The Constitution, an Age Old Document

Question:
Is censorship of social media a violation of constitutional rights or the responsibility of the teacher?

Sources:

• TED Talk: Juan Enriquez: Your Online Life, as Permanent as a Tattoo
• "When Teachers Talk out of School" by Johnathan Zimmerman

There have always been many times in wish people have pushed the limits. How high we could fly, how much weight a man could lift, or even that brief moment of testing how far your parents patience could go. There is one thing though that is sometimes pushed a little too far, our first amendment rights. Time and time again has this been used in cases or arguments, because the highest form of justice in this grand nation is the Supreme Court, and what is their duty? To judge if a law or act is in any way unconstitutional. Why on earth does this relate to Education though? It's because some people wonder if what is posted on social media websites, such as Twitter and Facebook, by teachers, should be censored. After all they are one of the biggest influences on the next generation, that will some day become doctors, lawyers, even the president. On the other end, should the teacher have enough responsibility and personal accountability to censor themselves, so they do not have to be removed of their position?

Now some people, who don't watch the news nor studied any form of government, do not know what their first amendment right's are. Well lucky for you, good ol' Uncle Sam can fill you in.

This is normally seen as your basic human rights, that goes along with amendments 2-10.

Hooray New Laws! If there was to be a law passed by the government, upheld by the supreme court, and hopefully not argued about so much that it causes a government shutdown, then teachers would have a safety net. They would be able to not worry about losing their jobs over a reckless choice, because they would not be able to make that choice. Parents could sleep soundly, knowing that their children would not be swayed by their teacher's, almost always obnoxious, tweets or posts. But with this new law in effect, who would really want to become a teacher? To become a citizen with less rights to social media, all for choosing a profession they might be passionate about.

Down Right Unconstitutional! The more probable case will be that the idea of censorship will never come up, or if it did, it would get shot down faster than my dog running to get the table scraps hitting the floor. Teachers would have to continue to watch what they say both in and outside of the classroom. There might be more stories about teachers being removed from their position from saying the wrong things, as as demonstrated by Christine Rubino. After a field trip to the beach and one of her students had lost their life, Rubino posted on her Facebook "After today, I'm thinking the beach is a good trip for my class. I hate their guts.", and commenting later that she would not have saved the child "for a million dollars.". It's cases like these that make you question what was really going on in the mind of the educator. Something that some teachers could pay attention to is the chart below, that is being used to help educate youth in their use of social media.



Let's get opinionated. From my point of view it would all be in the hands of the teachers to decide what they post on social media websites. With how much work, dedication, and even passion teachers put into their degree and career, they can't afford to spout of angry messages, especially where people can have evidence of it. While growing up, I was always told by my mother to be careful of what I post or even "like" on Facebook. Everything always has a way of wrapping back around to you, especially with something as everlasting as the internet. Yes, as a teacher I would like to be able to post random messages about how mad my students make me, why? Because it's my freedom of speech. But just because it's my right, doesn't mean it's the smartest choice. All of that anger and drama will just have to be put down on a letter, sealed in an envelope, then thrown into the bonfire, because it's not something that needs to be "shared".