Normally I don’t talk about things related to my real life job. First of all my job as a counseling means most of my job is related to confidentiality and  I don’t want to accidentally break it or hint something that might tip off my students, parents, or coworkers should they stumble upon my blog. I realize that what you write on your blog, twitter, Facebook, myspace, Youtube or whatever social sites you’re on, is for public eyes. There has been news of students being expelled from their school because they posted inappropriate things about their teachers on Facebook. I won’t comment on the school’s policy, it is certainly their rights, and I don’t have enough knowledge of the situation to be able to judge whether expelling them is an answer to the problem or not. Let’s just take this incident as a reminder about the nature of Facebook, etc. It is certainly not news that students always badmouth teachers, or teachers talk about their students. But it’s one thing to say these things to your friends, it’s another thing entirely to post it for all the world to see. Just think about it for a second, and you’ll realize that is true. When you feel emotional and compelled to spew the most horrible thing you have on your mind about the person you hate, it certainly feels satisfying to type certain things and make them angry. But don’t ruin your life just because you can’t contain yourself. Don’t ever think that it’s MY blog, MY facebook, and I can do and say whatever I want. Big surprise, it is certainly not. If you want to get technical, you don’t own Facebook or even anything you write on Facebook, they’re technically Facebook’s. Read the TOS if you want. Second, just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Words are tools, just like other more tangible tools. If you own a gun or a knife, you wouldn’t think of using that it’s you own gun or knife to stab someone. Same with words, you don’t have the right to hurt people just because you can. If you still can’t see that and still choose to do or in this case, type whatever you want then you will feel the effect, the very tangible effect, sometimes as real as having physically hurt someone. You might get expelled from school, being mobbed by angry parents (just happened in a school near me), or lose your job.