Wrong to say one class is as bad as another?
"When teacher Sonya McNally posted a throwaway comment about her rowdy 12-year-old pupils on Facebook, little did she realise it would come back to haunt her. The message, tapped out in reply to a colleague’s niggle about children at her school, seemed innocuous enough: ‘By the way, [class] 8G1 are just as bad as 8G2. LOL (laugh out loud)’ she joked sympathetically.
Within a few weeks, however, 37-year-old Sonya’s world had been turned upside down. Suspended from her job at Humberston Comprehensive School after another member of staff reported her, it sparked a chain of events that culminated in the Information Technology teacher, from Grimsby, Lincs, being sacked from the job she loved.
‘When I wrote that message, I thought nothing of it,’ she says. ‘There was no mention of the school anywhere on my account and I didn’t name any pupils. The only people who could see it were my family, friends and colleagues from the school. The teacher who reported me was a friend on Facebook.
Sonya, who was suspended on full pay, contacted her union, which took up her case. She was eventually told what she had done wrong at the hearing itself. The panel consisted of the headteacher, Sonya’s line manager and a member of the local council’s human resources department.
‘When they showed me a print out of the Facebook page, I almost burst out laughing.’ she says. ‘They said that I was bringing the school into disrepute and that the governors, parents and pupils at school could have seen it.
‘I tried to explain that only those people I was friends with could see what I’d written, not the whole world. I spent most of the time trying to explain how Facebook worked, but they couldn’t understand.’
Two years have passed since she posted those words and the mother-of-three still hasn’t managed to find another job.
Source
Mustn't say anything negative about anybody in Britain, Christians excepted, of course.
15 comments:
I don't get the "anglo-phobia" so often displayed on this site. It goes from a school or some other specific location to a blanket criticism of the whole country (Britain). Is the title of a piece ever "Super Correct USA" or "Batty USA" or " *** not allowed in the USA" - ? Then it's more specific about leftists or the denizens of California, etc.
Why are the former colonies of the UK such as Australia and the US so resentful of the country and people that's the basis of their culture and ancestry and even gave them the language they speak? Is it because they don't like to feel they are somebody else's ex-colony and just an artificial construct of a country deposited elsewhere on the planet by displacing the existing population in an often not too humane fashion. Just looks like some sad inferiority complex they have.
Not Anglo-phobia. Rather, sadness at seeing a loved parent slip into insanity. And perhaps fear; some illnesses pass from parent to child.
Yep looking in the mirror
Or maybe because these "colonists" in the US and also Australia are Irish descendants who've inherited a hate of just the word "British". But surely this is inappropriate and very outdated in today's world.
I'm telling you folks it's 1930's Germany or 1950's Russia.
Watch what you say and who you say it too, you just may end up in a government gulag!
Woops, so long comrades. The Gestapo is here...
The term "Facebook Friend" has acquired a very Orwellian undertone these days, hasn't it?
Anon. 1:51 "Yep, looking in the mirror."
Agreed. In the past I've made it a point to mock PC speech and voice my opinions freely. Now it seems prudent to watch my words and be sure of my audience. The U.S. is as full of fools eager to be offended as Britain. Every day we hear of jobs lost because someone was offended by an offhand remark or joke.
I'm afraid it won't be long until humor is frowned upon and only government approved opinions will be allowed.
The legislature in the State of Texas is debating banning certain words in official documents. Some examples are disabled, handicapped,retarded. I believe we are following closely in the footsteps of England.
Dean said;
"I'm afraid it won't be long until humor is frowned upon and only government approved opinions will be allowed."
You're quite right. But remember, that can only happen to a weak people who succumb to political correctness. PC, like terrorism, requires weak, mindless fools for it's fuel, and both Britain and the US have an overabundance of those.
Perhaps Anon 1:22 is correct. Maybe we should simply ignore these stories coming out of Britain (every day) showing how bizarre the country is becoming due to it's severe addiction to political correctness. And with each new story it seems the country is getting further and further from reality.
Yes Anon 1:22, America isn't much better, but that doesn't help (or change) Britain. Try facing reality.
One is reminded of the biblical text about removing the beam from your own eye before pointing to the splinter in another's. The media in all countries tend to highlight faults or wierdness in other countries. I don't know how you can accurately compare PC stories from one country (eg. Britain) and say they are more or worse than what goes on in one's own country (eg. USA).
There are some popular UK newspapers that like to dwell on PC stories, whether exaggerated or not, and no doubt US and foreign media pick it up to re-cycle as somehow typical of Britain.
Anon 5:34,.... it's not about comparing stories. It's about the country's total addiction to political correctness, no matter the individual story.
"the country's total addiction" - see what I mean about exaggeration and mis-representation.
The school was brought into "disrepute" because the idiots at the school made an issue of it. If the teacher made no mention of her work or the school, who would know?
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