I look at these shootings and shake my head.
I look at my students and I shake my head.
Situations which used to be resolved with shouting or a fistfight are now resolved with online bullying and deadly violence.
What happened?
First, as of 2011, more than half of teens had cell phones. Parents bought them in fear, ignoring the side issues of clandestine friends and activities. For some reason parents thought that in an active shooter situation, a cell phone would keep their children magically safe. Is that magical thinking or what? Cell phones are now drifting down to elementary levels, opening up an entire world where not only can they call for help, but predators can find them without their parents knowing. Want proof? Read:
Student abducted from high school
What is horrendous about this story is that the girl's family had moved her to a new school because she was going to testify against a sexual predator who had victimized her while she babysat his children. She had her information on her phone including her internet access. The predator pretended to be a cute guy at her new school who wanted to meet her for a cup of coffee after school. She didn't tell her parents because kids often hide such things from parents. She waited until the crowds thinned after school and got into the car that drove up without looking. It was the predator who raped and killed her. Her parents had no idea she was meeting anyone because teenager use their phones as walls to prevent parents from seeing their real lives.
These stories go on with bullying and suicides, drug deals and sordid parties. One kid had an affair with a teacher and although there was plenty of evidence, he was a high ranking athlete and the parents didn't want his phone history used for fear it would reveal drugs use that would eliminate those hefty athletic scholarships. Had he not been stupid and posted his entire text messages on social media where his girlfriend found it and printed it off, sending a copy to the principal, nobody would have been the wiser. He hid it all on a phone.
I find kids secretly trying to charge phones in my classroom all the time. When one student had hers stolen, the parents tried to blame the teacher-me. After that a couple of times I found phones and upon trying to find out who they belonged to, saw a desktop image that included provocative and borderline salacious photos of one of my students. At that point we have to include the FBI and the Center for Missing and Exploited Children to assure them these images, which are now in a database in Washington DC, are not of a kidnapped and exploited child. Images like that from dumb little girls are bought and sold on the Internet daily. Their parents probably bought them phones to keep them safe. I guess they never read about Pandora. So now I don't even look, I just turn in the phone and leave someone higher up the food chain to make those calls.
My seven year old grandson knows how to get to the internet and access game sites that he should not be using. If a child that young can get that far away, then what are older kids doing? We already know that texting has eroded the ability to hold conversations- which may be why people spend far too much time yelling at each other on Twitter. We know that too many kids think that "getting famous on YouTube" is a viable career path. And many of them are willing to do literally anything to become famous or infamous. This is a very dangerous path when a kid can buy the supplies and find the instructions for making a bomb courtesy of Reddit or any anarchist site. And if you don't think Antifa is part of that "freedom", think again because I hear their platitudes expressed almost hourly.
So what is my point? My point is we are bombarding young brains with a Wild West of technology without having properly prepared them for its use. As a result they are open to all kind of abuse. If some dirty old man pretending to be a teenaged boy can convince a 15 year old to send him nude photos, is it really that outrageous to think that a shy teen immersed in violent games, movies and imagery could be desensitized enough of other people's humanity to blur the lines between violent games and violent reality? I'm not making excuses, but we are seeing an escalation and now it's not about just guns because this kid studied Columbine's methodology and tried to build effective IED's. You don't buy those at Cabela's.
This is the endgame of a mantra of "don't judge." We're supposed to not have absolutes and to blindly accept ever aberration regardless of how menacing or strange.
Why did nobody ask why this kid was wearing a treanch coat in Texas spring heat?
Why did nobody ask why Cruz had the police at his house 30+ times?
Why do we still not know the content of the minutes of the Newtown shooter's last ARD?
Why is the Vegas case being buried?
Why did the Aurora shooter's parents move three states away and why did college officials suggest rather than mandate therapy?
It goes on and on and on and the bottom line is that political correctness, those gut instinct that tell us to duck when a missile is coming, have been eliminated from our kids. Instead they cling to cell phones like pontoons ignoring that their very lack of attention may be giving these attackers a chance to act.
So what can be done?
First. kids under the age of 15 don't need full internet access on their phones or at home, Period.
Second, we need to spend at least one tenth of what we don on athletics on making schools safer.
Third, students don't get to duck out and say they don't want to cooperate with security measures. I have to fight every day just to get kids to wear a photo ID. Whether it is clear backpacks, limited parking, no off school lunch, wearing uniforms or whatever-it should be stressed that this is for security and that those who won't cooperate will be removed.
Fourth, out high schools are too big in the name of competitive sports, performing arts and such. It's time for schools to be small enough that counselors, teachers and administrators know them.
Fifth, we need to start recognizing that not all kids are academic. We need to offer them a way out-whether it's dual credit or vocational programs they enjoy. We need to make schools be a place for kids from all kinds of backgrounds.
And finally, we have to go back against the ADA and stop allowing seriously mentally ill kids to be mainstreamed into classes where they disrupt and victimize at will. In most cases, not this one but most, the increasing delusions of the seriously psychotic occur as they reach the end of adolescence. I've had kids like this-kids who have histories of violence, who have spent time in mental health wards, who are on thorazine and it's ridiculous that they are in regular schools under the guise of being fair.
Monday, May 21, 2018
Thursday, May 10, 2018
America, We Have a Problem
Perhaps it is because I teach high school that I am somewhat more aware of the secret social mores of teens. Every generation of teens has had it's own preferences, rituals and rites. Many of these were hidden from parents and the very forbidden nature of such activities made them all the more attractive. In earlier generations it was things like smoking, drinking, sex (always sex) and as time wore on drugs because a cult of secrecy for some teens. Earlier generations chose to be oblivious. There would be references to boys "sowing wild oats" or to "boys being boys" the assumption being that girls were the gentler sex and would act as governors on male behavior.
Then the world changed. Suddenly it was easy for young women to BE easy with impunity. Other than the social stigma of community or culture, young women could avoid pregnancy in spite of multiple partners. Women could choose to marry, or not. And that was fine as far as it went. There was still a thin fiber of limitations-things that we hoped our young people would avoid or at least delay. Of course the AIDS epidemic put a damper on the more hedonistic behavior, but there was still this idea that they could have it all and what is more, that they deserved it all. "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it people like me," was their mantra This generation, the teens of the 80's, the kids whose self-esteem matter more than their final product are now the parents of teens and twenty somethings. They have been led to believe that simply by trying to be good parents that they are successful It is not going well.
As teens, the kids of the 80's grads used first pagers and then cell phones to give their parents the illusion of supervision without actually acquiescing to supervision. These kids would avoid their parents and knew how to get away with partying to the point that they had special ring tones and friends who would vouch for their presence at vetted houses rather than let parents know where they really were and what they were really doing. What is more, parents GAVE these kids these devices under the wrongheaded idea that by doing so they were "parenting." What they were really doing is giving teens the tools to set up entire networks of underground social media and the associated behaviors of that kind of network. The upside of this is a sort of Ferris Beuller fantasy, but the reality is that too many kids began to isolate themselves from reality. Suddenly their social network of countless friends became more necessary that their real family or even their real friends.
The truth is that if you have a teen right now in your home, and that teen has a cell phone, there's a real likelihood that they sleep with their cell phones. Delaying gratification or even refusing to talk or text someone is viewed as a social faux pas. Teens who use their cell phones to text are 42% more likely to sleep with their phones than teens who own phones but don’t text. Try taking a cell phone away from the average teen is akin to torture. I don't exaggerate when I saw I have had far more threats of violence flung at me for the simple act of taking up a cell phone in class than any other action. Cell phones in class have become a disruptive invasion of privacy. Student film teachers and others surreptitiously to post on social media without consent and often along with disparaging comments. The bullying capabilities are exponential as a child can be bullied at school, at work, at home and even on their phones. It is a situation that can appear inescapable for teens who often have not developed real world social insulation. It can lead down some serious and dangerous paths.
That teens have a secret social network should be no secret, but the intensity of that network and the demands that alpha teens place on their lower status peers can force less sophisticated teens into social situations beyond their control. Far too often it's not if they will engage in sex or drugs or drinking it is when. The kids who party know which parents will turn a blind eye. The kids who party are not necessarily the stereotypical druggies-they are just as often student council members, cheerleaders or band members. The days when you could spot the bad kids by what they wear are gone. Instead you need to look at what they post.
Here are a series of social media posts from teens:
1.
RT @fukunurhoexxx: #youthetype of b*tch that give up your p*ssy for free and think its cool #p*ssyaintfree #fb
RT @TheSoleManSB: We in need of some trees … Wea tha weed man
RT @MisunderstoodC_: Get high to balance out the lows
RT @___xMaxDee: I got game for you young hoes, don’t grow to be a dumm hoe
RT @Bombshelll_: “@La_VidaBella: I’ll beat the pu**sy up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up”
2.
Then the world changed. Suddenly it was easy for young women to BE easy with impunity. Other than the social stigma of community or culture, young women could avoid pregnancy in spite of multiple partners. Women could choose to marry, or not. And that was fine as far as it went. There was still a thin fiber of limitations-things that we hoped our young people would avoid or at least delay. Of course the AIDS epidemic put a damper on the more hedonistic behavior, but there was still this idea that they could have it all and what is more, that they deserved it all. "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it people like me," was their mantra This generation, the teens of the 80's, the kids whose self-esteem matter more than their final product are now the parents of teens and twenty somethings. They have been led to believe that simply by trying to be good parents that they are successful It is not going well.
As teens, the kids of the 80's grads used first pagers and then cell phones to give their parents the illusion of supervision without actually acquiescing to supervision. These kids would avoid their parents and knew how to get away with partying to the point that they had special ring tones and friends who would vouch for their presence at vetted houses rather than let parents know where they really were and what they were really doing. What is more, parents GAVE these kids these devices under the wrongheaded idea that by doing so they were "parenting." What they were really doing is giving teens the tools to set up entire networks of underground social media and the associated behaviors of that kind of network. The upside of this is a sort of Ferris Beuller fantasy, but the reality is that too many kids began to isolate themselves from reality. Suddenly their social network of countless friends became more necessary that their real family or even their real friends.
The truth is that if you have a teen right now in your home, and that teen has a cell phone, there's a real likelihood that they sleep with their cell phones. Delaying gratification or even refusing to talk or text someone is viewed as a social faux pas. Teens who use their cell phones to text are 42% more likely to sleep with their phones than teens who own phones but don’t text. Try taking a cell phone away from the average teen is akin to torture. I don't exaggerate when I saw I have had far more threats of violence flung at me for the simple act of taking up a cell phone in class than any other action. Cell phones in class have become a disruptive invasion of privacy. Student film teachers and others surreptitiously to post on social media without consent and often along with disparaging comments. The bullying capabilities are exponential as a child can be bullied at school, at work, at home and even on their phones. It is a situation that can appear inescapable for teens who often have not developed real world social insulation. It can lead down some serious and dangerous paths.
That teens have a secret social network should be no secret, but the intensity of that network and the demands that alpha teens place on their lower status peers can force less sophisticated teens into social situations beyond their control. Far too often it's not if they will engage in sex or drugs or drinking it is when. The kids who party know which parents will turn a blind eye. The kids who party are not necessarily the stereotypical druggies-they are just as often student council members, cheerleaders or band members. The days when you could spot the bad kids by what they wear are gone. Instead you need to look at what they post.
Here are a series of social media posts from teens:
1.
RT @fukunurhoexxx: #youthetype of b*tch that give up your p*ssy for free and think its cool #p*ssyaintfree #fb
RT @TheSoleManSB: We in need of some trees … Wea tha weed man
RT @MisunderstoodC_: Get high to balance out the lows
RT @___xMaxDee: I got game for you young hoes, don’t grow to be a dumm hoe
RT @Bombshelll_: “@La_VidaBella: I’ll beat the pu**sy up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up up”
2.
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