Teacher Rights, Dismissal, and Discrimination

Education is one of the fields playing significant roles in the development of learners’ educational skills and plays an important role in their mental growth and advancement. Learning and teaching are two closely associated elements, as they both involve contributions from the teachers and learners. In the process of teaching and learning, teachers play significant roles in the psychological, emotional, and cognitive development of students, an indication that they are essential in the circles defining education. On such grounds, teachers and educators ought to have rights protecting them, as well as, the students. In educational centers, there are increasing cases of teachers’ rights being undermined, brought into question, denied, dismissed from their teaching positions, or even are discriminated. At times, the arguments developed in reaching the decisions regarding teachers involve some claims made against a teacher, which are considered valid, while others come from self-centered interests to some teachers. Therefore, an analysis of the cases affecting teachers leads to the understanding of the actual scenario and arriving at rationales used to reach the decisions.

Teacher’s Individual Rights Questioned

Social media is a tool used by almost every individual. The most common one is Facebook and my space. Since they are social sites, they are bound to be used by teachers, parents, and even the students. In this context, we consider a case where a teacher’s individual rights were questioned and denied for inappropriate posting in his Myspace page. This was an indication that it is not only students who land into problems for issues related to school blogging (Bennett, Maton, & Kervin, 2008). The posting on the page raises a number of questions, an element that even went to an extent of the teacher placing his contract terms at stake. The complaints were that the teacher had overly students’ contacts in the social site page. The acts were deemed to be disrupting the normal schooling activities.

However, in actual sense, the teacher was using technological aspects to create a platform to communicate with the students concerning their homework and class work. He preferred Myspace as the best page as almost all the students were using the site. In creating the page, he had the objective of assisting his students outside classrooms, created a functional student-teacher association, and advanced non-school associated discussions. A female colleague reported the page claiming that the page contained unethical behaviors, pictures, and unrelated contents.  She maintained that the page had inappropriate comments and postings, which went beyond the accepted teacher-student interaction. Based on the personal conversations taking place, the female college requested the male teacher to remove the page, which he did. Nonetheless, the male teacher took the social media game to another level, where he created a different page to continue with the discussions he initially had with the students.

The creation of a new page is the step that drove the female colleague to report the matter to the school’s administration. This made the school management to question the intellectual capacity of the teacher, an element that brought into question the individual rights of the teacher. It even went to a level where the teacher’s terms of the contract were put at stake for his misbehaviors and acting against the terms of contracts of his teaching job. The questioning of the teacher’s rights was born from the legal issues surrounding the outside classroom affairs the teacher had with the students (Ife, 2012). The teacher had signed a contract that he will not have an affair with the students outside the classroom. The terms of the contract were the statutes imposing the standards to be used to evaluate the obligations regarding his discipline. The state and federal constitutions have amendments maintaining that teacher and students will not have any substantive affair outside the classroom. This subjected the male teacher to be bound to face selective prosecution, which is in accordance with the students’ protective clause.

From a personal point of view, I agree with the case ruling to punish the teacher. The punishment involved a ruling where the teacher was barred from renewing his contract with the public school for the next session. The ruling was made considering the male teacher was warned of the disruptive nature of the social media site to the school’s activities. The court where the teacher was reported by the school management made a ruling that the teacher-to-student communication over the site had innocuous exchanges. The punishment’s severity was a reflection of the discomfort of the schools with the means of communication being introduced by the male teacher. The bottom line of the individual rights of teachers was questioned based on the implications of his rights. Judgment was reached after considering the ramifications associated with the online personal postings and expressions. Therefore, I personally support the case ruling.

A Teacher is Dismissed from Teaching Position

Most of the minor misbehaviors from teachers are punished with associated punishments with less magnitude. Nonetheless, there are some acts that lead to the termination of the term of employment. In this case, we consider the care of a female teacher who was charged with child assault. The female teacher was having charges for assaulting a child in a secondary educational institution. The 30-year-old teacher was convicted for indecently assaulting the first-grade secondary student. The assault was reported by a fellow female college. Assault is deemed to be a violation of children rights, and in most of the cases, the result is the termination of the employment (Summers, 2016). This is the case that happened to the female teacher. There are some claims that can be brought forward to support the reasons behind the decision of dismissing the teacher from her teaching position. The first reason is that she defiled a child. The second one is that she had the intention of having a sexual affair with the male student, which is against the law and contract terms.

The law stipulates that any individual is innocent until proven guilty. In the case of the female teacher charged with child assault and dismissed from her teaching position, there is some reasoning, which may be applied to prove that the accused should be legally supported. The first instance maintains that there should be enough evidence to prove the female teacher assaulted the child. The second reason is the female teacher who reported the matter might be seeking an approach of having her colleague discharged (Ingersoll, 2009). The final legal support reason is obtaining a medical report to ascertain the assault and if otherwise, the dismissal would be laid on other teachers’ interests. From a personal perspective, I do not support the decision to dismiss the teacher from her teaching position. The reason behind this is because, there lacks sufficient evidence to support the child assaults, probably to mean it was a plot by other teachers to have her dismissed.

Discrimination Against an Educator

In every circle of life, there are cases of discrimination, and teachers and educators are not exempted. In the educational platform, the number of female workers is less when compared to their male counterparts. This is especially the case in tertiary levels of education. A common belief exists, and it has it that males are more knowledgeable and intellectual than females. This creates discrimination grounds for female educators. In this case, we consider a case at the Jordan Institute, where Jane who is an educator is discriminated by male colleagues working in the same department. She was discriminated against being involved in a project on the basis that she is unproductive and uncooperative in the mathematics-based science project.

The accusations brought forward can be legally supported. In any ground, there are counter-arguments developed for the case at hand. As much as there is legal support for the educator, there are some reasons that can be applied to support the decisions reached in the case (D’amico, Pawlewicz, Earley, & McGeehan, 2017). There are some reasons that may be developed to prove the extent of educator’s discrimination. The first accusation would be the discrimination was gender-based. The second accusation can be on discrimination based on project participation, which can be interpreted to mean that the allocation of members to participate in the project was based on self-interests.

On the other end, some reasons are brought forward to support the decisions reached not to incorporate the female educator into the project. The first reason would be, the incorporation of Jane into the project would have no significant influence, and it was the sole reason she was left out on the mathematics project. The second legal reason to support the discrimination against Jane as an educator is that in the last project, she was the leader and the project failed, which was mostly attributed to her inactive nature (Fultz, 2015). The last reason is that she has little knowledge of the tasks being performed. These are the three legal reasons applied in supporting the accusation on the educator being discriminated. From a personal point of view, abilities vary from one person to another, and the success of a project depends on the individual contributions applied. In case one party has little or no impact or contribution, it is worth discriminating against. Therefore, in this case, I do agree with the case ruling to discriminate against the educator.

Conclusion

In every circle of life, there are challenges facing service delivery. Teaching is one of those services that have a number of challenges concerning the parties, bodies, and statutory laws and policies defining the nature of the services offered. Teaching entails teachers and student, which are two diverse parties. There are a number of instances that put at stake the rights of teachers. The teachers are at times dismissed from their positions due to misconducts. Discrimination against gender is also a common practice in various levels of education. Therefore, the denial and questioning of teachers right, dismissal, and discrimination are shaped by a number of reasons.  

References

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The ‘digital natives’ debate: A critical review of the evidence. British journal of educational technology, 39(5), 775-786.

D’amico, D., Pawlewicz, R. J., Earley, P. M., & McGeehan, A. P. (2017). Where are all the Black teachers? Discrimination in the teacher labor market. Harvard Educational Review, 87(1), 26-49.

Fultz, M. (2015). African-American teachers in the South, 1890–1940: Growth, feminization, and salary discrimination. Teachers College Record.

Ife, J. (2012). Human rights and social work: Towards rights-based practice. Cambridge University Press.

Ingersoll, R. M. (2009). Who controls teachers’ work?: Power and accountability in America’s schools. Harvard University Press.

Summers, C. W. (2016). Individual protection against unjust dismissal: Time for a statute. Virginia Law Review, 481-532.