teacher/professor rating sites you should know about:
