November 19, 2007
Dear Wes,
[This open letter is to Wes Fryer and anyone else reading and or seeing all the media coverage of the Megen Meier MySpace/Suicide Tragedy--his comments were closed (even tho his site said otherwise) but I want to speak to the issue. If you are not familiar with this story, click here.]
Wes thanks for posting about this today. As you may have read in Twitter, I am slated to give three 20 minute sessions for parents in early December about SN sites like MySpace and Facebook, two sites I do not even use, at a Parent Night at school. I accepted the daunting task, as I thought it was a great way to make parents particularly aware of the end user license agreement–and primarily that users are supposed to be 14. (The evening allows parents to select three short ws to attend, so I’ll be giving mine to 3 separate groups.) I’ve had several discussions at school about MySpace with our students–through library activities and our library blog, @ the CMS Library. Last time I discussed it with classes, I first polled them on their age as they came in–having them mark a tally on a chart to represent their current age (11, 12, 13, 14). I did this for five 7th grade groups. Of the entire grade that day, only 1 was 14. I then asked for a quick show of hands for who had a blog or myspace page. Almost all said they had a myspace page. ONE had a blog. After gathering that data (in a very unscientific and unreliable manner), I showed kids the rule about being 14. They were suddenly very giggly as they realized the purpose for my informal poll and fact gathering. I told them it was painfully apparent to me that all who had a space had fibbed– the youngest year one can select to represent their birth date wouldn’t let them choose a year that would make them younger than 14. Just as my discussion about p2p file sharing sites and illegally downloading music, the kids were defiant, and said it was okay. I explained that I wasn’t their to “police” them but rather help them make informed decisions, and knowing what I knew, they all needed to go home and delete their pages.
I’m debating showing the Meier Suicide videos available from reputable news organizations (like CNN, MSNBC, others) though in all honesty still think my 13 yo will defy the rules and continue to use it. And I believe many parents are JUST as unschooled on what these sites are, what the EULA says, and how to properly monitor their children even when using the appropriately aged portals. It is sad that MySpace turns a blind eye to the misuse—even my school’s resource officer said she made a profile a good while back as a part of an investigation. She faked her age and everything, but all as part of her job.
So how to approach this workshop? Carolyn Foote, a fellow LMS, says to be sure to focus some on the good–study groups for examples, but I honestly think I’ll find few and far between good uses. (Also her kids are in high school, while mine are middle school.) My gut reaction is to tell parents to sit up and be parents, but I’m sure that will turn them off too. I am really researching to find a good approach, as my principal wants it to be a fifty-fifty kind of thing (good vs. bad). I did think I might use my twitter as an example of a positive use, and then dis the sn sites that are not age appropriate for middle schoolers, leaving them with the age appropriate links you mention in your post today.
As far as the Meiers, I am truly sorry for their loss. But too often today’s parents think their children are safe. When a site like MySpace says it’s for 14 and older, then a 13yo shouldn’t
have been allowed to use it, even safely guarded and monitored by loving parents. The young Megen’s reactions and final act speak to the fact that she was emotionally too young to be using it, falling victim to the name calling and bullying we all seek to protect our students and our own children from. It is sad that the lesson of should haves, could haves, and would haves is only being realized now for these parents after such a tragedy. In the media clips I have seen it is painfully obvious they are still quite bitter about the loss, and are seeking some kind of retribution, be it through civil courts or media. Although no names were mentioned saved their daughter’s and her fictitious boyfriend Josh, a quick google allows anyone who wants to know what the name of the mother is who did this horrendous act of cyberbullying. If the Meiers sought to get revenge, I’m sure they have all they could ask for now, but in the end they are all losers. How can anyone win with such a tregedy? They lost a daughter. The other mother lost her mind. They lost their dignity by resorting to childish pranks with the foosball table incident. And now they all will be remembered for the longest time for really rotten choices in general, and not any good that might rise to the top eventually. I hurt for these families. They are all on my prayer list.
Anyway, thanks for a well written and linked post today. Any suggestions? Want to be skyped in for this–Dec 4, 6-7PM Eastern time.
Sincerely,
Cathy
Filed by Cathy Nelson at 10:00 pm under Social Networks,SYP,Wes Fryer Tagged Information Literacy, Social Networking, SYP
4 Comments
November 19th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Cathy,
I guess my point was–parents hear the constant fear messages, so by the time children are older, the whole idea of social networking has been judged and discounted, because that’s all the message that gets out there.
The media promotes that “sensationalized” fear message as well.
Does that mean there aren’t dangers? No, it doesn’t, and they are real and serious dangers as this shows.
But I have to point out, that our children had these dangers before MySpace–when someone befriended them at the mall, or playground or skating rink, or in many other ways.
This is an appalling situation, but ironically it is adults who perpetuated it.
I can’t emphasize strongly enough that I think in order to counter the massive “fear” approach–we as educators need to have wise and balanced approaches.
What are wise uses of these tools? How are students using them in positive ways? What are warning signs to watch out for?
Relationships among teenagers are a very powerful influence in their lives, but we all have to remember that those relationships existed long before social networking tools, and were just as upsetting and devastating.
We had a recent workshop showing MySpace and Facebook, and one of the helpful things was just having someone show what the tools were like–someone who used them.(our tech person). So he could share the good–and positive uses–and the also not so good.
We have to remember–it’s not the tools, it’s the people.
I think you are on a good track talking about best practices for safety online. I just think we have to temper that with reasonable judgment.
There are many many positive relationships and good aspects to building networks on line for both children and adults.
Frankly, this case is bizarre. How many parents do you know that would do something like this? I would wager not very many–and we can’t treat the bizarre like it is the norm.
On the other hand, it is reasonable to have good healthy practices, wise uses, and active parenting.
I’ll be interested to see how this goes.
November 19th, 2007 at 11:16 pm
Yes you are right. And I am glad this media frenzy over this case will be long gone by the time I am to do the workshop. It is not a good example of what can go bad wrong…And I am desperately searching for really positive uses too, so i can give that balanced look. I am EVEN dabbling with pulling a Daneen Bowen Frazier student persona presentation. Ever seen Daneen Bowen Frazier? I think i could pull it off for twenty minutes. Ahk! I need to get planning on this so I can pull off a “kids”persona for the perspective needed.
November 20th, 2007 at 12:42 am
Cathy: Thank goodness for the “dashboard” feature of wordpress that shows trackbacks… I was wanting to curtain some of the trackback spam today and tried to just turn off trackbacks on that post, and apparently I ended up turning off comments, although mysteriously that was not evident on the blog post…. so that is now fixed. Thanks for bringing this to my attention, but more importantly thanks for your email.
I share your desire, and Carolyn Foote who also commented here, to share a balanced perspective on the issues of Internet safety, cyberbullying prevention, and online social networking. This is the #1 topic I am being asked to present on these days. I am actually struggling right now to decide if I need to write many of my thoughts and ideas down in a book that I publish as a free PDF download– or if I should continue to put that off and work on my dissertation. I want to do both, but my sense of the importance and timeliness of this discussion is acute. There is more to say than we can say in a 45 min or even 90 minute presentation. People hear snippets here and there, and they need to have a chance to listen deeply to more than just sound bytes and bad headlines. The bad headlines get their attention, but what should people DO about those headlines besides get scared? It seems the news media wants to heighten the fear factor in many cases to boost ratings, readerships and viewers, but in the long run that is not constructive for helping find proactive ways to address these issues in practical ways.
Carolyn’s point is well made: This is an extreme case, we shouldn’t take this as the norm. The Creating and Connecting Report from August 2007 is good to reference in terms of statistics, although I still want to find out more about the sample population. (urban or rural what states of the US, what grade levels, etc.) Edublogs is not letting me embed the direct hyperlink, so here it is without the preceeding h t t p …
files.nsba.org/creatingandconnecting.pdf
I think, as I suggested in my post, highlighting positive ways kids are using digital storytelling to make a difference in the world are great to highlight. The digital stories created by Dr Tim Tyson’s students at Mabry Middle School are great to highlight.
mabryonline.org/podcasts/
This Generation Webb video on YouTube is a good example to show. There are lots more.
youtube.com/watch?v=_Hw2EkVlW5A&feature=PlayList&p=99403C6BDD1574C3&index=1
I agree we need BALANCE and reasoned approaches to this, not extremist, reactionary responses.
It’s easy to scare people off the Internet. It’s much more challenging, as well as important, to help them learn how to use it safely and effectively. It’s much easier to ban a website, even one like Google Documents, than work with people to learn safe and appropriate use. Yet that is the challenge to which we must all rise.
Thanks for the letter, Cathy. Sorry you couldn’t leave this as a comment on my blog!
Wes
November 28th, 2007 at 10:18 am
I agree that we need to remember that it was an abuse of the tools by a person, and that we need to continue teaching HOW to properly use these tools to be safe. Unfortunately even a rock or a pen can be a weapon in the wrong hand, instead of a building block or a way to share thoughts.
As for the mother who created the fictional character – SHAME ON HER! Since she was flirting with Megan to gain her trust, I almost feel as if the mother should be charged with being an online sexual predator. She may not have met with her for that nature, but the intent of getting her to fall for her and speak romantically is still the same. It’s a shame that because of her actions she’s caused a child to commit suicide and destroyed a marriage.
Kids are going to be kids. Parents need to monitor and talk to their kids, but they also should not try to be a “friend” and get overly involved as this mother did.
Your workshop needs to highlight the good and the bad. I’d also look at Steve Dembo of the Discovery Educator Network’s presentation about how your online profiles are your new permanent record. There was a boy in Tampa, FL who was shot by some gang members. The boy was well loved and seemed to be popular. The parents were shocked however when they read his MySpace Page, where he boasted about guns, money, and his abilities. His name was CJ Mills (Cedric Mills of Tampa, FL). So ask your students, are they writing anything on there that they would be upset if mom and dad read or might even point to them if a crime was committed.
Best of luck with your presentation.