28th April 2008

Teacher, teacher, tell me the news!

posted in Blogging, News, Pop Culture, School |

The newsies are agog at the notion that Miley Cyrus has (gasp!) revealed herself (gasp!) in a truly artsy pic by Annie Leibowitz, and by (gasp!) a picture of her lounging against her boyfriend that (gasp!) shows her midriff (o the shock, o the horror!).  Stories are written saying that she is setting foot on the primrose path to ruin that has been taken by other teen stars lately–specifically Britney and her ilk.

Our culture is totally schizophrenic.  On the one hand, we’re practically drowning in pictures and videos of scantily clad females doing all sorts of things that one might expect scantily clad–or unclad–females to be doing.  Licentiousness abounds.  On the other, a 15-year-old has a few pics taken and suddenly Moms Of Pop Culture Unite to prostrate themselves upon their chaises longues, hands to their foreheads, having the vapors that the Queen of Pre-Teen Clean is allowing herself to be defiled.  The hordes of teeny tweeny Hannah Montana fans are suddenly going to transform into an army of mini-Lolitas, and it’s All Miley’s Fault.  Prudery rears its ugly head.

OmegaMom is rolling her eyes here, big time.

OmegaMom is also rolling her eyes at an article about "When Young Teachers Go Wild On The Web".

Kozmik All help us:  22-year-old teachers have MySpace pages.  And they…and they…omigawd, how can my trembling fingers write this??  They have pictures on those pages!  Pictures of (gasp!) themselves holding (gasp!) bottles of tequila!  Or, even worse, paintings they have done showing women’s lingerie peeping out from under upflung skirts.  Or (shudder!) paintings of frontal nudes!

(One does wonder if those paintings were anything like these…)

And they say things!  Like "rocking out with some deaf kids.  It.  Is.  Awesome." 

Or talking about bl0w j0bs.

Or showing posters about cartoon sperm.

What is wrong with these teachers?!  Have they no decorum?!  No reserve?!  Aren’t they aware they are molding young children’s minds?!  How dare they have lives of their own!  How dare they have thoughts of their own!

Now, granted, each and every one of the things mentioned above could be taken too far.  Let’s not show pictures of orgies featuring oneself in the buff.  But in and of themselves, my opinion about the examples in the article is…well…um…hell, these are 20-something teachers.

I was party-hearty girl until I reached my early 30s.  Well, not as "hearty" as some, but I went out, I drank, I partied, I danced, I stayed up all weekend long, I had hangovers, I talked sex with all my buds, I toked joints, I had sex, I listened to rock-n-roll.  And if the web and blogs had been around then, I’d probably have blogged about all of the above.

It might have been drearily boring.  I have to admit that my overwhelming response to most blogs or MySpace pages put out by folks in their late teens and early 20s is that they are an appallingly vacuous, inane collection of stream of consciousness gossip, in conjunction with angsty poetry.  This is why, when I use the "next blog" button on Blogger, I go through about fifty blogs before I find something I would consider even vaguely interesting.

I can’t imagine Mrs. Shoetree, the dotter’s kindergarten teacher, having a webpage with a poster about cartoon sperm, or paintings of frontal nudes, or talking about "rocking out" with anyone; she is, after all, older than me, and more staid.  But if she did I wouldn’t care, because she’s a damn fine kindy teacher who my dotter adores.  Which is, after all this bloviating, my main point:  Folks, teachers have Real Lives.  Yes!  I know it’s a surprise, but, hey, there it is, and it’s my pleasure to pass this piece of arcane knowledge on to you.  Teachers are Real, Live Human Beings who, amazingly enough, have been known to go to parties, or fall in love, or be indiscreet.

In a refreshing departure from administrative powerhunger, some administrator actually said that webpages should be handled case by case.  (What, no standardized testing?!)  On the other hand, another administrator type had this to say:  "We all understand the importance of living a public life above reproach…"

Dear lord.  We are doomed; the only people who will go into teaching or politics twenty years from now are people who are upright, humorless prigs…

This entry was posted on Monday, April 28th, 2008 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Blogging, News, Pop Culture, School. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

There are currently 6 responses to “Teacher, teacher, tell me the news!”

  1. 1 On April 28th, 2008, you know where you are with said:

    Yeah, my reaction to the Miley Cyrus bruhaha is same: WTF? Who cares? It’s Annie Leibowitz, for god’s sake. (Although it isn’t a picture with her boyfriend, it’s her dad in that pose with her…) Whatever. Americans succeed in being superficially puritanical once again.

  2. 2 On April 29th, 2008, Richard Querin said:

    As usual, I agree with you wholeheartedly. Your feet are entirely too planted.

    Luckily, our daughter’s teacher also has 2 kids in the school and regularly shows up at birthday parties. This at least lets the kids (and parents) remember that this is a real person with a real life.

    Now, as the father of a 6 year old karate-princess, who has eschewed the Berenstain Bears for The Suite Life et al. I have only one thing further to say:

    ♫ Life’s what you make it.. so let’s make it rock!.. ♫

    Now someone get this godforsaken Miley/Hannah CD out of my car.. it’s starting to catch on. ;)

  3. 3 On April 29th, 2008, Blog Antatonist said:

    Uh, if we’re going to require our teachers to live their lives above reproach we’re going to have to find a way to pay them a whole hell of a lot more money. Perfection doesn’t come cheap.

    I don’t find anything inappropriate about the pictures. The Media is such a hysteria machine. I do find the one of her lounging against her Dad a little skeevy. Just because there’s a sexual element there that shouldn’t be. But, that could be just my own priggishness coming out.

  4. 4 On April 29th, 2008, kris said:

    i think the picture of her and her dad (not boyfriend) really made people uncomfortable because it is more of a boyfriend picture… i know it isn’t the type of picture i would have had taken with my dad at 14 or 15…

  5. 5 On April 30th, 2008, Journeywoman said:

    Totally agree with you about the teachers.

    Did you know that before 1920, most teachers had to be unmarried to keep their jobs. If you ever read The Headless Horseman, you know that Ichabod Crane was a schoolteacher. Now I’m not saying the Johnny Depp Crane, but the nobby, too thin, geek.

    My husband (a teacher) says that these images are what is behind some of the lack of respect for teachers. We expect them to be spinsters and geeks.

  6. 6 On May 1st, 2008, Julie Pippert said:

    I’m going to quibble with the schizophrenic culture point, especially because you and others made it on my blog post about this subject the other day.

    Our culture is divided, not schizophrenic.

    Donna (So-Cal mom) and I had a good talk that she is parlaying into a post about the Miley Cyrus thing. You might be interested to read that.

    The average middle class person found the Miley Cyrus thing inappropriate. We don’t think or live that way.

    Those caught up in the celebrity culture—such as Joy Behar who I quoted—were all “hey this is how it is.”

    IMO, they’ve lost perspective. In their opinion I probably have a broomstick up my rear.

    But I am their audience.

    And I am 100% consistent.

    I have always been against this type of thing. I’m not being hypocritical or inconsistent. I’ve blograiled against Bratz, lingerie for kindergartners, trashy makeup and all the things of that ilk.

    In fact, I find that people are fairly consistent on this type topic. They either reject it across the board or don’t.

    So how does it continue to flourish? Because of those who don’t see the big whoop to it, including the people who keep making this crap, photographing it, and putting it in front of our faces telling us it is good.

    This is the country that elected W. Twice. After all. (Low blow? Maybe, but I thought his double victory was a really low blow.)

    There isn’t to my mind a double standard at play not in general.

    There are two standards, which is totally different.

    So…what if I ran across my daughter’s school teacher’s MySpace page, with sperm cartoons and off-color joke?

    I’d find it wildly inappropriate.

    I was 20 something too and made my fair share of goofball decisions, but I also didn’t broadcast them on the Internet. THANK GOT!

    Discretion and valor. That’s what I’ve got to say. It’s a finer point Gen Y and beyond would do well to ponder.

    They are welcome to have trashy pages. Free to do so, but not consequence free.

    So long as it didn’t parlay into the classroom I don’t think I’d factor it in that hugely, although my personal estimation of the teacher and her maturity would definitely falter.

    ironically, I might care more in junior high, when my child might run across it.

    Anyway…this really isn’t a narrow-mined, judgmental bit. I consider a lot of things…you know I do.

    But the truth is that teachers ARE role models, as is Miley Cyrus. And as a parent, I have to decide if THIS is the type of role model I want for my kids—or a person I trust.

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