Actually, it's not really the kids that I worry about on a day to day basis-- it's the parents. The kids tend to be much more accepting of whatever I throw at them than their parents.

Silly example: With my 5th grade students, I do a "Recorder Karate" class. Students learn notes and rhythms on recorders, and play pieces for karate "belts," which are really just different colored strings tied around their instruments. In keeping with the theme, and to make it fun for the 11 year olds, I have the students call me "Sensei," sit on the floor cross-legged, call my classroom a Dojo, greet them by saying hello in Japanese, and before we play we all do the little bow to each other like they do on all those kung-fu movies. It's silly stuff, but the kids love it.

Guess what? Every single year so far (this is my third, and I already got the call this year), at least one parent calls me angry and asks that their kid not be asked to bow, since that could be construed as "worshipping" me, and thier child is only allowed to worship God.

I love my job, and you are right-- it's all worth it. But it would be insane for me to do as you suggest. In fact, in my industry it would be insane for any teacher to do what you suggest. Like political jobs, I have to always be aware of the possible reprecussions of everything I say, inside or outside the classroom, and I have to operate in a way that is least offensive to the majority of the people in my district. Fortunately for me, most of the way I live already fits that mold-- but I still have to be aware of how I am perceived.

I talked about this with one of my friends at my school who's also a teacher, and he pointed out that this is more true for me than it is for say... the art teacher. My particular job (Director of Bands), with it's public performances and with it often being portrayed as a public face of our school corporation, tends to be even more weighted toward these realities.

The whole subject is kind of similar to what I see when I see Leolan posting here. Leolan, for all intents and purposes, is now a public figure, yet he remains a part of this community. However, if you were to go back to his glory EQ days, you'd see posts where he was calling people names (in very rare instances), and acting quite differently than he acts now. These boards are private, he is using a fake name (even though he does have his picture up for all to see), yet I'm sure even he would admit that he has to be a little different now than he was before.

Let's face it, the things he says in the various political discussions on these boards could come out to the public somewhere down the line. Who's to say what the political future has for Leo? But it would be foolish for Leo's political future to somehow get screwed up because someone found an old post of his where he was calling Obama or McCain a "dumb motherfucker". Is he pretending to be someone he isn't by censoring his posts or is he just being a smart person by doing so?

Rugen wants to make it out like anyone who shows two different personas is somehow being a liar or whatever, but the real world isn't like that. Bravo to you, Rugen, for being in a field where you can show up for a job interview in cargo shorts, a cutoff shirt (with tats a blazin' !), and combat boots. I'd be curious to know what you did for a living. There's quite a bit of a difference between being a cutting-edge computer programmer and a 3rd grade teacher, for instance. I wear shorts and a hat to work, but that doesn't mean that everyone can do the same.

I don't see the need to look down on people who choose to separate their work from their personal life, but maybe it's an insecurity you have, I don't know. Privacy or no privacy, there are some things that are better off being protected about a person's personal life, rather than exposed for their employers to see. Sure "what I do on my own time is my own time" works in theory, but in practice, it really doesn't. And in this day and age, where jobs are cut left and right, there's nothing wrong with being a litle sensible.

I didn't know you had that in you Neesha =p

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"I'm the best there is at what i do, bub, and what i do isn't very pretty"

It's an interesting discussion really. In the beginning I made an effort to maintain a seperation between Surcam & Marcus. But over the years it became less and less important to me.

Where I work, the owners are big Republican boosters, and most of the employees are Republican/conservative. (big surprise, Kansas). My political views are well known at my job, but I've been lucky that it doesn't cause problems. Most make light of it, and It actually makes me the go to guy to talk politics with. I like that.

But there are people in this world who are entirely intolerant of differing views, like "oh, you're for gay marriage? Well die in a fire motha fucka!" But it's been my experience that the majority of us don't give a shit really one way or the other, and most the rest are pretty tolerant. I love my country.

Not sure what I added here, but that's my ramble.

Off topic:

I know it sounds silly to you, actually, but it's a little insulting to belittle their beliefs. I didn't think I'd hear something like that from you.

When my son was in preschool, I found out they were doing a prayer during lunch. Now, I knew realistically there was no way to stop a 2 or 3 year old from joining in saying the prayer, which by itself was virtually harmless. (God is good, God is great, blah blah blah).

However, I walked in once when they were teaching kiddo to put his hands together (prayer style) and to bow his head. So I spoke up, asking that they not force him to do so. If he did it when mimicking the other kids, whatever, but don't FORCE my kid to do it. Because we don't do that.

And the teacher and headmaster had a difficult time understanding WHY. Why can't we do that, we do it with every other kid? Even though it wasn't a Christian preschool while my son was there, it USED to be, so they thought they should still teach kids to pray. (I didn't know it used to be a religious preschool...I took my son there because my aunt took her sons there and loved it.)

To them, my tradition (or lack thereof, actually) of not putting my hands together to pray was odd and a little ridiculous. They didn't see why I would prefer them to not make my son do it. What could it actually hurt?

To you, not bowing to someone because it might be considered worshiping is a little silly. But, to the parents, that's their religion and tradition.

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Where did you see him belittling the beliefs at all? He was merely expressing a statement of fact, he didn't put an opinion there at all.

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Calling it a 'silly' example. Perhaps I read it in a way he didn't intend it. Sounded like he thought the reaction was silly.

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I believe he was referring to what he did in the class, and not the parent's reaction, since the reaction was in a different paragraph than the "silly example"

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

The only persons I remember Leo calling on the carpet was Rorror and Visions leadership at the time. And even that I would consider acceptable as they were in fact "Dumb Motherfuckers".

You're right, that did leak out of me as I wrote (and I certainly was thinking it at one point) but... that only came out about the same time as the "buying a hustler and someone sees me" argument, at least from my perspective. That's the point at which I have to ask (myself, anyway), "If work is dictating that much of your personal life/persona, hasn't the work persona BECOME your private persona?"

Which, in theory, doesn't have to be bad. Plenty of people on the opposite end of the spectrum from me are probably in the exact same boat I am...they are who they are inside of work and out. The problem is... when you actually WANT that hustler magazine but find yourself afraid to buy it because of work. It's not something I think any of us think SHOULD matter (I don't think), but suddenly it does and not for the right reasons.

As I see it anyway.

Edit: One more thing, only on a slight tangent. It has been very interesting to me over the last year watching how british workers operate. In an environment where the worker's rights won out of over the corporations, it is probably unsurprising that so many are willing to go toe to toe with employers over what they think is right, rather than simply bowing down in fear of being let go in an "at will" employment environment. It would be interesting to me to see where the middle ground on that actually lies...because they definitely are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the US in that regard. It was a little refreshing.

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What do you do?

Current title is lead technical engineer. Just a poofy way of saying "unix systems administrator" if you ask me, though. :p

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My job function is similar, though my business card says "sales engineer" -- basically I'm the egghead the sales guys take to customers to say "yes we can do this, no we can't do that, or here's how we do that"

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World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

You're missing the point again, Fribs. Actually, I know you're smart enough that you aren't missing it, I think you're just intentionally trying to dance around it.

There's a huge, Huge, HUGE difference between having a MySpace profile that's public and having a MySpace page in which you invite students/parents to and put them on your friends list and such. Once you do that you're basically moving that page out of the realm of "personal" and into "professional".

That's a tremendous difference from just having a page and someone you know snooping for it or stumbling on it and saying, "ZOMG UR TEECHER DUZ WUT?!?!" That's what I have a huge objection to, people thinking it's ok to dig into someone's life outside work and fuck with their professional life because of it. MySpace pages, Facebook pages, hobbies, clubs, bad habits, whatever...they're all things that could arguably be "public" but so long as you make sure they're separate from your professional life they shouldn't matter.

I actually do see what you are saying Bovinity, and I actually do agree there is a difference. I was only trying to point out that the thrust of Rugen's argument seemed to be that what I said on my Facebook shouldn't matter, whether or not the Facebook website was public, private, or anywhere in between. If that is the case, then whether or not I allowed students in to my website wouldn't matter.

Austriana, I certainly didn't intend to belittle anyone, except perhaps people who choose to be deliberately ignorant. In this case, despite the *fact* that this custom has nothing to do with worshipping anyone, these parents allow themselves to get upset over it. If these families ever go visit anywhere where this is an actual custom, they are going to shit a brick. Three years, and it's happened three times. Two of the three times, after a brief conversation with the parents explaining where it was coming from (and letting them borrow a DVD of the Karate Kid! ) the parent backed off and saw it for what it was-- just a little harmless fun. The third set decided that it still was worshipping me, and that if they do this anywhere in the world then all those people were heading straight to hell for violating the 10 commandments. Am I belittling them? Probably a little. But I have to be honest-- I don't really feel bad about that.

In a way, the fact that I keep doing it despite the yearly calls from parents shows a little bit of Rugen in me. Somewhere I have to draw the line, and to take a harmless cultural symbol and turn it into some sort of malevalent evil foisted on innocent children seems to be a good place for me to draw it. If they don't like it, that's unfortunate for them.

And let me tell you, I definitely have said my fair share of dangerous statements, despite knowing the possible consequences. Yesterday I know I said something controversial, for example. I had the inaguration ceremoney on in my classroom during lunch today, and 10-15 band students were watching it. I spoke up and pointed out that whatever your political leanings, today was a huge day in American history. People are still alive today that participated (or ran from) lynchings. I'm sure there are people alive today that believed that we would never see a black president in their lifetime.

None of that was particularly controversial. But they began a discussion about just how big this event may or may not be. The students didn't seem in my mind to grasp how different things were just 50-75 years ago. Now, I knew that I live in a very (morally) conservative district and that I often hear an undercurrent of general homophobia within their conversations. So, to try to give them a small sense of the cultural change it required for a black man to become president, I asked them to imagine what it would take in our country for an openly gay person to become president. Then, during the predictable discomfort in the room, I pointed out that I would look forward to the day that this would be just as acceptable to them as Obama's election was today.

Now that, in my particular district, was a gutsy, controversial thing to say. I haven't gotten any yet, but it's certainly possible someone will complain, if the students talk about that conversation to their parents. Is this non-conforming enough for you, Rugen?

Sorry about the long story, btw. That story took up more space than I expected to tell. But there definitely times when I am willing to say and act in ways that could get me into trouble. But overall, it's still very important that I am very careful about what I do in town, or what I talk about on my Facebook.

I don't like mixing up my online persona and my real life persona. I even make the RL friends I have gamed with call me bz while in game. Seeing my real name just kinda creeps me out.

Christ, it took me something like 3 years to be able to call Sola Jed.

Pretty *nod*

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Oh my

Fribur:

I think I get where our misunderstanding occurred.



Shouldn't != doesn't.

Because at the end of the day it "shouldn't" matter, but that doesn't mean that it "doesn't" for some people in their relationships with their employers. I just happen to believe those employers are flat out wrong for extending their influence that far. Which is why I won't work for an employer that mistakenly thinks they have control or say over my private life, personally.

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People are fucking touchy about their imaginary friends.

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I facebooked Jesus and the bitch ignored me.

hehe, Fribur said "thrust".

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"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats." -Henry Louis Mencken
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VEGETARIAN -Noun (vej-i-tair-ee-uhn): Ancient tribal slang for the village idiot who can't hunt, fish or ride.

well, after all this I set up a facebook page