2M2 Maxime and Oscar

English presentation
Introduction:

The article is called “Why students have a right to mock teachers online”, it was written by
Adam Cohen and released the 11th of June 2011 in the Time.
It begins with this question: do students have a First Amendment (guarantees freedom of
speech) right to make fun of their principals and teachers on Facebook and other social-
media sites? It then talks about a case in Pennsylvania where students won against their
school in a federal court for posting parodies of their principals on MySpace. For the author,
the question of free-speech in social-medias is as important than the free-speech rights that
the students have in school. In another case still in Pennsylvania, a student named Justin
Layshock created a MySpace profile that claimed to be from his principal. The principal
described the words that Justin used as “degrading” and “demoralizing”. The student got
suspended for 10 days and has been assigned to an alternative education program.
The author takes the example of a student in 1969 who went in class with black arm bands
to protest the war in Vietnam and got suspended. The Supreme Court declared that the
school had violated the student’s first amendment.
In the case of Justin Layshock, the tribunal noticed that there was no big influence on the
school. The 14 judges concluded that the suspension was unconstitutional.
The author ends the article by the fact that if we were in a perfect world, students would be
polite and respectful with their teachers but that’s not the reality and so we shouldn’t care
about those mockeries unless they become real threats for the teacher.

What is the position of the author in the article?

The author is apparently for the right to say what you think even if it does not suit everyone
so we can deduce that he’s for these students. The problem in this case is that we think that
the author doesn’t consider the fact that the students insult their teacher.

Why the author chose this picture?

The author chose this picture for many reasons. First, he wants to show to the lector that he
is on the student's side. He chose a picture with a student who is doing something behind his
computer to illustrate the few students how say bad things on the teacher or

Personal point of view (need to be interesting):

For us, those types of mockeries are unconstructive, they do not serve an opinion or a
review on a system or the behaving of certain people. It only serves to student to show their
hate against teachers that they can’t stand. It just hurts and leads to nowhere. It’s also a lack
of courage to post this on the internet instead of discussing it calmly to find an agreement
with their teachers. These students have the rights to dislike teachers because of their
behaviours but if they want to change it, laugh at them won’t do anything. In fact, for some
of the cases that were developed in the article, the actions of the students were simply
illegal like for example Justin Layshock who took the identity of his principal. Even if the
portrait of the principal looked fake it could lead to real issues with law. Another thing that
the author says in the article and where we don’t agree with is when he says that students
have always mocked their teachers and the only difference was that before they were saying
2M2 Maxime and Oscar

to each other and not by using social network. The author doesn’t think that it’s a big deal
but in fact it is. Because in the past, the digs would stay in the school and didn’t go out of
that perimeter. But now with the social-medias, thousands of people can be aware of the
student’s mockeries and that’s the fact that make them dangerous. Sure, one problem about
those types of things is that the person who deliver the punishment is in many cases the
principal victim so the correction can’t be objective and that’s a real problem that must be
solve. Because even if they did something bad, students shouldn’t be that much punished
because it can disturb, they school year and that’s not the goal of teachers and principals to
do that even if they are upset. That can be a thing very bad because if some students how
don’t like their teacher find this article, they might believe that this is done and that it is
normal to say that about a teacher. You must remember that there is a big difference
between talking badly about a teacher with your friends and publishing it on the internet.
Everyone knows that nothing is confidential or erasable on the internet and yet people still
publish things that should not be forbidden. Students need to be responsible and take the
consequences for making such big mistakes.

Personal experience:

Maxime: To be honest, I already have said bad things about a teacher for some reason, but I
was always told that you should only say things that you would dare to say to their face on
the net. And I will after be asking you the question, but I think everyone have ever tell some
bad thinks about a teacher to his friends. So, for me it’s normal to don’t like all are teacher
but I think everyone must be respectful of others

Oscar: I never mocked a teacher online. I always try to be constructive when I criticize a
teacher and not just be mean because I don’t like him.

Conclusion:

Questions:
- Have you ever mocked a teacher online?
- Do you think students should have the right to say things on their teacher online?
- What is the purpose of insulting teacher?