Teachers and social media

Danielle Stevens, Reporter

Social media is not a new concept. According to Statista, 1.96 billion people have social media. A very local social media issue happened down in East Moline, Illinois at United Township high school. A teacher named Mark Kaczmarek posted a tweet on January 23 that was targeted toward the Women’s March and said according to QCTimes,  “#WomensMarch an impressive turnout. Lots of pink hats and stuff, then they all went home to make dinner. Well done ladies! #tcot”

There was a petition that would suspend Kaczmarek from his classroom, there were 870 signatures according to KWQC . Kaczmarek was on administrative leave while there was an investigation. January  27, 2017, Kaczmarek was back in his classroom, but his twitter was taken down.

Social media can be used for different things, including staying connected with friends or sharing their lives with the world.

I use social media to check out live music events, stay connected with friends, and grow my professional learning community,” social studies teacher Christine Gray said.

People use social media for entertainment, keeping up with family or friends far away, news, etc. People use social media differently, and some people misuse it as well.

“It [social media] should be treated as a public forum and children and young adults should have the same restrictions as they would have in public until the proper age,” algebra teacher Michelle Pearce said.

There are some people who post inappropriate  comments, pictures, or videos that have to do with drugs, sexism, sexual things, etc. Cyberbullying can also happen to adults, people use the internet to attack other people, even when they are older.

“Too often people use social media to attack others and make inappropriate comments,” computer applications teacher Michael Henson said.

Social media is used for many different things, but sometimes people, even adults can misuse it. Some adults have lost their job because they misused social media. For example, Denver 10th grade math teacher Carly McKinney posted pictures on Facebook smoking marijuana with a lack of clothing on, on January 30, 2013. She was put on administrative leave like Kaczmarek because she was supposedly bragging about bringing marijuana to school, according to Buzzfeed News. She then pleaded that she never brought Marijuana to the school. She didn’t get her job back after that.

To wrap things up, social media is used for many things, and people abuse the power quite a lot. Many scandals and mistakes have been made because of social media, like kidnappings. Social media plays a huge part in our culture, it’s the cause for bullying and abuse.