Is being stupid a defence?

Time magazine has recently reported on people getting themselves into trouble on Twitter. The two stories ( http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2031116,00.html) focus on a Politician who jokes about stoning a female Muslim and a man who threatened to blow up an Airport.

Now, it seems to me that these are ridiculous things to say and if you said them on Tv you would get slated and arrested. I think perhaps twitter should carry a warning, "are you mind bendingly stupid? Yes? Do not use twitter then.

The simple fact is we are responsible for what we say and do and to pretend otherwise is nonsense. I will use these examples to teach my kids about responsibility when commenting but I expect they will already know!

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Is being stupid a defence?

Time magazine has recently reported on people getting themselves into trouble on Twitter. The two stories ( http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2031116,00.html) focus on a Politician who jokes about stoning a female Muslim and a man who threatened to blow up an Airport.

Now, it seems to me that these are ridiculous things to say and if you said them on Tv you would get slated and arrested. I think perhaps twitter should carry a warning, "are you mind bendingly stupid? Yes? Do not use twitter then.

The simple fact is we are responsible for what we say and do and to pretend otherwise is nonsense. I will use these examples to teach my kids about responsibility when commenting but I expect they will already know!

Published with Blogger-droid v1.6.5

Communication with parents

I have been observing and participating in a Twitter conversation about the best way to converse with parents and get them involved in what you are doing. There were loads of brilliant ideas but it seemed to boil down to just a few simple rules.

1. Make good contact with the parents before the kids even get to your class/school. A brilliant suggestion was to send a questionnaire to the parents asking them to tell you about their kid.
2. Make as many positive calls as negative ones. Do you have a positive call Friday? would it be that hard to implement?
3. Be careful of your tone, both in calls and on email.
4. Keep trying, if and when something does go wrong being able to refer to the efforts you made will give you a shield.

I love the first two and will be implementing them this year. I have always taken great pleasure in calling a parent to tell them their kid is doing better or is simply just a pleasure to teach. If you have not done it for a while then give it a try, I bet you feel better!

I have to go to sort out my Coffee morning, for parents, that I run every week. My turn out is about 0.5% of the school population but it is still enlightening and fun. What other things in school can you say that about every week?

Russ