Students Berate Staff
Schools are becoming increasingly sensitive to the internet and the freedom it allows. Many students have taken to this medium to express discontent with school administrators and teachers. They’ve used it to vent when conventional methods such as face-to-face conversations are not enough to vent frustrations. But teachers and administrators don’t like it; they feel threatened because students are using the guise of anonymity to say stuff that they couldn’t say otherwise.
FaceBook and Myspace are population sites on which students vent their anger and channel it in a way that is not harmful to the school because they do it off-sight and on their own time; since many schools restrict access to these popular social websites as they are deemed to be unproductive.
But now teachers and administrators are deciding that they don’t like it and are trying to force students to keep these frustrations bottled up, or use “legitimate” means of expressing discontent.
Often though the legitimate means aren’t the means that get anything done because students are expected to not remain anonymous and they don’t want to come out, especially if it may hurt their academic standings if they feel strongly and have a negative opinion of a how a subject is being taught or how the lecturer comports him or herself.
The Keele University had given this notice to students in regards to the matter:
Students may face legal action from the members of staff concerned for defamation and harassment.
A number of students have already been written to by the university warning them of the unacceptable nature of their comments on Facebook and that any further activity of a similar nature will be dealt with severely.
Please note that there are legitimate ways to express dissatisfaction with the student experience without resorting to such communications.
There a few of problems with this.
1 – just what is “unacceptable”? It’s a rather vague term and it could be used in almost any situation where the person in question doesn’t like what is being said.
2 – “Legitimate” means don’t always get the job done nor are they always adequate in addressing the problems that students face.
3 – How do you define “defamation”? The term is already vague. Anything that is not positive could be taken to be considered defamatory. Any eloquent barrister could turn a simple complaint into a statement of defamation.
Many schools already have feedback systems but the systems don’t work because the unions protect their workers even when the worker has glaring incompetencies. Â It often means that those who are unfit for the job don’t face repercussions when there are complaints because the union will protect the worker.
Criticism is a harsh part of reality and educators are going to have to face the facts of reality and that is people are harsh judges and when “legitmate” means don’t achieve what they are intended to, people become increasingly disgruntled and go to a place where they feel they have support.
Just because you’re a student doesn’t mean you surrender your right to freedom of expression.
If educators heard what students said to each other in person, they would find that it is often no more different than what appears online. The only difference is that they could punish the person, but then they would also be punishing the person for expressing an opinion.
Where does one draw the line between where criticism and negative opinions and a slanderous or defamatory statement?
Students criticise staff on net
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