Over the past few decades schools have taken on the burden of educating students on most taboo issues that parents are not comfortable talking about. (Sex Education, Drug and Alcohol Awareness, Puberty, Pregnancy and Parenting.) So it should be of no surprise to anyone that most parents expect the schools to take care of this issue as well.
I think the deeper issue here is ethics and bullying the technologies are just making the availability of these instances happen faster and on a broader scale. Bullying has always been a problem in schools. I was bullied a lot when I was in middle school and the school just let it continue.
This causes my main anger about all of the girls who hurt themselves especially in the ones case where the taunting was going on for two years before she hung herself. Sure they should have not posted the pictures in the first place but friends, teachers, and parents knew that these students were being bullied to this extent why didn’t anyone do anything to stop it. The one mother knew her child was in a really bad place and let her make the choice to stay at her own school instead of going to a different school or at least take a leave of absence to get a break from life. If that was my child they wouldn’t have had the choice they would have been pulled from the school and/or would have made sure the administration did something about the harassment. Looking back I wish my parents would have done that for me.
Bottom line no matter what kind of bulling it is or where it stems from schools have the obligation of keeping their students emotionally safe and helping them learn cope with these instances. Also since a lot of the sexing seems to occur via girls trying to impress their crushes or boyfriends this topic should probably also be included when teaching about dating violence letting them know that they should not have to be talked into doing these things that make them feel uncomfortable.
On a digital level since technology is part of the curriculum and is being taught and used for educational purposes the schools most defiantly have an obligation to teach students about using technology responsibly and keeping themselves safe. Especially since there are legal ramifications for using technology inappropriately they need to know what they are and how they can affect the rest of their lives.
You are correct - it is a terrible issue and it is unfortuante that people are not kinder to each other. With that said, how much control can parents and schools have over the behaviors students engage in? To prevent inappropriate pictures from being taken, schools do not allow cell phones to be present in schools. However, pictures can be taken outside of school and then passed around. Teasing and harassment now can occur outisde of the school walls. However, who is responsible for policing this behavior? Parents? Schools? 20 years ago - if a comment was made at a birthday party, parents would deal with it there. It would never become the school's responsibility. However, with technology, post a comment on Facebook, now it is an issue that schools must address. The bigger issue becomes how to get students to be more responsible with their behavior. Schools have always been a place where "education" about the hazards of smoking, drugs, and sex have taken place. But when does it become the parent's responsibility?
ReplyDeleteWhenever students are placed in harm's way, it is tragic. Thank you for sharing on such a personal way.