Blogging Teacher Natalie Munroe Defends Critical Comments About Students

The AP story is here: "Embattled teacher: Blog spoke truth about pupils." Some cached blog posts are here: "CB East teacher suspended for blog investigation." And a sample, "A Big Problem Today":

My students are out of control. 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.

Well, yeah. The problem is that as teachers we sign up to deal with that, and hopefully role-model better attitudes. That said, it's hard out there.

See as well, at WPVI-TV Philadelphia, "CB East teacher defends blog posts."

Plus, Monroe's got a report at the blog: "Bloggate - Day 1: The Scandal Begins":

See, what I'd done was written a casual blog. I talked about everything--such exciting topics as our trip to Sesame Place, my favorite (and least favorite) restaurants, my work experiences, the diaper genie. I had 9 followers--2 of whom were my husband and myself, the other 7 were friends. When I started it, my goal was to write 1-3 times a week, though I didn't usually have time to do it that much. I ended up writing 84 blogs between 8/9/09 and 11/25/10. (I remember that, at one point, my track of blogging was about equal with my gym-going, but my gym-going eventually surpassed my blog track. I went there religiously at least 3 times a week until my morning sickness started...) I slowed down at the end, writing only about 10 blogs between June and November. I was too busy with being pregnant, teaching a new curriculum, and being harassed at school to write anything between November and February.