“Drunken Pirate” – Will you Hire me?

This is a tough post to write.  I don’t want to come off sounding like “father knows best.” The point of this post is not to say that pre-service teachers shouldn’t party, instead it is meant to make you think about the public persona that you project. For better or for worse, what you do on the web might become part of your future job application.  Social networking sites are not just limited to those under 30.  Many administrators, teachers and parents are savvy enough to check up on student teachers and job candidates.

Olson and Penning (2007) discussed the expectation that teachers, especially those at the elementary level, should be good role models for their students. The draft Iowa teaching expectations state that pre-service teachers should endeavor to meet the standards expected of a teacher such as appropriateness of dress, grooming, demeanor, punctuality, tact, discretion, courtesy, etc. All of these are fair expectations in professional situations, but should college students (and in-service teachers) be held to these standards in their personal lives?

Partying is definitely nothing new on college campuses, neither is taking pictures of friends in compromising situations or telling drinking stories.  However, what is new is the ability to easily and publicly share these images and stories with friends and anyone else with an Internet connection and an interest in looking. 

As an elementary principal, how would you react if you looked up an applicant’s Facebook page and saw a girl flashing gang signs, posing so the camera got a good look down her shirt all while sitting on a toilet with her pants down? I would guess that most would move on to the next resume! This was one of many images that two Iowa State University researchers found when surveying elementary pre-service teachers’ Facebook pages (Olson & Penning, 2007).  Of the more than 400 elementary pre-service teachers that they researched, 32% had unrestricted Facebook pages and another 44% had pages restricted to friends only.  Of those that were unrestricted, 68% had images or comments that were deemed inappropriate or marginally inappropriate.

Behavior was deemed inappropriate if it would be offensive to administrators or parents, including excessive drinking, underage drinking, provocative dress or poses, sexual contact (more than a simple kiss), gang or violence references, etc.  The researchers also coded strong political comments and religious evangelism as marginal or inappropriate.

Negative repercussions from posts on a social network are not just a future possibility, they are a reality. CBS reported that an estimated 20% of companies search for online profiles as part of the hiring process. DeMello, a consultant and analyst, states “I think some of these sites out there are going to be the most expensive free Web sites to their careers that they’ve ever seen.”.  A student teacher at Millersville University learned this the hard way when University officials saw a picture of her drinking out of a cup and wearing a pirate hat.  The picture of the 25 year old student was labeled “Drunken Pirate” She was kicked out of the teacher ed program for unprofessional behavior.  She’s suing the University and I hope she wins!

For better or for worse, when you post your private life online it becomes part of your professional portfolio.

Reference-

Olson, J.K. & Penning, K. (October 2007) “Elementary Teachers Gone Wild? An Analysis of Public Image and Historic Conceptions of Elementary Teachers.” Presented at the annual meeting of the Northcentral Association for Science Teacher Education, Madison, WI.

• Children’s Science Picture Book: Where in the Wild? Camouflaged Creatures Concealed and Revealed by David Schwartz and Yael Schy, with illustrations by Dwight Kuhn (Tricycle Press).  
• Middle Grades Science Book: Dinosaur Eggs Discovered: Unscrambling the Clues! by Lowell Dingus, Luis M. Chaippe, and Rodolfo Coria (Twenty-First Century Books) 
• Young Adult Science Book: The Wild Trees: A Story of Passion and Daring by Richard Preston (Random House) 
• Hands On Science Book: Exploratopia by Pat Murphy (Little Brown & Company)

See the Press Release

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Authors

Ali Laing, Megan LeClair, Christine Podewils, & Nicole Smerchek (C-I 435, Fall 2007)

Web Resources

The Human Skeleton:  Matching game

http://www2.teachersfirst.com/getsource.cfm?id=8457 Body Systems “The Yuckiest Site on the Internet”

http://www.imcpl.lib.in.us/kids_body.htmVirtual Body Tour

www.vilenski.org/science/humanbody/hb_intro.htmlBooks

»The Quest to Digest

Author: Mary K. Corcoran

Illustrated by: Jeff Czekaj

»Alive: The Living, Breathing Human Body Book

Author: Jilly MacLeod

»The Magic School Bus: Inside the Human Body

Author: Joanna Cole

Illustrated by: Bruce Degen

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