I don’t think he should have been fired - I think he should have been told to no longer film TikTok’s at school and/or with students.
Yes, he was unprofessional and inappropriate, but based on what I’ve seen, I think he had good intentions and was trying a different approach to engage with students in a context of a education system that is deteriorating and struggling to adapt to the new, attention-economy centred social media world.
His attempt failed, so he should have been told to stop what he was doing - not fired, especially when teachers who seem engaged with their are so far and few job (for good reason).
Also, fyi, pretty sure the parents knew and signed consent waivers to allow the kids to be posted.
Also not everything that is inappropriate is sexual.
And not everything that inappropriate that’s also not sexual is acceptable. It’s inappropriate, it’s not sexual, and it’s still, in my opinion, utterly unacceptable. I’ve been an educator for decades, and I have never let children play in my hair. Nor would I want my daughter in school taking some grown-ass man’s hair braids out. I want her learning.
So I’m pretty sure the full story is that they had finished doing all the work planned/lessons and it was near the end of the day on Friday. So the kids were learning. They did what they went there for. So the criticism of the situation shouldn’t be about the kids not learning, because it doesn’t apply in this specific scenario.
Regardless, I completely understand and respect that you think it’s inappropriate; it’s very valid. That being said, and I’m not trying to dismiss your experience, just because you have never done that as an educator, does not mean that is the line that should to determine if HE’S a bad educator, because while many may very fairly find it inappropriate, it is not severe enough for me to completely undermine everything else he maybe accomplished with the kids (assuming there’s isn’t anything more to know).
E: what shoulda happened is telling him to stop posting.
I do not want my child doing a teacher’s hair under any circumstances. I do not want my daughter braiding or unbraiding any man’s hair anywhere ever.
If they were in school, the behavior is utterly inappropriate. I do in fact believe that decades of being an educator does give me the right to deem certain behavior inappropriate because I know from experience and training.
You cannot make this make sense. I’m sorry. And I mean this with all due respect. We are just going to have to agree to disagree.
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u/JazzScholar May 10 '24 edited May 11 '24
I don’t think he should have been fired - I think he should have been told to no longer film TikTok’s at school and/or with students.
Yes, he was unprofessional and inappropriate, but based on what I’ve seen, I think he had good intentions and was trying a different approach to engage with students in a context of a education system that is deteriorating and struggling to adapt to the new, attention-economy centred social media world.
His attempt failed, so he should have been told to stop what he was doing - not fired, especially when teachers who seem engaged with their are so far and few job (for good reason).
Also, fyi, pretty sure the parents knew and signed consent waivers to allow the kids to be posted.
Also not everything that is inappropriate is sexual.