Say Anything Blog

From Fox News:

A Web site that encourages students to rate their teachers has been banned from hundreds of schools across the nation and administrators are saying it's a distraction and an abomination.

One official in Maryland called RateMyTeachers.com "personally and professionally repugnant" and suggested that teachers might have legal recourse against the Internet forum's operators.

"It's akin to medieval public flogging," said Brian Porter, spokesman for the Montgomery County Public Schools (search), which said the Web site is filtered out automatically by a central Internet firewall, which blocks student access to anything deemed non-instructional or harmful to children.

"It's a gross violation of teachers' privacy," he added. "There is nothing funny about subjecting a teacher to random and caustic remarks by students."

This website is described, in only four paragraphs, as an abomination, repugnant, a gross violation of privacy and akin to a medieval flogging. Those are some strong words so obviously somebody is upset. The question is, why?

The assumption being made is that students are logging onto this website and using it as a form to indiscriminately bash their educators. This assumption coming from the teachers of our children is disheartening to say the least. If there is any faction of the public which should have faith in our youth it is teachers. For them to immediately conclude that this website will be abused is absurd and ignorant.

Nobody really likes to be criticized yet we all know that criticism can make a person better at their job or in their life. While some students will undoubtedly use the website as a place to rant or "get back" at their teachers, some of the posts may be worth reading. Many students may find it helpful to learn what to expect from a teacher they've been assigned from students that have already had said teacher. This is already done among the students in the locker-bays and hallways of schools, why not provide a web forum as well?

I spent some time browsing through the website and noted that a good majority of the posted opinions were favorable for the subject teacher. Even the detractions seemed reasonable enough. I did not see any evidence of "rants" or abuse of the system. From all appearances entries are closely monitored. If any obscene or inappropriate entries exist, I did not see them.

Keep in mind that students aren't being stopped from accessing this site from home, only from school computers. If administrators feel the website is a distraction then the ban is probably a good thing. However, from the strong response given by the teachers in the article I get the feeling that it was banned more because of rumpled feathers then any sort of distraction it was causing for the students.

Towards the end of the article it talks briefly about the potential of students getting sued for libel. Such a lawsuit would be the true abomination in this situation. These students are merely stating their opinions. Unless such speech is intenionally harmful and blatantly untrue it is protected.

Some of these teachers are just going to have to grow thicker skins.