Teacher suspended for voicing her frustrations on her blog? There, but for the Grace of God, go I.

(Read this article first to see what you think.)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog#mwpphu-container

So this teacher has a blog, primarily for friends and family.  Among her 80-some posts were 15-20 containing complaints about her students.  Some of the quotable quotes:

"Kids! They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs. Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy LOAFERS."
"They are rude, disengaged, lazy whiners. They curse, discuss drugs, talk back, argue for grades, complain about everything, fancy themselves entitled to whatever they desire, and are just generally annoying."

Allegedly she also used profanity, but never singled out any students in her commentary.  She also said good things too, not just bad.  Students discovered the blog, informed administration and she was suspended with pay (but her lawyer indicated that they implied that she would be canned).

Setting aside any legal issues (much like her school district set aside her first amendment rights), what is going on here?

The article points out that this teacher is bringing attention to an important issue: student motivation.  Her lawyer points out that she could have been any person in America venting about their job.  Besides, she was venting about a larger problem faced by educators today - student apathy.  

Many reader comments support her, but some say she is the one being the whiner and that if she is so unhappy, she should find a new job.  

I have made many of the same complaints about students.  I know other teachers have too.  Her risk was in posting it online so that it could be discovered by students.  Perhaps her other mistake was in being too general.  By saying "all students are...", what kind of a message does that send to her students who are not like that.  I doubt that her criticisms really apply to all of her students.  

I do not know this woman.  I do not know what she is like in the classroom.  Was she just venting and using broad language to be careful not to single any students out?  Or does she really feel that all of her students are tainted by one of these faults?  I cannot speak for her.  But I can speak from my own experience.  

When I first started teaching, a single brat in my last hour of the school day could make me feel like the whole day was bad.  A single disruptive student or two out of thirty could make me feel like the class was going to hell in a hand basket.  I was easily frustrated.  When a student did not do well in my class, I let it infect my thoughts about that student's character.  When a student demonstrated traits of poor character, even if they had good grades, I wrote them off in my mind.  I would try to stay neutral towards all of my students, but I know my judgmentalism sometimes seeped to the surface.  And once a student thinks you do not respect them, or don't care, they often will blow off your class.  I'm not talking about being their buddy, or trying to be friends with the kids.  I mean caring for them.  Caring for them as your responsibility.  Their parents give them to us to teach, but we have a responsibility to take care of them too.

Now the frustration for teachers is that too often, the kids do not care.  That is what this teacher was venting about.  And I feel her pain (Clinton style (my ultimate frustration about this job is that too many of the kids are apathetic and the people making the rules mandate unreasonable expectations while not giving enough support, but that is not my point)).  But I think as teachers, we cannot make our responsibility to care for our students contingent on them caring about our classes.  It is our responsibility to create an atmosphere where all students have the opportunity to learn and succeed.  And I have seen it time and again - once a student thinks you have written them off, they are much more likely to check out.  Once I make a kid feel like there is any hostility or ill will in my class, and it is my fault, I have limited the opportunity for learning.     

Further, we cannot treat our students as an amorphous blob of humanity, to which we attribute whatever characteristics that reflect our feelings for them at the time.  When I lump all of my students together into a single group, I rob them of their humanity.  When I say "my kids were bad today," it does not give credit where credit is due.  I have a few brats every day.  But I have a lot of nice, polite, good kids, many of which who do their work, and many of which who look up to me because I do not hold it against them if they sometimes "act a fool" or fail to turn in their worksheet or if their classmates were acting up...

Again - I don't know the woman who wrote this blog and I don't know how she treats her students.  But she reminds me of the teachers that I had in middle and high school who I thought did not care about the kids.  The kind of teacher who punished the whole class for the transgressions of a few.  Who focused too much on the few "bad kids" and never paid any attention to the good kids.  And I realized after my first or second year teaching that I had become like one of those teachers.  

After a few years I realized that I had to make a deliberate effort to care for all of my students.  The flunkers?  I encourage them to do better and work with them when they show a willingness to work, but I am still as polite to them as my "A" students (and I've definitely dropped the "dark sarcasm in the classroom").  The students who do not share my morals?  I always encourage my students to treat each other with respect, and when they are talking about inappropriate things, I ask them to stop and do not allow it to continue.  But I do not let my disapproval affect how I treat them.  

Also, I stopped focusing on the few "bad kids" all the time.  I had an epiphany once.  I  looked around the room after giving the students a work day to catch up on their assignments.  All I could see was the students that I knew were not done with their work and were screwing around.  But then I realized that there were more students working than not.  And I realized as I began to watch my classes, that this is often the case.  So I shifted my focus.  I do what I have to do to keep the kids on task, but I base my feelings of the class on the many who are on task, rather than on those who are not.  I think it has created a better classroom environment for my students, and it has reduced my stress level tremendously.   

Would I have written a blog complaining about students being whiny, complaining, apathetic, and inappropriate.  Hell yes.  But I would never say that "all kids are...," essentially, bad.  That is simply not true.  SOME of my students may do x,y, and z.  But not all of my students.  I have some great students, and I have some good students, and I have some students that I force myself to care for, despite my feelings about their behavior.  But again, I would never say that "all kids are..." essentially bad.  Doing so has the potential to break the bonds of trust that a teacher has to develop with their students.  Because despite what some teachers would like to think, most kids are not going to stay on task just because they are "supposed to."  Sure, I always have some kids that are the stereotypical "good students" and do what they are supposed to to for its own sake.  But most students need a reason ("why are we doing this???").  The best reason a kid can have to be on task is because they trust me and believe that what I want them to do in my class is in their best interest.  And if I don't even appear (by my very own words) to like my students, why would they trust me?