Education

Many teachers reconsider teaching as a profession after they begin working, and this incident probably made Ms. Mallon take a good look at her other options. Anyways, I'm almost sure she wasn't forced out.

Nor should she have been, necessarily. I don't think she did anything terribly wrong. She performed a cheerleading routine as she remembered it. How could she have done it differently? I would have been more concerned had she been behind her desk painting her fingernails.

Three more points:

1. Teachers, you'll save yourself a lot of aggravation if you assume that you're being recorded the whole time. It's probably close to the truth, anyways, what with the state of technology nowadays.

2. There's definitely a line between inappropriate and outrageously, but harmlessly fun. Individual teachers need to figure out where to place that line for themselves or else we'll have a wave of new, silly rules.

3. A little joking can make for an interesting class, but too much can lead to a breakdown of discipline and a lack of respect between students and teachers.

Anyways, I have to go change my routine now that everybody's seen it.

Story below:

Follow up:

MESA, Ariz. — A high school teacher captured in a YouTube clip performing a cheerleading routine in front of her class has resigned.

English teacher and cheerleading coach Cristina Mallon "has elected to resign" from the Higley Unified School District, district spokeswoman Sara Bresnahan said Tuesday.

Last month, the district placed Mallon on paid administrative "as a standard district procedure" after the video surfaced. In it, she is seen performing a seemingly harmless cheer with pompoms inside a classroom as students hoot and cheer.

An edited version of her performance runs for less than a minute on YouTube. It made it all the way to network television, airing on NBC's "Today" show.

Mallon returned from her suspension a few weeks later. She was again in the spotlight after a student's father complained about a book she assigned, "Jake Reinvented."

The parent said the book was not appropriate for his 14-year-old daughter, a student in Mallon's freshman English class.

The book, by Gordon Korman, has been described as "The Great Gatsby" for teens. It tells the story of a cool and popular high school student who is exposed as a fraud.