More Ramblings

The following is a re-post of some thoughts I left on the NHTLC forum. There were five discussion topics, ranging from digital citizenship and Internet safety topics to "friending" students on Facebook. Here is my blather...

“Is there a difference between the five topics?

My subject line is in no way intended to offend anyone, particularly [the discussion moderator]; I would not want the responsibility of moderating this group of riff-raff!

The point of my post is that these topics all go back to the trend of our culture's gradual transformation (descent?) in its outlook on the role of teachers. In short, we are now expected to not only educate, inspire, prepare, counsel, guide, etc, etc, etc, our students... we are essentially expected to parent them.

At the risk of sounding like a codger (I will be 38 in 3.5 weeks...), things have changed radically since I was a child. When I was a young whipper-snapper, bringing home a less-than-acceptable grade meant a pretty good grilling session with the 'rents. The first question was always either, 'What are YOU doing that has brought about this situation?' or 'What are you NOT doing that has brought about this situation?' Eventually, something MIGHT have come up about potential failings on the teacher's part, but even this would have been balanced out by the expectation that I find a way to make it work; as we go through life, we will all have supervisors that demonstrate failings... and we will still have to meet their approval in the workplace (as much as I HATE the classroom-as-analogue-for-workplace metaphor). This is NO LONGER THE CASE. A growing majority of parents shoot first (i.e. blame the teacher), and don't ask questions... ever. I LOVE many of the parents of many of my students but there is a growing mass of The Other Kind. (But don't even get me started on the topic of non-caring, incompetent teachers... please leave the profession if you are one of them...)

Speaking of shooting, Chris Rock had a great bit about Columbine that comes to mind every time the media latches onto 'cyberbullying' cases. I won't reiterate it here, but essentially he questioned the defense that those kids did what they did because of bullying, or because they didn't have friends, or that the school weren't paying attention (like their parents... while the students were storing munitions and building pipe bombs in the garage...). I FULLY SUPPORT THE IDEA THAT TEACHERS AND SCHOOLS NEED TO LOOK OUT FOR SITUATIONS WHERE STUDENTS ARE GETTING DOWNTRODDEN BY THEIR PEERS. However, I also believe that the current outlook on 'bullying'--cyber or otherwise--has at its roots much of the 'Look at me! I'm a victim!' mentality currently prevalent in our culture (Maury? Jerry? OPRAH?!!). Both victims and villains in these situations are completely sensationalized... leading to more attention-seeking victims and villains... everybody wants their 15 minutes, one way or another.

We SHOULD be friends ('a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard') to our students--compassionate, caring, fellow travelers... we SHOULD NOT be their buddies and hang-out pals... in cyberspace or at the mall...”