Who is at fault

I just read a story on cnn about a teacher who is being suspended (with pay) for blogging about her students. She called them lazy and whiny. She only intended for friends to read the blog, but apparently it got out. Now, here's the thing....should she be suspended and punished for exercising her rights to freedom of speech? I'm not sure if she named the students, if she did that is a different story and I'm sure a lawsuit. However, I don't think she named names, just complained. How many people go home and vent about their co-workers? Yes, it probably was not the brightest move and she could have probably made the blog private, but I don't think she should be punished. The pages have been deleted, but as the saying goes, once it's on the Internet, it's on there forever--no matter how hard you try to delete it. Maybe this is a wake up call to parents. KIDS ARE LAZY TODAY. No, not every kid, but a lot of them are. It is difficult, as a teacher, to motivate children when they are not being pushed at home.

This could go on a complete rant about how terrible our education system truly is. Not only are teachers underpaid, but when a child fails a class, ALL the blame (most of the time...) is placed on the teacher--I can attest to this as it happened to me. A child was failing math and was on the verge of summer school. It wasn't until I pointed out to the guardian that things have to change at home, he wasn't getting the help he needed on his homework. The guardian, at first, suggested that I take roughly 30 minutes out of the day to help him one on one...not before or after school, during school. I'd love to do that with every child, however, there is only one me and 21 students and on average 5 subjects to be taught. Our solution (we came up with this together, which is rare, most guardians will say "no, you are the teacher, you fix it") was to send additional problems home and I would continue to help and the guardian would start to help. He was able to pull his grades up and enjoy a summer free of school. Not everyone is as lucky as I was with a guardian who is open to helping kids at home. In saying all this, it's a double edged sword with this teacher who blogged about her students. She probably shouldn't have blogged about it and probably should have done it the old fashioned way of just writing her feelings down in a journal. But, she does have the right and freedom to express her feelings. Are people upset about this because it is the truth...or are they upset that she is suspended?