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When broad edifice arts pedagogue Natalie Munroe had a intense day at school, she didn't meet refresh to her husband: she took it to her blog. Titled "Where are we going, and why are we in this handbasket?" and every but unknown to the concern until earlier this month, Munroe's website served as a chronicle of her "utterly loathsome" students. In digit post, she advises students to go intend jobs with the belittle company. In another, she calls them "rude, disengaged, lazy whiners." In still added she doesn't mince words, proclaiming, "There's no another artefact to feature this: I hate your kid." Now Munroe, who has been temporarily suspended from her position, finds herself in the middle of a moving online debate - not over what she did, but over what she said most the sometimes harsh realities of the 21st century classroom.

While it's undoubtedly naive to conceive in 2011 that a journal module remain anonymous - especially considering Munroe publicised the online musings using her first name, the initial of her terminal study and a photo of herself - her attorney, Steve Rovner, says wrongfully she did null criminal to endorse suspension. Rovner says his client's edifice regularise does not impact a policy in locate that dictates what teachers crapper and cannot do online and Munroe did not study the school, nor her students, in her journal posts. Still, patch Munroe maintains what she wrote was meant exclusive to serve as recreation for herself, her husband and seven of her friends who feature the site, in business the rants to a journal - kinda than, say, via a accumulation e-mail to friends and kinsfolk - she opened herself up to the quantity that anyone correct her lot could encounter the posts. (See TIME's special feature "What Makes a School Great.")

Someone did. Though she never could impact predicted the outcome from what she intellection were private rants, the flooded ramifications impact bag on Feb. 9 when she was suspended with pay from her employ at Central Bucks East High School in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Not daylong after, her grappling was plastered on the daytime news. "I'm same anyone else in the concern - when we encounter frustrations we become home, verify our kinsfolk and friends most it," Munroe told TIME. "I wasn't fixating on these things, I wrote them downbound and touched on."

A whatever life after her suspension, Munroe again logged onto her journal to write a assorted category of post, named "Bloggate- Day 1: The Scandal Begins." (Though she removed every the older posts, this newer locate is still acquirable online.) In the locate she laments her comments existence condemned discover of environment and says the constructive things she said most her students in whatever posts were overlooked. But kinda than desire her pledge would apace drop from the spotlight, Munroe instead welcomed the communicating she intellection her comments could spark. "There are serious problems with our activity grouping today," she wrote. "If this 'scandal' opens the door for that conversation, so be it."

By the following hebdomad Munroe's news had caught the eye of producers at ABC's Good Morning America. Her attendance on the favourite farewell exhibit on weekday apace made her the person of online postings on blogs and across Facebook. One Facebook group, tagged "I hold Natalie Munroe," has garnered nearly 3,000 "likes," patch an anti group, called "Throw the Book at Natalie Munroe," has more than 500 "likes." (See 11 activity activists for 2011.)

It's within these Facebook groups that the suite of open instrument has weighed in on Munroe's situation. Her supporters - many of them teachers - tout the age-old mantra "Kids these days," and cheer Munroe for having the guts to publically write things most today's "disrespectful" youth that most of them exclusive move talk low their breath. One such commenter was Brian Nash, a fifth-grade pedagogue in West Point, Utah, who has been doctrine for figure years. While author calls doctrine "the unconditional large employ in the world," he says any pedagogue crapper relate to having a whatever students that intend them crazy. "I don't conceive there is anything criminal with occupation kids discover - I conceive they requirement it," he tells TIME. "There's this knowledge that we can't feature anything to kids, that we impact to child them, but I'm digit of those tough-love category of people."

But another teachers, same Amy Sterling Casil, an arts pedagogue at a California accord college, says that patch she cuts K-12 teachers whatever slack for having to grappling things she doesn't impact to in a college environment, Munroe's remarks were "immature and unprofessional." "It's not same I don't conceive things same this," she tells TIME. "I impact a enrollee correct today that I could react that artefact about, but instead I'm employed with that enrollee to intend him interested in the class kinda than going on the cyberspace and venting." (Comment on this story.)

It seems the disceptation close Munroe's comments boils downbound to a fundamental question: Just how such are teachers to blame for the problems plaguing the current activity system? Some wager in Munroe's comments a systematic rundown of the dreaded challenges facing America's burdened teachers. Others wager meet the category of knowledge difficulty that crapper advance students astray. For her part, Munroe thinks teachers intend a intense rap. "I don't conceive grouping realize how such impact goes into existence a teacher," Munroe says. "The perception is that everything is the teachers' fault, but teachers crapper exclusive impact within the grouping that is in place."

While Munroe's hold is indefinite - in locate until the edifice regularise decides whether to take her backwards or terminate her job - her attorney says he module probable be filing a causa in the near future. "It's a First Amendment issue," Rovner says. "And it's an unresolved area of the law." And such same the close jural battle, it's also doubtful as to when the online furor module die down. With an increasing number of domestic and today planetary publications production up her story, it seems Munroe was correct when she said the conversation had meet begun.

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