Should I be alarmed and feel creeped out that my kids school teacher and college professors are using Freindster and MySpace to interact with them online?
Maybe it's just me, but I honestly cannot agree with teachers and kids friending each other in social networks. Why does a teacher need to understand the outside lives of their students in a personal sense?
There is nothing wrong with an adult going into a social network site for their own personal life - with their adult friends and family. I believe that an adult individual should be able to go into Facebook/Myspace/Freindster, etc… but as a person of their own identity and right.
However, students and impressionable youth who spend their days looking up to their teachers as a role model, idealist-educator shouldn’t be invited to feel like they belong in their personal life as a peer and friend. At least, that’s my opinion. And even if the teacher is trying to “save” one of their wayward students by invading the net by being friendly to that child, being a maverick is dangerous.
What the heck, my youngest is only 15 and even if he is 22 he still do not have the development and growth necessary to be able to fully understand and judge situations!
A student between 15 - 22 year old doesn’t necessarily see what’s wrong with forming relationships with older people because they believe themselves to be MATURE, on the brink of adulthood.
Believe it or not, I can be slightly hard some times when it comes to my kids. Oh sure my kids rock, but they can become attached, they can form friendship expectations and may push for special treatment, or demand acknowledgment. Worst, they may identify with an adult, and see how different he is from other peer, then build personality around him, and help stroke fire of “drama”.
Time to raise the flag.
Gotta talk to my kids tonight.
4 comments:
I get your point all the way!! I would try to take the child to visit older adults in places like senor centers and such.
And maybe some talk to those people who "to me" are preying on the young by sneaking around pretending to wanting to understand our youth by befriending them online...They should get a life!!!
DAMN I feel old!!! When I was in hight school, the only readily available "information technology" we had was the library and the dewy desimal system (how the hell does that work again? :o). And, the closest thing to google we had was when you got "googly eyed" from scimming through too many reference books and such.
In fact, we had to be taught how to find anything among the hundreds of books. I even had to take a class in college about researching info with reference books Usually, I spent the whole time just thumbing through pages pretending I knew wtf I was doing.
I grew up with "Space Invaders" and "Donkey Kong" (that's where Mario comes from all you boys and girls out there) and played "Atari" and "Intelevision" home gaming systems. Even though I once owned a Nintendo 64, and have been using the net for about 7 years, I STILL get lost sometimes. The last couple generations have been born with "game controllers" in their hands. Hell, back in the day, we just called them "joy sticks" cause most of the games had nothing more than a stick and one button. Try playing games like "Grand Theft Auto" with all the extra moves and cheat codes with one of those things.
Anyway, I do think it's kind of strange for teachers to use the net to connect with students instead of using things like group activities or sports. However, try getting some of these kids to pull themselves away from skateboards, PS2s and a PC or Mac. No easy task.
I was sruffing the net at a library one day, a couple years ago, and two girls about 13 yrs old sat at the pc next to me and were goofing around on myspace or something. I wasn't really paying too much attention cause they were just your typical, goofy, imature teens. But then, one of them said, "...lets tell him we're dancers".
My f**cking jaw hit the floor. I looked over at them really quick and couldn't believe that came from one of their mouths. That s**t just blew my mind. All I could think of was all the commercials and stories on tv shows like "60 minutes" and such about horrible things happening to kids through the net. One story was about a group of kids who were set up with fake msgs to see how much personal info they would give out online. The results of the test were unreal.
I felt like bitching at these two girls and asking "WTF is wrong with you?!?!" They just don't get it. The sad part is, do they even have a f**king CLUE what a dancer is? Or what a typical guy would think of when they say they're a "dancer"?
WTF??? This ain't f**king rocket science people. TEACH YOUR DAMN KIDS WHAT IS AND ISN'T A GOOD IDEA TO SAY TO TOTAL STRANGERS!!! We used to have something called "safety school" for just this kind of thing for Ch**st's sake!!! And we didn't even have Mac's or anything close to it back in the 70s!
However, on the other side of the same coin, there's another problem that has popped up because of the net. I'm talking about the people (usually mentally unstable moms who actualy quit their jobs and spend about 18 hours a day or more online because they think it's their "job") who make up fake screen names and go around chat rooms trolling for sex offenders by pretending they're ages 12 to 17.
Not that this is a bad thing, in and of itself. But, if all you're gonna do is cause trouble by falsey accusing any male who responds to any convo you strike up using those IDs, then let the people trained in this type of investigation do their work the right way. You're not the police. You're not the FBI. You're not even trained, in any way shape or form, how to do this type of work.
If somebody is saying some questionable things to your own kid, girl or boy, then yeah. It's understandable that you would get pissed and go after them. It's alway a good idea, as well as your RESPONSIBILITY, as a parent, to find out what your kids are up to an who they're talking to.
If the cops ask you to help them on a specific case, or because of a report you filed yourself, that's one thing. But, when you're online, you're subject to the same online rules as the rest of us. Making accusations and threats against people you talked to for 15 seconds just because they said "hi" to you is retarded and not your place to do.
I once had a woman accuse me of flirting with an underaged teen in chat rooms. I had no clue WTF she was talkign about. It turns out, this girl had lied to me and a lot of other people, telling them she was in her 20s.
WTF is that??? Both the girl, and this big mouthed, nosey woman should've been slapped upside the head. Don't accuse people of things, or go around telling people we are a child molester just because little girls play "grownup" and never tell anybody their true age.
Whenever I've been in a chat room and a girl joins and says their under 18 myself, as well as most of the other guys in the room, would bitch at them and tell them to get the f**k out and go to a teen room.
If it is an underage teen, it's not cute, funny, or a good idea to play those games and your parents should ban you from using the net without them standing right there. However, If it's a psycho mom trying to start trouble in a chat room or website, GET A F**KING LIFE!!! If you would just teach your kids some damn common sense, pervs and freaks wouldn't really be able to get to your kids in the first place.
odette I make friends with my students as my teacher did with me .. In doing so I set a standard and boundries on what my students and I chat about .. Many teacher and instuctors now are able to work better with their pupils ..
I know my teachers making that extra step with me helped me to understand more about life and pushed me to beyond my limits .. In my time it was phone calls and visits at home .. Just make sure there are boundries dear .. and you know what these chats are about as my student parents know when and what I talk to thier kids about ..I always forward time and summary .. okay
Plus you got good boys .. you did a wonderful job girl .. Blessing to my nephews and to you
I donno Star. I'm still on edge about teachers contacting students online. If you're talking about problem children who do nothing but get into trouble, or hang with the wrong group of kids, it's reasonable to do activities that will teach them to take responsibility for their actions, help get them to finish school and try to convince them not to take to the streets. Adults who do these things are less likely to have a chance to hit on, or molest kids in public places.
But, online? There's just too much room for hanky panky. Too much opportunity to have inapropriate conversations with kids in emails, messages on sites like myspace and text msgs on a mobile device. But, like I said, I'm an old fart. I'm still not used to all this high tech stuff being used in school.
I guess the net is now a major part of schools. Even grade school. But, why would any teacher need to keep in contact with kids like Odette's, who do well in school and are being raised properly by a responsible parent? I'm not trying to scare anybody but, I'm sorry. I just don't like it.
Maybe things are different there in the Phillippines. I don't know. But, here in the US, this type of conduct between teachers and students has proven, time and time again, to be a recipe for disaster. If it were me, I'd be scoping out everything being sent back and forth between any teacher and my kids.
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