Teachers do have a life outside school!

Six primary school teachers have posted pictures of themselves having a very good time on Facebook. Those teachers, including the deputy head, were dressed in Army gear at a hen party; the outfit were described as shocking by the parents of the students. One of the pictures included a dancing pole and a leg wrapped around it. All the other pictures showed them having drinks, showing their knickers, smoking and more inappropriate behaviour. A parent found these pictures online and spread them around the neighbourhood. The pictures have been removed of Facebook and the teachers have made their profiles private.

Even though I absolutely agree with one of the statements that was made in the article by one of the parents. “I disagree with this as teachers are supposed to be setting a good example and they are clearly not.” Teachers spend a lot of time with our children and they are a big help in the process of bringing them up in the best way possible. Teachers are a lot to have a life after school. If that means that they go crazy and party, well who can blame them? They should be a bit more careful with what they post online, but then again we all should. Everything we post online can be used in some sort of way. So therefor I think yes those parents have an absolutely legitimate point of worry, we should not forget that they do have a life and that have the full right to fill that in the way they want to.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1389292/Disgrace-drinking-pole-dancing-primary-school-teachers-published-pictures-Facebook.html

Social media used in search for anti-social people

The social media site Facebook will be used to track down paedophiles. With a new technology, PhotoDNA, built by Microsoft, sites like Facebook will be used to find those child abusers. The system is run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, by their collection of 10,000 images of child abuse from law enforcement authorities the people who have looked at those picture can be traced down. This is done by computers which, divide the images into smaller pieces and then a sort of fingerprint is found one them and compared to other fingerprints found on sites like Facebook.

My first reaction to this article was wow how awesome. They can think of so many brilliant things nowadays. The search for paedophiles is long and hard, but every help is welcome and especially if it can be done by one of the most looked at sites of this moment. Looking further at this plan it is also kind of frightening, more and more we are looked at. Nothing can be secret anymore, there is always someone watching or listening. The more concoctions like these are found the more the big brother society is lurking. So yes I think this is a great way to find child abusers, but where is the line of privacy?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/facebook/8525963/Facebook-to-trawl-photos-for-child-abuse.html

School sickness not just for students?

Could the profession of a teacher be more stressful than we think? The increasing level of stress drives big number of teacher to want to leave their job, or even leave their life. This stress is due to the high demands of the government targets. Sue McMahon, a delegate from Calderdale, West Yorkshire, has had to help out a lot of teachers already to reduce their stress. She used the term “target tsunami” to describe the sky high demands that the governments puts on the teachers with its targets. Another reason for this stress is due to the longer hours they have to make, this is because they have to do all kinds of tasks little to do with teaching. If the burden of planning and assessment on teachers was lowered, would be a big step into reducing the stress.

While reading this article I was immediately wondering about the level of stress among teachers here in Holland. Would it be the same or has it been better taken care of. It is absurd to think that a so needed profession like being a teacher would be in danger due to government targets. I have the feeling that not a lot of people want to become a teacher anymore because it does not bring the same level of respect as it once did. But if we bully away the teacher we already have and scare of the new teachers. Who will teach?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/apr/25/stress-drives-teachers-out-of-schools