SCHOOL EMPLOYEE FIRED FOR CORRECTING A STUDENT'S SPELLING

The social-media manager for a Maryland school district was fired for correcting a student’s spelling. The trouble began Jan. 5, when a student wrote to the Frederick County Public School District’s Twitter account asking schools to close “tammarow.” Katie Nash responded: “But then how would you learn how to spell ‘tomorrow’? :)” Her response garnered more than 1,000 retweets. Nash had similar exchanges with other students complaining about showing up for school. School officials told her they didn’t like her tone with the kids and told her to stop tweeting. But Nash continued to tweet, sending out calendar updates. On Friday, she said she was given a letter that she had been terminated. The student later tweeted that he didn’t mind Nash’s original reply and didn’t take it personally.
* Or ‘porsonally’, as it were.
* A sarcastic tweet. Why does that sound familiar?
* Can’t blame the school district. If all adults took it upon themselves to teach children how to spell correctly, where would we be?
* Japan, or China, probably.
* Just the fact that a school district now has a social media manager is scary enough.
* Okay, the tone in these tweets is a little snarky, but that’s what these kids understand.
* And why didn’t she get some points for the smiley face emoticon?
* First, you start the thread, then it gets increasingly snarky ’til someone mentions Hitler or Nazi Germany. Then you move to the next one.
* All you have to know about the perils of social media can be summed up by Steelers Coach Mike Tomlin this weekend.
* If you missed it, Tomlin gave an impassioned speech after the Steelers win telling his players to keep off social media and focus on the Patriots game. During the speech he referred to the Patriots as “a-holes”. A Steelers player was live-streaming on Facebook so Tomlin violated his own advice at the exact moment he was giving it. And that’s social media.