A teacher has been struck off for at least two years for writing a gossip blog about his school – describing girls as dressing like ‘Eastern European prostitutes and Kardashian clones’.
Alexander Price, 43, was found guilty of breaching professional conduct for his anonymous diary about daily life at his failing high school.
A misconduct hearing was told he offended pupils, parents and colleagues with his blog called ‘The Provoked Pedagogue’ about school life.
Alexander Price (pictured above), 43, offended pupils, parents and colleagues at Denbigh High School in Denbigh, North Wales, with his mystery blog called ‘The Provoked Pedagogue’
He penned 24 blog posts between January 2016 and March 2018 until a colleague stumbled across the online diary and alerted headmaster Dr Paul Evans.
Dr Evans realised that one of the articles, titled Liars, Backstabbers and Empire Builders, referred directly to a meeting he had had with Mr Price, who was swiftly suspended pending investigation.
In one article titled ‘The Problem With Prom’, Mr Price called the event ‘a shallow, vacuous affair, about nothing more than who has spent the most on looking nice.’
He said girls often ended up looking like a cross between ‘Eastern European prostitutes and trans-human Kardashian clones’ and said boys at the bash ‘snorted coke’.
In another article Mr Price referred to head teacher Dr Paul Evans as Grima Wormtongue, a sycophantic character from Lord of the Rings.
Mr Price described the head as ‘slithering around the school in a foul mission’ in the secret online diary.
Denbigh High School in North Wales. The hearing was told the 540-pupil school had been in special measures at the time of Design and Technology teacher Mr Price writing the blog
Former Design and Technology teacher Mr Price said he wrote the blogs as a ‘cathartic’ exercise while working at the school and tried to make them ‘colourful and entertaining’.
But a panel ruled the posts were ‘inappropriate, offensive, or derogatory’ to pupils, parents and colleagues and found he had committed unacceptable professional conduct.
In the article about prom he said girls at Denbigh High School in Denbigh, North Wales, would spend ‘nine out of 12 months’ planning for the event when they should be learning.
He added: ‘The prom means more to them than GCSE results, the pressure builds and builds and when they should be studying they are on ASOS.
‘Young girls in school fresh-faced or pimpled are plastered in make-up because they feel pressure from all angles, often including the school.
‘Parents getting paid alone to pay for hair extensions and lip pumping, botox for some and dermal peels for others – make-up so thick that when it cracks it rivals tectonic plates.
‘Then there’s the fake tan: ludicrous shades and colours that defy even the unlimited variations provided by the human gene.’
He said some pupils had ‘literacy so poor they cannot read the instructions on sachets of brown goop that leak into every pore.’
He described prom as ‘the ugly end of society where only the rich has value and everyone else has to emulate.
‘Anxious young teens shoe-horned into gowns and paraded into towns like cattle.’
‘Tears are assured and will have been flowing freely, family relationships are stretched to breaking point in the quest for the perfect combination of overpriced tat that the teenager thinks they want.’
Chair Steve Powell said the comments ‘were critical, they were disrespectful, they were likely to cause offence to any pupil or parent who came across the article.’
‘It was particularly concerning that a focus on these comments and the article as a whole was on families from poor backgrounds in an unnecessary and unwarranted way.’
Mr Price admitted writing the blogs but denied they amount to unacceptable professional conduct.
He said the panel had not taken the blogs in the proper context and that many of the extracts they read aloud had the opposite point of the articles as a whole.
Mr Price’s union representative, Colin Adkins, of NASUWT, said the ruling was ‘chilling in that it has inhibited freedom of speech.’
Alexander Price (pictured above) has been prohibited from teaching for two years after a misconduct panel found he showed a ‘reckless disregard’ for the professional code of conduct
In a statement to the panel, Mr Price said: ‘I find it ridiculous you say you have considered these comments in their entirety because you blatantly haven’t.
‘This process is clearly designed to cover up the failings of a failing school – a school which accepts homophobic, racist and misogynistic language from pupils as part of its normal behaviours.’
Mr Price said he wrote the blogs because the school was ‘dangerous and failing’.
At a previous hearing, the 43-year-old said he was the latest victim of cancel culture.
He told the panel: ‘In these times of cancel culture and the ownership of language this is one further example of the liberal elite attempting to sanitise the world with their own brand of passive-aggressive censorship and bullying.’
He has now been handed a prohibition order banning him from teaching.
The hearing in Cardiff was told he can reapply to join the register after a two-year period.
Panel chair Mr Powell added that the teacher’s actions showed a ‘reckless disregard for the principles set out in the code.’
