A teacher is a role model for many students. Especially during their school years, many children look up to the people teaching them and often to their best to imitate their favorite teacher in every way possible. It is for these reasons that it is highly important for teachers to act appropriately in school. They are to show morally correct behavior and promote exceptionally correct choices. However, this can be required of them only during working hours. Nevertheless, teacher after teacher is being punished for something that he or she had done outside of school. Moreover, because of completely legal actions which may not even show that much of an immoral behavior, they are being let go. For example, “In Georgia in 2011, teacher Ashley Payne lost a court case challenging her forced resignation in 2009. Her departure came after a parent objected to a photo she posted to Facebook showing her holding a drink while on vacation in Europe.” (Turley, 2012) Her behavior is completely normal. The teacher was obviously of legal drinking age and was simply holding a drink. She wasn’t even drunk or doing anything inappropriate. And for simply exercising her legal right to consume alcohol, she was forced to lose her job. I believe that teachers cannot and should not be allowed to be fired by their employees for doing legal vices.
A job is to provide a person with the needed income to survive and prosper in life. It should not be allowed to consume him or her and control all of their actions. Nevertheless, this is exactly what a teacher’s job is doing nowadays. I had once read an article saying that a teacher’s job is one of the least stressful ones. I had also believed so and thought that working with children till 2 or 3 pm is the perfect job for a parent who has children at home waiting for him or her. However, “in the Facebook era, they [teachers] are being disciplined – and even losing jobs – for perfectly lawful behavior during off-hours.” (Turley, 2012) One of the issues often brought up in the modern culture, including books, music and movies, is the need for the modern men to find a work-life balance. The modern culture keeps urging us to relax after work and find time for the people and things we like. Yet at the same time, society is almost forbidding teachers to do what they might enjoy.
Even though I believe that teachers cannot be fired because of legal actions that may be seen immoral by some parents, there is something they can do to avoid this. A teacher must keep his or her private life private. That means that students should not be added to friends on social networks. The privacy setting should also be strictly set to friends only. Especially by meeting these two criteria, teachers should be completely protected from the strict eyes of parent and anyone else willing to dig through someone else’s life.
Employers should not be allowed to fire teachers for their behavior outside of school. In the end, everyone is allowed to be who they want to be. The freedom of speech and beliefs has not been taken away yet. As long as a teacher behaves appropriately at school, as long as he teaches his students the right way and helps them grow up into successful and confident adults, it really does not matter when he or she likes to do in his free time.
