Teachers and the Net
The Past is Only a Click Away
By Daniel Muniz

For the most part, practically all school districts now perform some kind of criminal background checks on applicants. Understandably, it is absolutely imperative that our education system maintains a level of vigilance to keep sex predators and other criminals away from our children. And especially after the rash of highly publicized sex scandals of young attractive female teachers having sex with young boys, the public now demands that better safeguards be implemented to keep miscreants from working in our schools.

However, too many school districts are reluctant to step into waters that the private sector has been treading for years.

An increasing number of private companies have already been utilizing criminal background checks to screen applicants for quite some time. However, many of them are now going one step further by using a tool that is completely free, openly available, and only requires a little bit of effort. They are doing a Google search.

For a number of professional jobs, employers are increasingly stepping into cyberspace to catch a vivid glimpse of the personal background of their applicants that they would otherwise miss from a background check and some of them are getting quite an eyeful.
 

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But that shouldn’t be a big surprise because after all, the Internet is public domain which is open to the entire world to browse through. Anybody can say and publish just about anything on the numerous popular social networking web sites as well as on their own blogs. And for years, the public has either been flabbergasted or horrified that people, especially the technologically oriented youth, are willing to bare their soul, and sometimes bare just about everything else.

In fact, employers are discovering so much more about an applicant that a resume and personal references could never reveal. The problem is that what is on these web sites is revealing too much information from people that bare their souls about partying, sexual appetites, drug use, excessive drinking, and their own bare bodies.

However, some employers are willing to cut a little bit of slack because they know that the college years and young adult life is filled with immaturity and irresponsibility so what is posted on a MySpace account or on Facebook may not necessarily reflect the genuine ambitions of someone stepping into the real world. Youthful indiscretions are nothing new although having them plastered all over cyberspace is a relatively recent phenomenon.

But in fairness to employers, some statements and certain explicit pictures are just too outrageous to completely ignore when considering a prospective employee. It is natural for a company to think twice about hiring someone who portrays him or herself as a loser, a pervert, sex maniac, druggie, drunkard, or anything else that brings deep character issues into question. Graphically photographed debauchery, extensive drug use, and just purely reckless behavior are not just posted on cyberspace but lots of people also glorify it on their web pages.

Now imagine that same applicant in a classroom teaching your child.

Below is an excerpt of what a columnist from my local newspaper discovered on Facebook:
 

Valerie, an education major at the University of Texas at San Antonio, describes her main interest on a Facebook page: "Waking up the morning after a drunken night and not knowing what the hell happened!" Valerie's favorite quote: "Life's a waste of time, time's a waste of life, so let's get wasted and have the time of our life." In keeping with that theme, she belongs to a user group called "I love to (expletive) Party Harty (expletive)." A Facebook description of the group: "This is for all those people who love to go and party the night away to when they can't remember and wake up next to someone who they really don't want to wake up next to." Source: Ken Rodriguez – The San Antonio Express News

School districts find themselves in a bit of a quandary. They too would like to cut some slack on a teacher’s personal life because there is only so far that they want to get involved in someone’s private life but when it comes to children, a line has to be drawn.

Overall, the general public can tolerate and respect that what people do on their own time is their business but it is difficult to adopt that same attitude to individuals who are responsible for our children in a classroom setting. It is natural for society to expect a higher standard for teachers, administrators, and staff especially in a time of heightened awareness of sexual predators that prey on our children. And even many people who maintain a liberal viewpoint on personal lifestyles are also reluctant to compromise on that standard when their own kids are involved.

Teaching is a serious profession especially because it involves spending an inordinate amount of time being with our children. The general public expects educators to take their trade seriously. It is a unique field that is unlike any other job; therefore it has to be treated as such. Consequently, it is not that easy for society to simply ignore these indiscretions and treat teaching like any other form of employment. Right now there are too many perverts who want to harm our children thus it becomes difficult to separate the reckless young adult from the sex predator.

Although a 19 year old may feel that they can behave and party like the rest of their fellow college classmates when it comes to postings pictures of debauchery and flashing, there are still consequences involved. Today, parents don’t want to see pictures of naked teachers floating around the Internet while they are still teaching kids in the classroom. Pictures of nude, drunken teachers do not inspire the professionalism that people expect from their education system.

But more importantly, the rash of sex scandals vividly demonstrates that the classroom can be an unsafe environment. It is imperative that school districts take that extra step to go on cyberspace. Admittedly, not everything on the web is true but a picture can say a thousand words. Perhaps a nationwide vigilance will encourage future education majors to take their careers a little bit more seriously while they are partying in college.

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