Cussing Teacher

Here’s a true story of a high school English teacher, 30-year-old Natalie Munroe in suburban Philadelphia who found herself in hot soup because of a profanity-laced blog in which she described her young charges "disengaged, lazy whiners". Her school, Central Bucks East High School wasn’t at all impressed and so she was suspended. The blog has since been taken down but its contents can still be found easily online.

"My students are out of control," Munroe, who has taught 10th, 11th and 12th grades, wrote in one post dated October 27, 2009. "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". And in another post, Munroe writes: "Kids! They are disobedient, disrespectful oafs. Noisy, crazy, sloppy, lazy LOAFERS". She also comes up with a colorful list of comments that she felt should be available on student report cards.

Certainly, her comments were provocative in-your-face type – generous, explicit and plainspoken. Therefore, it is not surprising if there are online commentators who applaud her for taking a tough love approach. And at the same time, there will also be those who excoriate her for verbal abuse. Media attention has rained down, and backers have even started a Facebook group. If you were in her shoes, what would you have done and said?

As for me, I believe in providing my students with a supportive environment. No student is hopeless unless I have given up hope on them. But I can’t and I won’t because I have been entrusted to lavish hope on them. That is my job and I do not intend to be a cop-out. Didn’t Ignacio Estrada once said: "If a child can’t learn the way we teach, maybe we should teach the way they learn”.