Columns
In Defense of Teachers
1:30 pm, February 7th | by Colette McIntyre
America loves us some bad teachers (and no, I’m not talking about the Cameron Diaz). When the story of 10th grade math teacher Carly McKinney and her naughty Tweets came out last week, the Internet was aghast. A teacher was smoking marijuana (which is legal for private use in Colorado, where McKinney lives and teaches), drinking alcoholic beverages, and taking pictures of herself doing strange acrobatics called “twerking,” topless! Did Carly McKinney make some poor decisions? Yes. Did she deserve to be placed on administrative leave? Definitely. But the media blitz surrounding McKinney and her racy social media profile is emblematic of a larger phenomenon: what the New Yorker calls the “casual demonization of teachers in America.”
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