On pages 125 & 126 the chapter is discussing social media and online misuse of children bashing teachers or students with hate sites and spreading maliciousness around and ways administrators decide punishments to fit crimes committed. BUT, the section goes on to say the following:
Quote #1 “Courts have stated clearly that a student should be free to speak his mind when the school day ends and that school administrators’ disciplinary power must be restricted to the boundaries of the school itself” (Hobbs, p. 126).
I think this is total malarkey! Said STUDENT is enrolled at THEIR school, and therefore his/her (the administrators) responsibility during the years the student is enrolled. Our school preaches respect, responsibility & volunteerism, the three keys to success for a happy and healthy life. Our students are taught to emulate these ideals and to practice displaying them 24/7. Just because a student leaves at the end of the day, doesn’t mean they can/should go off and cause mayhem and chaos, beating up kids on their way home or posting hateful things on their facebook page. These students are our responsibility, so I strongly agree that an administrator should have the right to suspend, expel or punish any student that is currently under their charge (in or out of school), for any behavior they exhibit that goes against our code of conduct or expectations we hold for them as human beings. These are lessons children need to learn, that their behavior reflects positively (or negatively) on the school and that they should be held accountable for their actions. Students should not feel that their behavior in the world outside of school should be different than that in school. I'm referring more to the standard of responsibility and personal conduct. I think these "Courts" need to step into the lives of middle schoolers and delve deeper into what happens in the real world, than worry themselves about punishing the people that are DOING SOMETHING for these kids. (teeth grinding, scoff, aggrivated!).
Quote #2 "Social power is the ability to gratify our own human needs through manipulating the quality of our relationships with various people around us" (Hobbs, p. 127).
This is disturbing! Why do we feel (as a society of people) the need to seek gratification of any kind through online connections and relationships with people on that digital community, like facebook. Why is it so addicting? Why is our society becoming so self absorbed for one, or so interested in essentially stalking others, some people they barely know, could care less about, or complete strangers who may or may not be the actual people represented in the profile?! I will say that personally I get sucked in like the rest of us, and when I only intend to check facebook to see if I have messages or anything pending, tend to be on WAAAYYY longer than I had planned. I find myself often sick with the time I waste on social media. Sometimes I reflect and am more concious about the length or frequency of my time, so adjust accordingly and perhaps go several days without being on at all, but then I fall down the rabbit hole once again. It is a cycle hard to break unless one truly dedicates their efforts in abstaining. I know this "social power" is not necessarily one of online community, but also of a person's own status in their real-life relationships and community. The hierarchy exists regardless of the location. A person has a social ranking, if you will and stands somwhere in it, depending on the group assembled. I understand the want/need to be liked and popular, an issue old as time itself, but I fear the steep slope our young generation are plummeting down. Selfies, hashtags, emojis - are all artificial and fake (in my opinion). I know our children are able to communicate deeper thought beyond what they express through this text-based and simplified language. I worry that social media is driving them too hard into themselves, their appearance, and their "status." How many followers or likes you get aren't REAL problems/goals, or I don't think they should be. Instafamous=Instanarcissistic. VERY concerned! What will all this lead our society? Questions far beyond my scope of knowledge. I just know this art teacher is #peemypantsworriedaboutourfuture, bahahaha! I know I didn't necessarily use the almighty hashtag correctly, but a friend of mine said she uses her hashtags to be funny/ridiculous, and I like that, feels wittier and more upper crust to me.
Quote #3 "Adolescents are developmentally focused on taking risks, pursuing experience for the sake of experience, and seeking out novelty, complexity, and intense situations. That's how they learn the skills they need to become independent adults" (Hobbs, p. 128).
I agree with this, to an extent! I went through phases just like any adolescent, made mistakes I learned from, figured out who in my life was trustworthy and worth holding on to, etc. I feel like kids today are taking "rebel" to a whole new level. College students at WVU are getting so drunk and revved up (or drugged up) and are setting fire to things and causing riotous mahem in Morgantown over competition, pride, whatever you want to call it. To me, these students need a swift kick in the pants and a HUGE reality check. I am glad primary riot culprits were expelled from the school. NOTHING condones this behavior, NOTHING warrants idiocy! Obviously there are many things lacking in these young-adults' lives, but this mistake they can't erase or run from, this folly will follow them forever. This embarrassment will never go away. The shame of being that depraved and un-controllable will be a source of discomfort for them indefinitely. I luckily made it through the hardest years of peer pressure and bad influences from people who wanted to live in the moment and be free. Hello, that's how you get stds, pregnant, raped, beaten up, or even die! When you let your guard down to "just have a good time." More often than not, these situations lead to devastating consequences, where students are left with hearbreak or regret, and I wish so hard students could learn to just say NO! Go with their gut feelings and avoid, avoid, avoid! Who knows how many coutless depravities would be avoided if more students were stronger and said no and went home to a lame quiet evening in. Guaranteed they would've had more fun, controllable fun! I may be too much of a stuffed shirt or buzz kill, but I can honestly say I don't regret or miss the experiences I could have had. I knew my health and future was massively more important than a few moments of the thrill of "being bad."
References
These are some great quotes and you have some great responses. Your first quote was interesting and I am wondering about the boarder between instilling good values to students and controlling the students. It is true that we all want our students to be outstanding citizens and to behave in a respectable manner in and out of the classroom. But can should we attempt to control what the students do outside of school? Is that our territory? I would like it to be, but it might just be the flaw of teachers trying to go too far into the home life, also known as caring too much. We all care about our students greatly and want them to be the best they can, but there are limits.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with your response to the third quote that you posted. Even though we want to take risk there is a fine line between what will help us learn skills to become independent adults and what will just be something to talk about. We need to help students realize what is important besides just taking risks. It is really hard to make students understand when taking a risk has gone too far especially when all their friends are doing it and they don't want to be left out of the group. Yes, I am pretty sure we have all been at this point sometime in our life, but we also knew when it was time to become that independent adult. Some people don't know when that time in their life is, while others it has already passed and they still have realized that time has come.
ReplyDeleteYou used a lot of emotion in your response, which is great!
ReplyDeleteI agree with Sean in regards to your first quote: an educators job is to educate a student, not necessarily to control them. I think there is a line that has to be drawn... I believe that you educate a student a prepare them to make sound decisions the best that you can, and once they are out of your hands you expect them to follow the lessons that you taught them. You cannot force a student to adhere to your principles 24/7 simply because you are their educator, can you? At what point, in that regard, are you taking away from the students independence and inhibiting their growth? Would you be suffocating their individuality as well? I did a lot of really dumb things when I was a kid that I'm sure that my teachers and parents would not have approved of, but I learned a great deal from some of the experiences I encountered. Be they bad or good, every new experience is a new wrinkle on the brain.
This segways well into your third quote as well. I follow your thoughts often, thinking that the WVU kids have created way to much of a culture of partying in Morgantown. I think that there are a lot of students that think, because they are WVU students, that they are expected to have out of control parties and make bad decisions. I drank pretty heavily a couple of years in college, but I never really did anything to the extent that some of the parties in Morgantown do, simply because I knew that there could be and would be repercussions to my actions. I think that having a party atmosphere isn't necessarily a terrible thing, but when it gets to the point that it is a cyclical culture, you begin to lose the thought process. Insightful post!
I agree that the situations that continue to occur at WVU go beyond risk taking, experience, and novelty. I grabble in understanding how these situations that ought to be rare and wide spread, seem to be increasingly neither. I think a lot of it has to do with herd mentality and the glorification of bad behavior in our society. I’ll set aside the herd mentality since my knowledge in psychology is limited to what I learned in a handful of psych courses and this is a course in digital media; although I will say that I think the internet is a breeding ground for that mentality. I don’t think that the glorification of bad behavior is something new, but much more prevalent since we have the technology for it to spread further and wider. This glorification isn’t consciously advocating negative behavior yet subconsciously it rewards it though publicity; publicity on local and national news, social media, photographs, videos, and blogs. For a limited time, it provides them with a form of social power as well. For some, attention is attention, and power is power, regardless of the form that it comes in. Additionally, technology serves as a platform for transgressive humor that centers on events such as riots in Morgantown. Users create and share memes and comics that really only serve to further glorify it. Most Saturdays during football season, I see at least one Facebook status that includes a quip about couch burning and car tipping. Our society is very focused on celebrity culture; for some individuals any 15 minutes of fame, regardless of how or why, is something to aspire to.
ReplyDeleteLaura I posted this on Carolanne's posting First Amendment Rights... The very idea of what the Constitution is and what it protects is still a great source of debate. If on one hand you believe that the Constitution grants freedom then that implies without "IT" you are not free... and if on the other hand you believe the Constitution exists to protect your freedom then "IT" acknowledges your freedom and rights... Can you see the problem here?,,, If the school board has a right to infringe or limit the rights of students then that implies that students must earn freedom with age and were not born with these rights and I agree with you a student doesn't cease to be a student when the last bell rings... It does indeed get very complicated very quick... I'm not 100% sure how to answer this problem, but would add that school policy should allow for a great deal of flexibility to deal with things case-by-case. For example not all teasing and joking around is bullying, but when it is "Bullying" it must be stopped! And would further add to the passionate response you have made, students need the "value set" of respect (for self and others), honesty, fairness, and empathy. When a student possesses and practices these values then a discussion about rights / behavior or limiting rights almost never comes up. The second quote strikes an even chord with the, "manipulating the quality of relationships" (see the above referenced value set) I agree this is very disturburbing. Then you get to a very "Hot Topic" about the behavior attitude at WVU (see above referenced value set) I'm sure I never equated celebrating with destruction of property (especially someone elses property) or general lawlessness even when I was a young sailor. Thanks for sharing!
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