Personal ≠ Private
Topic: Personal Blogs
Will Richardson posted a comment on his blog today about a recent incident in Everett, WA related to a teacher's personal blog. Apparently, the teacher chaperoned the prom, was distressed about the way some of the female students were dressed, and used terms such as 'slut' and 'hooker' to describe the students' attire. One thing led to another, and the blog posting was reported by a local television station. This led to the teacher removing the post and publicly apologizing to the unnamed female students. While it's not possible to read the original post, the flurry of comments posted in response to the public apology are accessible.

Most administrators I know fervently hope this kind of situation won't occur on their watch. It gets blown out of proportion, takes hours and hours of precious time for damage control, and could have been avoided altogether. I agree that it was irresponsible of the television station to treat this as being something even remotely newsworthy. However, I think there's another point that needs to be addressed.

Personal blogs or Web pages are not private. Think about it. What is the purpose of setting up a blog? It's to enable a wide audience to read what's been written, right? Then why are people surprised when someone actually does read what's been written?

Administrators, teachers, and students all need to think about what they post. While I completely understand how this teacher felt about the way the students were dressed, my mom taught me there are things you may think, but you don't necessarily say them or put them in print--especially in an environment where literally anyone in the world with an Internet connection and the time to do it can read it!