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"Six girls have been arrested after students were invited on Facebook to take part in "Attack a Teacher Day" at two middle schools. Eighteen students accepted the invitation to participate in the attacks at the two schools (Carson City, Nevada), which had been set to take place from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m. Friday. A parent brought the posting to the attention of authorities. The girls were released to the custody of their parents after their arrests. They were suspended from school for between three and five days."
What would you suggest instead? And why would it make me puke to know that they used the opportunity to talk to students about online communication? Should they have just ignored it?
I am a teacher and I do not think it was inappropriate to talk about how to be safe and responsible online. I also do not think the suspensions were out of line either.
When I was an inner city High School teacher in Los Angeles, I had a student draw a gun on another student in my class just as the bell rang. When Security came into the class to disarm him, he hit the Security guard (female), in the head with the gun. She ended up getting 14 or 15 stitches.
The upshot? The student went up for expulsion but panel denied the expulsion because he was a Special Ed. student and his IEP was overdue.
As teachers we get training in child development and the children in this incident being middle school aged are not truly capable of the type of abstract reasoning needed to understand consequences. Having to face consequences helps develop that but it is not as they are even capable of truly grasping consequences until they are middle teen or later.
Even if I was on that list I would not want a 11 or 12 yr old child expelled over it.
Not to blame anyone but this is exactly why children that age should not have a facebook.
IMHO, children should only have a facebook account if their parents have access to their passwords and clearly state what is and isn't to be posted.
Furthermore, they must learn, understand, and actually check it each and every single day and not just tee hee and giggle about not being more tech-savvy than their 11 year-old.
If they see something inappropriate, they should immediately suspend it. They should also lock it completely down using appropriate privacy settings (even though those are often questionable). If we insist our children *compete* in today's tech-savvy world because they are falling behind, then we should put our own money where our mouths are. To me, we can't have it both ways.
Also, they should be mindful that internet privacy is nothing more than a myth no matter what they do.
I found this link to the satire site The Onion quite funny, yet a little frightening in its sarcastic truth at the same time.
I don't think that the punishment was inappropriate. They are kids, after all, who are still learning. Sadly, most teenagers are still working through impulse control issues- the internet compounds this by magnifying and disseminating stupid ideas that 10 years ago would have ended in a phone conversation.
As teachers we get training in child development and the children in this incident being middle school aged are not truly capable of the type of abstract reasoning needed to understand consequences. Having to face consequences helps develop that but it is not as they are even capable of truly grasping consequences until they are middle teen or later.
Even if I was on that list I would not want a 11 or 12 yr old child expelled over it.
Not to blame anyone but this is exactly why children that age should not have a facebook.
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I don't think that the punishment was inappropriate. They are kids, after all, who are still learning. Sadly, most teenagers are still working through impulse control issues- the internet compounds this by magnifying and disseminating stupid ideas that 10 years ago would have ended in a phone conversation.
At what age, then, do we decide that they are capable of understanding consequences? Are they to be given a pass until the magical age of 18?
Sometimes, I wonder if this isn't exactly the problem; we treat kids with kid gloves and they expect to do whatever they want because they've never had consequences.
Everyone has been up in arms about cyberbullying leading to suicide and whether or not children and teens should be prosecuted for it. Is threatening to kill a teacher somehow a lesser offense? What if they were threatening to kill a classmate?
In my school system, these students would have been sent to alternative school for the remainder of the school year, after their due process hearing, of course.
At what age, then, do we decide that they are capable of understanding consequences? Are they to be given a pass until the magical age of 18?
Sometimes, I wonder if this isn't exactly the problem; we treat kids with kid gloves and they expect to do whatever they want because they've never had consequences.
Everyone has been up in arms about cyberbullying leading to suicide and whether or not children and teens should be prosecuted for it. Is threatening to kill a teacher somehow a lesser offense? What if they were threatening to kill a classmate?
First, lets be a teeny bit rational. They said attack not kill and it is a significant difference.
Second, while we are being rational, no one "decided" the difference between abstract and concrete thinking but rather it was discovered by research most of it by Piaget but other important factors by Erickson.
So while it is important to the development of these children that they face consequences for their actions, it is also important to realize that because they are children they are most likely not truly capable of the type of thinking that an adult would have. Suspensions are an appropriate punishment IMO, what would you suggest instead?
Oh and while we are talking about Tyler Clementi (as I assume that is who you are talking about), the people who bullied him were both adults and faced the consequences of their actions (leaving Rutgers) and continue to do so (public scrutiny). But I do agree that 18 is a somewhat arbitrary age at which to decide someone is or is not capable of making adult decisions based on their ability to understand consequences as shown by this very example.
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then we should put our own money where our mouths are. To me, we can't have it both ways.
