Is censorship ever a good thing?

Last night, there was briefly a cryptic message from one of my friends on Facebook. It read, "Don't say anything else about the firing about the Providence Teachers. Our posts are being monitored." As unjust as I think that the decision is, considering that I am one of those Providence teachers, I never have posted anything about it on Facebook. I know that this friend was not directly talking to me, I take offense. I take offense that we have to live in a culture of fear where we are unable to voice our concerns of the travesty that is happening before us. We have to be afraid of speaking our minds because "someone" is watching. Will something that I or anyone posts on Facebook be the deciding factor, if you are able to get your job back? Will all of the years of dedication to urban education be wiped clean? Will all the times that you fed students your own lunch for breakfast because they missed the school breakfast because their parents were sleeping off whatever, mean nothing? How about the parents who don't show you any respect calling you, "that little white teacher" instead of learning your name? Or a school district who thinks that you are "wasting" your talents by being "just" a teacher? I say, just a teacher! What is more important than that? If you can read this or anything for that matter, most of you can thank a teacher.

But are we thanked? No, we are vilified as people who work so little and get paid so much. We are the people who have the summers off. Some think with pay which not the truth. Some of us schedule to have money put aside so that we can get "paid" during the summer. We have the easy jobs. My challenge is that if it is so easy, why didn't you do it? What stopped you?

So let's stop being bitter and show some respect. Not because I am a teacher but because I am a human being.

And karma is a bitch!

MRD