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Forget the pitchforks and torches, angry parents are using keyboards and mouse clicks to take out their frustrations with teachers. The meeting place? Social networking sites like Facebook, U.K.'s Metro reports.
The National Association of Head Teachers said it receives hundreds of calls each week from teachers complaining of cyberbullying, and most of those complaints are in reference to angry parents. According to the NAHT, parents are taking things too far.
"Parents have a right to express their views and complaints should be heard -- schools can only benefit from constructive feedback," said Russel Hobby, NAHT general secretary. "Too often, though, social networking sites are a medium for the unreasonable and the unprincipled and have a momentum out of all proportion to reality."
What Hobby's referring to are seemingly harmless complaints that turn into gossip and rumors and snowball into campaigns and libelous comments.
Comments are closed on this article
essjay22
January 16, 2011 at 9:18am
I will try to post this for the 6th time .
no i guess not , I hvae no idea why this is being flagged
crankerchick
January 13, 2011 at 4:42pm
Yeah this seems obvious. Teachers: don't have students or their parents as friends and problem is solved before it even starts. Why would people even want to use their social network site for work related matters? Facebook is supposed to be for fun. Have your parent teacher conference using a different outlet.
lunchbox73
January 13, 2011 at 11:15am
Sort of unrelated but any teacher that is "friends" with students on FB is a moron. You're leaving the door open to all sorts of trouble. My kids had one or two teachers in their friends list and I had them removed right away. Those worlds need to be kept apart.
And for all you grownups out there you better think twice about having co-workers in your firends list. Especially if your status go something like "got totally hammered this weekend yo!"
someuid
January 13, 2011 at 3:29pm
+1
And not 'unrelated' - dead on!
Keeping Thomas Jefferson in mind (The pen is mighter than the sword) Facebook is a very dangerous weapon that always threatens to go off in your face.
