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Virtual journals stir up lively conversations on public school life
When another teacher walked into Jeanne Edna Thelwell's classroom and abruptly told her that she needed to see the principal, Ms. Thelwell knew something was wrong. When the first-year New York City teacher got to the office, she was told to sit and wait for her union representative to arrive.
"Is this a disciplinary hearing?" she asked.
"It's come to my attention that you have a Web site," the principal told her. Before Ms. Thelwell could reply, she continued: "Which is your right."
A concerned colleague, however, had brought the site to her attention, the principal told Ms. Thelwell. Then the teacher noticed paperwork stating the purpose of the meeting: Assessing the teacher's emotional state.
"I wanted to laugh," Ms. Thelwell recalled about the October 2002 meeting.
But really, after a bruising first few months at Brooklyn's 620-student Public School 81, the 4th grade teacher was on the verge of tears. Still, she was wondering what she could have posted online to make the principal think she was on the verge of a breakdown. Then she remembered her entry for Oct. 6, her 52nd birthday:
As birthdays go, today truly sucked. . . . After this past week, I think I've made a terrible mistake. I have no idea how to teach these kids, and I'm not sure I ever will. . . . Realizing on your 52nd birthday that you're not competent to do what you've just banked the rest of your career on is not uplifting.
It's the kind of hyperbole you'd find in the private journal of almost any first-year teacher. Instead, Ms. Thelwell posted those brutally honest insights on her weblog, a journal-like personal Web site, where her tales of the passage of days and weeks and their toll on an inexperienced teacher were told in real time, without the distance-or safety-of reflection.
Personal and Professional
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