Education and Local Media

Education in Local Media
There seems to be a definite struggle between the public’s perceptions of teachers, what they do, and who they should be. This clip was shown about a year ago on the Columbus affiliate of NBC. The Clip discusses the pending revisions to the Teacher’s Code of Conduct. In general, professionalism seems to be the underlying issue here and the public’s pressure for the ODE to responsibility for the conduct of their teachers. We see a strong focus here on how the ODE as a whole plans to punish their teachers.
The clip begins by talking about “conduct unbecoming of a teacher”, which, according the clip included not getting a background check, or hosting inappropriate material online, meaning blogs, and online profiles, any of these offenses could be punished by s years suspension of the offender’s teaching license. Although, this clip did give to distinct examples that the ODE was looking to include in the revisions, this term, “conduct unbecoming of a teacher” seems a tad on the vauge side, so I decided to see what ODE actually met by this. According to the ODE website, their definition of conduct unbecoming to a teacher reads as follows:
“while ‘conduct unbecoming’ is not defined by the Ohio Revised Code, it encompasses allegations of physical abuse, sexual abuse, neglect and emotional maltreatment of a child. It also includes, but is not limited to: allegations of sexual harassment; improper relationships with students (physical, emotional, sexual, etc.); academic fraud; proficiency test violations; educators exposing students to inappropriate material; falsification of a licensing/certification application and falsification of professional credentials to receive licensure or certification; crimes or conduct involving minors, school children, or the school community; violating terms and conditions of a consent agreement. OAC 3301-73-21(B)”
Did I mention the definition was vague? According to this definition by ODE, abuse seems to be the number one issue that the ODE wishes to address, which, I believe it should be. I do not think it is all the important to start a witch hunt over a picture of a teacher’s weekend or college indegressions that might be on their Myspace or Facebook, if it does not affect their teaching or any students individually. It really seems a shame that the public is so focused on the lives of teachers, and not the actual education of their children.
While I was looking up possible sources for this, there seems to be an overwhelming number of “investigations” about teacher/student abuse, most of which concerning sexual abuse, or inappropriate relationships among teachers and students. In general, the idea that the public thinks or fears that every teacher is out to molest their child frightens me. It also frightens me that children, in the end suffer because of these misconceptions. It seems like because of these highly publicized cases that the public loses trust with their teachers, their school districts, and the education system in general.