RSSSo Much Wrong
Apr 7th, 2008 | By Eric Hoefler | Category: Writing/Media/GenreI don’t even know where to begin with this recent article from New York Magazine, “Testing Horace Mann,” about the fallout (or lack thereof) from offensive student postings on Facebook. It’s at the center of the current technology-related problems schools face. Part of this has to do with new problems the technology makes possible, but much of this has to do with old problems that the technology makes visible.
The most disturbing aspect for me is the lack of guidance, and this is an old problem. How else do we expect adolescents to act, particularly when given free reign in the technological playground of social networks, when they have no clear or firm guidance from school administrators or parents? This is by no means a pardon for the students, but the strongest rebuke should fall on the shoulders of the parents for trying to shelter their children from the thing most likely to help them succeed in the world: the trimming down of the ego (a societal problem, really). Second in line should be the administration for failing to issue that rebuke.
The new problems are the more difficult ones, and require more time, thought, and research than I can put in right now. Questions about privacy, online identity, safety, censorship, and the like all bear heavily on these events … events that are, to different degrees, happening in every school.
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That article could have been a Hollywood movie script. The power play was classic.
Doug Noon’s last blog post..When Worlds Don’t Collide
It was overly-sensational, no doubt. I also wonder how pervasive these kinds of things are in schools other than those of the “rich elite,” and how they’re handled there when they do occur. Anyone have any news links?
Eric:
Did you see the article in the POST on Wed. about the football player kicked out of WF for a Facebook comment? Check it out…it was in the sports section. Very, very interesting read (and up your alley).
Shawn
Shawn’s last blog post..The (educational) politics of race
That’s a tough article, no doubt. It’s hard to know where to stand on issues like this. On the one hand, when tragedies do happen and someone can go back and point to writings that warned of impending trouble, it’s easy to say, “Why didn’t someone do something!?” On the other hand, if a person is just foolishly ranting out their frustrations (a much healthier alternative than bottling it up or letting it out through actual violence), you want to be able to let that go. The trouble is, how do you tell the difference? And on which side is it better to err?
He says: “I wanted them to know that just because I was writing this, this is not the life that I live or who I am.”
But the words we write (or speak) *are* part of “who we are.” I think we all need to be more responsible in teaching that, especially with the proliferation of ways to “write” who you are (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, blogs, etc., etc.)
We also need a more balanced way to deal with these kinds of issues when they arise, on a case-by-case basis. It sounds like they’re trying to do that with the Caparelli case … and I hope they do.