I thought I could ignore it when it happened the first time. I did, but it happened again. I gave myself some time to develop an emotional detachment from it and now I’m ready to post my thoughts.
What happened? I got another interesting blog comment. This comment came on the post Senior Business from “jen”:
Ricky I love your blog about all the problems at our school. But not enough students have ever read your blog or even know about it. Why don’t you print out some copies and bring it in to school to give out to our class? My friends say you got scared because the principals warned you to stop blogging about the school and keep your big mouth shut or else. Is that true? You have been a great president but now its looking like you sold out and aren’t going to continue to talk about our school’s problems. They are cutting all the middle school classes like music, art, computer to give the kids like my little sister more English classes. What can’t kids read and write suddenly? Why don’t they see why the English teachers aren’t doing their jobs instead of cutting all the classes kids like and need? You are our president, will you voice this opinion or are you now a scareddy-kat like my friends say. This is your last week of high school to speak up, are ya gonna be a man or a mouse? Anyone who read your blog agrees with you but not enough people have read your blog. We need a president who gets the message out and doesn’t coward when pressured to stop talking…Are you going to mention any of your opinions in your graduatioon speech or did you sell out? Are you going to speak up in school next week or sell out??
This comment was interesting in its proximity to “Katie’s” comment, which I dedicated an entire post to.
Those comments didn’t come from students. The IP addresses reveal that they came from my geographical area, but the email addresses appear to be fake on both commenters. The language that both comments use isn’t typical of a contemporary high school student and the idioms used are straight out of the last several decades.
I can’t tell you what this means, but I’ll make a hypothesis. I’m guessing that I have two comments that were written straight from the heart, but from the heart of teachers at Dover High School. This signifies that teachers, as well as students, are concerned about the direction that Dover High School is moving.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the place for those thoughts. I’m graduating from this high school in approximately one week and I can no longer do anything about these issues. I went to the Board of Education and presented my observations and opinions about the problems around the district, and that’s all I can do. Addressing whoever wrote those comments - I wish you the best of luck in enduring the oncoming storm at Dover High School, for I fear problems will only intensify.
Realize, however, that impersonating a student in hopes of tricking me into thinking I have popular support benefits no one. It’s also a sign of complete disrespect towards me. I’m honest and open with you all, so please be honest and open with me. If you’d like to submit an anonymous comment, feel free to do so, just don’t pretend to be something you’re not. If you’d like to be less-than-anonymous, I’ll take your thoughts in confidence either in person or at my email address.
I knew something was “off” about that comment…it really doesn’t sound like anything anyone our age would say…very, very strange.
Is it necessarily a *teacher*, though? Could it be some other adult? Someone’s parent, maybe?
I have a feeling that, unless someone in the coming class takes the helm, the progress you’ve made is going to founder. This is clearly an uphill struggle that needs someone strong-willed to lead it. And I’m glad you have a clear understanding that it can no longer be you–you’ll need very much not to be distracted next year. Trust me.
@Kim: I have other reasons for proposing that the commenter is a teacher.
These problems will work themselves out, I’m sure.
Wash the suspect comments through some text analysis tools. “Katie” is guessed as a male, not a female, while “Jen” could arguably be either. They both write at levels far below where I’d expect a high school senior to write.
Grade level writing analysis:
http://www.bluecentauri.com/tools/writer/sample.php
Gender writing analysis:
http://www.hackerfactor.com/GenderGuesser.html
I know jen and we posted it together. She is a student, not an adult ricky.
I TOTALLY TOLD YOU TO PRINT YOUR IDEAS AND MAKE SOME YELLOW JURNALISM! I belive it’s a teacher. Did you track the e-mail?
Just read anonymous.That is so CREEPY!!!! Disregard my last statement on the last post
listen bro…. whoever wrote that wasnt trying to give you false confidence… every student that i know in our (almost former) school agrees w/ your opinion because your opinion is OUR opinion… its just no one has had the rocks to stand up and say something about it… i think that if you speak up and say something at our graduation it may be the last chance for someone to save our school… and listen if it was a student who wrote that comment why dont they just come out and say who they are.. im sure it would make you feel a lot better about it and what they said is nothing to hide behind or be embarrassed about
@Renee Rosenkranz: It was and is a good idea. Be sure to take over for me, okay?
@ed: I did my best.