IDInIONS ; no. Lo |

Teachers should not be shamed or punished.
for what they do 1n their personal lives

> Educators deserve privacy and personal autonomy

Jessica Berget
Opinions Editor

 

don't think there is any profession that is more

scrutinized than teachers, | understand why, to an
extent. They are preparing children tor the world,
so, naturally, parents want to make sure that their
kids’ minds are being moulded by the right person.

However, teachers are fired left, right, and
center for ridiculous reasons. Reasons that would
be tolerated by any other profession and for things
that most adults do, but since teachers are role
models for children they are held to different—otten
unreasonable—standards, which I find ridiculous.

Take Penny Mueller, a principal at Crestomere
school in Edmonton, Alberta who was under fire
in 2014 for pretending to jerk off the Washington
Monument ina phote from 200g, Despite the phota
being from five years before and being private on her
friend's Facebook account, some parents thought it was
necessary to pull their kids out of the school. Mueller
addressed this by saying, “I think the media need to
be aware about how the public or parents go out of
their way to destroy or cause grief in educators’ lives.”

Another teacher, Ashley Payne at Apalachee
High School in Winder, Georgia was asked ta
either resign or be suspended after photos of
her helding alcohol on vacation in Europe in
2009 came to her employers’ attention.

Social media has landed a lot of people in hot water
with their jobs, and this is painfully true for teachers.
It seems to he a constant occurrence that educators
are fired or suspended for posting “inappropriate”
photoes, ranging from modelling jobs to photos of
teachers in bikinis while on vacation. However, there
is also a double standard at play here, as when math
teacher Pietro Boselli’s modeling past was made public,
he was branded “the worlds sexiest math teacher.”
Meanwhile, teachers like Olivia Sprauer, Victoria James,
Gemma Laird, and more have been punished tor their
modeling or bikinis photos surfacing, which makes
me think it’s not the photos that are the problem,

Social media isn't the only thing that gets teachers
in trouble; things that you did in the past can put your
career on the line as an educator. Teachers like Stacie

Halas, Susan Brennan, and Nina Skye among many

others have been sacked because of past performances

in pornography, People claim kids shouldn't be

exposed to such things, but it’s not like they're showing

pornography in class, so what's the hig whoop? By firing

a teacher over previous occupations in pornography,

it sligmatizes porn and sex work in general as

something that shoulel be viewed as shameful,
Educators are role models for children, but

that doesn’t mean they should be reprimanded

for doing adult things in their adult lives in an

adult world, [tis ridiculous that society punishes

teachers for something as insignificant as a five-

year-old photo on social media, but since teaching

isa female-dominated field, | can’t act surprised,

 

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Phate of Pietro Boselli by Wong Sim for Image Amplified

Nobody is perfect, and teachers are human too,
and like all humans we make mistakes. That should
not be a reason to be fired from your job. Teachers
are role models for kids, and | think there is no
better way to be a rele model than to be able to talk
about your past mistakes and te be honest about
who you are. The scrutiny teachers are put under
makes this impossible. They are not paid nearly
enough to be judged in every aspect of their life.

There are dozens of things teachers should be
punished for, but what they do in their personal
life should not be one of them. | plan on becoming
ateacher, and | hope one day that the profession
is free from undeserved personal scrutiny.

What gets your goat: Food mash-up trend

> Just let food be food

Jessica Berget
Opinions Editor

 

Nv lasagna, meatloaf eggs,
ramen pizza, pasta burrite, donut

burgers, | could go on... these are all
things | never thought I would have
to see, or ever wanted to see with my
own two eyes, but with the social
media trend of food mash-up recipes
| have te endure these horrendous
Frankentfoods on a near-daily basis.
They're practically everywhere. After
watching one Buzzteed Tasty video on
Facebook, more of these nasty recipe
videos come out of the woodwork. The
part that confuses me the most is that
people seem to think they're great and
even try recreating them or make their
awn food mash-up recipes. | feel like
people forget that just because you
can do something doesn't mean you
should. These mash-up recipes are
the latest examples of people thinking

they should, and they're dead wrong.

1 feel like ['m living in the Twilight
Zone, | can't image how anyone sees
these obvious clickhait videos and thinks,

  

“Hey, | should try making a mac and
cheeseburger!” Why waste your time,
money, and energy? Why do these have
te he put together when they're perfectly

fine on their own? Inomy opinion, these
mash-ups are just sick bastandizations
of foes that are already delicious on
their own, mixed together to make one
huge, diseusting, chest pain-inducing
concoction, People have way too much
time and energy on their hands if they
think these recipes area good idea,
None af these recipes are that
exciting or ground-breaking, They are
often predictable and only put together
the unhealthiest of foods, and somehow
make them even more unhealthy, | think
people teday cat enough junk fox,
myself included, and we don't need te put
together foads that are straight sodium
and sugar te put cur bodies through
hell just because we saw a videu of it
and thought it would! be a good idea,

Photo of the Mac-n-Cheese Bun Burger via Grillacracy

These videos shake me to my
core, Lappreciate a good recipe video
now and then, but this trend of junk
food mash-ups should be considercel
asin and they simply need to stap,