Comments on: H.S. student’s class secretary candidacy tossed due to blog, her mom sues

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:40:17 +0000

I agree with you, Aldon. And thanks for taking the time to leave the comment. I’m not that young, but I have kids in elementary and middle school and teaching them how to respect and still use good judgment when it comes to accepting authority is incredibly important to me. There are just too many instances of abuse, I think. I don’t think it’s the rule, but I think we owe it to our kids to teach them discretion and not blind submission.

By: Aldon Hynes

Aldon Hynes — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 21:02:39 +0000

Jill, Thank you for linking to a few of my posts about the Avery Doninger case. Your comment,

My biggest problem with all these actions against and between students and administrators is that it seems so antithetical to what adults should be hoping for: to raise people who think critically, aren’t intimidated and express themselves.

gets to one of the key underlying issues that have plagued student freedom of speech cases from the beginning, which I touched upon in my post, The State of Student Free Speech about the goal of public education:

The first is the self-governance theory of education, that the goal of public schools is to encourage students to think and speak independently. It is the theory that I am a big supporter of. The other theory is of a values inculcation model, which has nothing to do with fostering independence. It is about communicating community values.

The administration at Lewis Mills High School seems to be firmly in the camp of inculcating community values, and an important value, in their mind, is not questioning people in authority. There are many interesting issues in this case, but perhaps the most important, at the core, is how we understand 'authority'.

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 01:45:17 +0000

We is on the same page.

By: Carole Cohen

Carole Cohen — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 20:22:10 +0000

I absolutely agree that it is antithetical to what we need. Thinking! What a concept. Schools in my limited experience teaching put up with community and parental involvement not embraced it; and we wonder why communites and parents got uninvolved. And to say this person can’t run again? I just shake my head.

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 15:33:51 +0000

Village – that’s fascinating – do you think it’s the social networking piece that makes the other two more verboten?

By: Village Green

Village Green — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 15:32:40 +0000

Regarding boundaries, I have my own which are that I don’t talk about school-related issues on my blog, but I will make comments on education issues on other people’s blogs. Mainly because I started my blog to think about things other than those that fill my daytime hours. And yet, all citizens should be concerned with educational policies. So when other bloggers bring these issues up, I do feel it is ok to chime in.

Has anyone pointed out that the Ohio Dept of Ed has warned teachers not to post on places like MySpace and FaceBook? They didn’t tell us not to use Blogger, so I think I’m ok — for now!

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:22:29 +0000

Thanks, Andy. Much appreciated. On the one hand, the case is very, very unfortunate. On the other hand, since I can only imagine that more and more situations already exist and will arise that involve similar facts (people expressing themselves on the Internet and the people being described not liking what’s expressed), I suppose it’s not awful to get some rulings on the boundaries.

What bothers me is that we don’t have enough of a consensus among ourselves as to the boundaries without having to go to court – do you know what I mean?

By: andy thibault

andy thibault — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 12:09:38 +0000

By: Jill Miller Zimon

Jill Miller Zimon — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 02:30:12 +0000

All great comments.

Some good technical points in favor of the administrators but I agree that I’d side with the students. In this day, there just has to be a better way to deal with dissent than burying it. It just makes me feel like adults have learned nothing or are unwilling to teach from what they have learned. That just feels so wrong.

By: Jeff Hess

Jeff Hess — Fri, 23 Nov 2007 22:30:20 +0000

Shalom Jill,

I have two thoughts:

First, it’s freedom of the press, i.e. the publisher. In the past, mimeographs not with standing, the administration owned the press.

Second, the veneer between civilization and anarchy is a thin one. Now that students may ridicule educators with impunity, chaos is not far off.

Having said that, I’m on the students’ side in this. Education by brute force has never been a good idea. Only tyrants may rule by fiat and we know how a free society judges tyrants.

B’shalom,

Jeff