The rumor and gossip mill has no place in education

Education is one of the most regulated industries in the United States, but I have always said that educators are big gossips, no matter what the level.

People get judged on popularity, seniority, and by whispers. I recently attended what I thought was a professional conversation about teaching, and one of the opening statements was “well I heard …about you”. You heard?!

We are supposed to be objective with our students, use rubrics, have learning goals, etc. How can we truly claim this if we cannot be objective with each other? Do you realize so many performance evaluations in education are based upon how the supervisor is feeling about you at that time, not about your performance for the year?

Unfortunately, we often treat our students this way as well. We judge them based upon student records, but we do not look closely at the records, just the juicy gossip. The teachers lounge in K12 is often full of negative student gossip.

Educators, we must do better if we are going to ever transform education. We are allowing non-educators to run us, because we cannot seem to run ourselves.

So, next time you feel like repeating that rumor, talking that trash, or judging someone on hearsay, let us practice what we teach the students:

·         Is this kind?

·         Is it true?

·         Is it necessary?

Dr Flavius A B Akerele III

The ETeam