Detroit School Takes A Stand Against MySpace
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Chalk one up for the good guys! A school in Detroit has taken a stand against MySpace. Specifically, they’re taking a step toward keeping their students safe and deterring cyberbullying behavior by requiring them to take down their MySpace spaces.
Letters were sent home with students informing families that if their children are allowed to have a presence on MySpace, that they were not to return to school until that presence was removed.
I imagine that was a tough pill for students to swallow and I hope that parents didn’t try to defend their kid’s right to post to the community.
I’d be interested in learning how school officials will enforce this as kids, being the tech-savvy creatures they are (I mean that in a loving way), will certainly try to beat the system by posting under aliases or writing in such a way to not attract attention.
Of course with any positive attempt there’s sure to be someone who tries to bring their own dark cloud with them to make things not as bright as they would otherwise be. Jerry Herron, a Wayne State University professor of American Studies, believes it is an attempt that will provide only temporary relief. He’s quoted as saying that a predator will find some way of violating a child if they’re determined.
Well, duh! At least acknowledge the fact that this one school is making an attempt of closing one point of access to these kids. Sure it’s not Fort Knox, and kids will surely find a way around it or just congregate on one of the many other online choices available to them. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
This all serves to remind parents that they need to be aware of where their kids go online. Get vaccinated against the “not-my-child” syndrome. Asking where they go online is just as important as asking them where they go offline.
Inspired by Detroit News.
[tags]cyberbullying[/tags]
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Comments
Chalk one up for the good guys? You mean the Nazi’s were the good guys?! That’s news to me. The last time I checked I still lived in the United States of America, with freedoms. You know, Speech, Bear Arms, Privacy. How can a school dictate to me what my child is allowed to do? It’s called parenting for a reason, and as the parent if I allow my child to have a MySpace page, then it is their *right* as a privilege that I have allowed to keep that page. The “article” says “I hope that parents didn’t try to defend their kid’s right to post to the community.” By God, *I* hope that parents DO defend their kid’s *right* to post to the community. Americans have forgotten tyranny, have forgotten that we fought for freedom from persecution.
As someone a lot smarter, and a hell of a lot wiser than I once said,
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
Hi Tepes,
Perhaps I could have done a better job explaining my point. The school saw inappropriate behavior among their student’s MySpace pages. There were no details given in the original article as to what that behavior was, but based on my experience (and I’ve been monitoring the topic of MySpace by students for quite a while) it likely had to do with negative comments directed toward other students, and/or inappropriate photos posted to their spaces, either of themselves or of other students, or entirely independent images from other sites.
In my opinion the school saw this as a significant distraction to what they were trying to achieve, which, of course, was to teach. Nazi’s? Hardly. When you have something that causes this it will definitely impact the school environment in numerous ways, and quite often it adds up to damaging behavior — at least when you’re talking about MySpace.
When I said that I hope parents don’t defend their kid’s right to have a MySpace page. My bad. What I should have said was that I hope they don’t defend their right without at least knowing what it is they’re posting to that site. It was extremely possible that these parents wouldn’t know anything about their kid’s space, let alone know what MySpace was at all. You hear that sort of thing all the time in the news. It’s not until they discover their child has hooked up with someone they met on MySpace that they didn’t even realize there was such a place or that their kid was using it in such a way.
I submit to you that some parents have forgotten how to be parents. You are clearly the exception as you no doubt know what your kid does on MySpace. I congratulate you. There needs to be more parents like you!
Living only 45 minutes from Detroit, this has been all over the news in my area. I think this policy is bull sh*t. This steps over so many boundaries regarding personal privacy. This policy is either going to be repealed quickly or taken all the way to the Michigan Supreme Court. In the end, the already monetarily defunct Detroit schools system will end up wasting money they don’t have trying to defend their stance. My advice to them is give up now.
Hi Jeremy,
I was hoping that with your insight you could provide the reason why the school took such action. Was there rampant abuse of other students (cyberbullying)?
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Stuff like this always annoys me. If the people in the area had trouble with kids getting into trouble at the mall, would it be okay for the school to say that no student is allowed to attend the school if they are caught at that mall.
For now minors being on MySpace is legal. If it is a public school, I don’t really see how they can threaten to kick anybody out for doing legal activities during non-school hours.
Besides, if MySpace is such an evil place according to the school, why don’t they take up their battle with MySpace.
For full disclosure, I think MySpace is a waste of bandwidth and hard drive space, but I think that about a lot of things on the internet.
Hi Mike,
What kids do at the mall stays at the mall. What’s different about MySpace and its ilk is that it crosses over into the school environment, and does so with in a negative way.
There have been several stories that I’ve read about kids committing suicide because they have been the victim of bullies at school. Places like MySpace allow theses bullies to remain anonymous and that makes them difficult to track down and put a stop to it, thus continues the cycle of abuse.
I’m with you though about MySpace being a waste of time. You just don’t hear the success stories it has, if any, like you do about the ones that turn people’s lives upside down.
Thanks for visiting!
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