Brave New Age

I've been involved in a Facebook discussion and thought it would be worth sharing here. I posted my status update after my daughter found a Facebook hate group directed against one of her friends (one of my favorite students).

Dawn McClure Suiter Facebook hate groups make me furious. I am so disappointed in a certain group of people at a certain school. What goes around comes around.
Yesterday at 6:46pm • Comment • Like

C**** ***** *****
what exactly is a hate group?
Yesterday at 7:19pm • Delete


M**** Suiter {my daughter}
A Facebook group that's targeted against a certain person.
Yesterday at 7:21pm • Delete

Dawn McClure Suiter
This particular one is the "We Hate **** ****" group. It's directed toward one of the students. I ran into something similar at the school I student taught at too...sadly, I knew most of the kids who joined. Another word for this is cyber bullying. I love technology, but not this aspect of it.

Yesterday at 7:23pm • Delete

C**** ***** *****
well, I would report it to FB, immediately. They have a pretty strong policy on this type of "abusive" behavior. I thought it was an I hate icecream or something like that. Very immature kids to do this. Remind them, how that one lady is now in court for creating a fake myspace...and the girl killed herself.
Yesterday at 7:28pm • Delete


Dawn McClure Suiter
Oh, I did, and the principal has been notified. I will be there next week and I may supplement the teacher's material with a little lesson on cyber bullying. Thanks for reminding me about that case...duly noted. I will do some research on it. The page went private but I printed it off before the administrators changed it. :)
Yesterday at 7:33pm • Delete

C**** ***** *****
I don't know about your state, but here it has become very, very hot topic, bullying. We had a case of this in our school, and I nipped it in the bud...I calmly told them I would hold them civily responsible if something happened to my child while at school...next day child was gone. Gosh, I wish I could be there when you let them have it! Good for you. WTG. I wish people would realize how much this affects children...life long issues because of this stuff. Zero tolerance for this crap. Let me know how it goes.
Yesterday at 7:44pm • Delete

Dawn McClure Suiter
Will do. I don't put up with that kind of thing. Not on my watch.
Yesterday at 8:53pm • Delete


G*** ******** {Secondary Education-Chemistry}
Do you remember SLAM books when we were kids? The slam books were eventually banned but it took a long time for the schools to do something about it... and that was with the books physically circulating at the school. The cyber 'slam' books are very difficult to control if the parents refuse to monitor what their kids are doing. In many cases I believe the parents know what is going on and turn a blind eye to it and sometime sadly encourage it. The schools are really hampered in their ability to do anything...With the laws as they are right now cyber space sadly remains the wild wild west.
9 hours ago • Delete

M**** ********* ******* {My former professor}
This is so darn sad. Why do kids/teenagers do this? I agree that this is one of the downsides of technology.
7 hours ago • Delete

M**** ********* *******
And I am glad you are following through on this, Dawn!
7 hours ago • Delete



Dawn McClure Suiter
I'm just doing the right thing. It's yet another reason why teachers need to keep up with the latest trends. I don't like getting people in trouble but I will not stand for kids ganging up on each other. Maybe it's personal...I was one of the underdogs in school. I was picked on for being little, younger than all of my classmates, and shy. In retrospect, I'm glad that I wasn't one of the popular kids because I probably wouldn't have the same perspective.
7 hours ago • Delete

J*** * *****
I hate them.... LOL
5 hours ago • Delete

L**** ****
We should start a hate group against hate groups :-)
5 hours ago • Delete

J*** * *****
violates fb tos, turn it in
4 hours ago • Delete

M**** ********* *******
One of the worst moments of my young life was in the 6th grade when a classmate said to me, "I don't know why everybody hates you. I think you are pretty nice." She was trying to be nice, but needless to say, that was not the message I took away from it. This stuff must be so much worse in the internet age.
2 hours ago • Delete

Dawn McClure Suiter
Ugh! Secondhand insults are possibly even more tasteless and insensitive than the original infraction. Yes, I imagine you're right...it's so much more viral now. We aren't socially limited by our schedules or geography any more. Add to that the disconnect brought on by the Web's relative anonymity and it becomes easy to forget that we're talking to, and about, real people with real feelings. I see the need for systemwide instruction on netiquette.
about a minute ago • Delete

************

What a mess. As of this morning there were 22 members. As of tonight the group was gone so it's over, at least where Facebook is concerned. I suspect that things will be interesting at school tomorrow. I had a chat with one of the teachers last night and let him know about it, along with the identities of some of the members. The principal wrote my daughter back (I urged her to report it, since she was the one who found the group posted on one of her friends' pages), thanking her for letting her know. She was quite upset about this incident and I suspect that she will address it in tomorrow's morning announcements. I'll be at the other school so I won't get to hear it but I'm sure I'll hear all about it afterward.

I love the functionality of social networking...it can be such a wonderful educational tool and is a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, provided that it doesn't lead to social isolation. As disappointed as I am with the kids who were involved in this incident, I am glad that my daughter and I found out about it and took action. It opens the door for yet another teachable moment. I just hope that the young man who was targeted by his peers does not find out that he was the target. My daughter will do everything in her power to protect him, but there's no telling what will happen with the other students involved. Thank goodness for her...I am so proud to be her mom.