School suspends teacher who blogged that kids are whiny

It seems only yesterday that a group of sensitive schoolchildren decided to use Facebook to organize an "Attack A Teacher Day."

Well, what kids do on Facebook, adults, being far more sophisticated, do on a blog.

I am grateful to the Bucks County Courier Times which assailed me with the story of a now-suspended teacher who, it seems, wasn't entirely happy about her work life.

So she reportedly took to her blog to express her feelings in as literary way as she possibly could.

Natalie Munroe, a teacher at the Central Bucks East High School, created a blog cheerily titled "Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?" (This is a cached version of a post; the blog was deleted earlier this week.)

I am not sure if she taught philosophy to her students, but this is surely a fine title.

Beneath this title, she offered the observation that "I'm being a renegade right now, living on the edge and, um, blogging AT work. However, as I'm blogging about work stuff, I give myself a free pass of conscience."

She then went on to offer existential observations about her work stuff. She bemoaned the fact that she couldn't really comment on her students' work in the way that she would like.

Indeed, she listed some of the comments she would like to offer. For example: "Dunderhead." Another that clearly had washed around her mind for some time was: "I hear the trash company is hiring."

But perhaps the most emotive was: "Whiny, simpering grade-grubber with an unrealistically high perception of own ability level."

You will be rocked to your foundations when I tell you that there were those who didn't enjoy a high perception of Munroe's candidness and humor.

For she was suspended with pay and, indeed, the Bucks County Courier Times reports, may be fired.

The paper quoted Central Bucks Superintendent N. Robert Laws as saying the blog, which has been taken down, "could result in termination."

Strangely, though, Munroe reportedly began posting about her students in September 2009. It seems that parents only complained about it recently.

I know that some will feel Munroe's suspension is justified, that she set a terrible, whiny example. And yet, when one reads her heartfelt honesty, one wonders whether it is the students and their parents for whom this is, as the cliche goes, a teachable moment.