Posted on 04/28/2010 7:39:44 PM PDT by GreaterSwiss
controversial proposal has students horrified at a Bergen County middle school on Wednesday. The principal is asking parents to join a voluntary ban on social networking.
Eighth grader Ali Feinberg told CBS 2 she uses her iPhone to check her Facebook account "a lot" and some of her friends said the same. Now all have to talk to their parents about getting off the popular social network. It won't be easy.
"I am very addicted to Facebook," Feinberg's classmate Elizabeth Dolan told CBS 2.
Anthony Orsini, the principal at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, sent out an e-mail Wednesday morning asking parents to help him get all of his students off social networks and keep careful track of their text messages.
"Please do the following: sit down with your child (and they are just children still) and tell them that they are not allowed to be a member of any social networking site. Today!
"Let them know that you will at some point every week be checking their text messages online! You have the ability to do this through your cell phone provider.
"Let them know that you will be installing Parental Control Software so you can tell every place they have visited online, and everything they have instant messaged or written to a friend. Don't install it behind their back, but install it!"
Although Orsini's e-mail is just a request, not an order, it's language is blunt:
"It is time for every single member of the BF Community to take a stand! There is absolutely no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site!
"Let me repeat that - there is absolutely, positively no reason for any middle school student to be a part of a social networking site! None."
He said the sites have become a tool for children to do psychological harm to each other, often anonymously – a trend known as "cyber-bullying."
Rumors used to be some mean girl says something in the hall, but now it's out there for the whole world to look at," he told CBS 2.
Middle schools have always had drama and emotion, but the social networks amplify them to such an extent that guidance counselors there said it's become a menace to their students.
Meredith Wearly, the school's guidance counselor, said about 75 percent of her day is spent dealing with social networking issues with students.
ah...my alma mater! In my day they confiscated everything at BF. Then again in my day we didn’t really have anything to confiscate except cigarettes.
Cyber bullying is these ugly comments on steroids and anonymous. Most of the time we knew who wrote the uglies because they signed. Only occasionally were they anonymous.
Obviously middle schoolers of today with all the violence and sex they are exposed to are not mature enough to have these things unless strictly supervised as to time of usage and content.
No way they should be in school, although you have to wonder if they learn much even when they pay attention--"Barack Hussein Obama-Mmm! Mmm! Mmm!"
vaudine
Social Networking = Gossip
Proverbs 11:13
A gossip betrays a confidence, but a trustworthy man keeps a secret.
Proverbs 16:28
A perverse man stirs up dissension, and a gossip separates close friends.
Proverbs 18:8
The words of a gossip are like choice morsels; they go down to a man’s inmost parts.
Proverbs 20:19
A gossip betrays a confidence; so avoid a man who talks too much.
Proverbs 26:20
Without wood a fire goes out; without gossip a quarrel dies down.
I don’t think this is being a busybody. He’s urging parents to watch their children more closely and tell them to pay attention to school and not Facebook and My Space. He’s right.
The facebook and text messaging is happening AFTER School at home. What the kids do at home should be their business provided they do the HW and don’t harass a classmate.
This is not happening at the schools computer la.
Where we live, the text messaging and getting online is happening at school, via cell phones and iPods.
My kids are miffed because everyone else can “talk” to one another during class, and they can’t because we don’t let them take cell phones or iPods to school. My kids feel like they are the only ones — of course, they are not — who must listen to the “boring” teachers.
My son told me that because the school has wireless networking, kids can go online with their iPods, too. For some reason, that works especially well in the bathrooms.
So what? The article says the school counselor is fielding problems associated with CHILDREN networking. There is no need for a kid to be on My Space and Facebook. They are great places to meet predators too. And this ban is voluntary.
In his e-mail, he is telling parents if their children are harassed to call the police to investigate. The threat of a lawsuit would stop the gossip in its tracks.
I remember those books! Tried to find a site that still sold them so we could give them out to the 8th grade graduating class, but no luck.
True, there was the occasional cruel remark, but those remarks were easily “deleted” by ripping out the page, and the whole world didn’t have to see it.
All in all, it was a fun thing to do, and whenever I come across my JHS autograph book, I get a kick out of reading it.
Regards,
I absolutely agree with the principal on this. Asking parents to watch their children and keep them from “social networking” isn’t something that he should even HAVE to do. These kids aren’t old enough to have good judgment and shouldn’t be using cellphones or iPhones to go on networking sites.
Busy body? I disagree. He’s just letting parents know what their tykes are up to and how they’re spending their valuable time. I give him credit.
I teach computer crimes classes at a small university.
For background for one of my lectures, I went to a teen chatroom pretending to be a 14yo girl who just got her first computer.
I expect vulgarity. I did not expect to be asked by every male in the room if I had a webcam!! That’s the big thing right now, sending pictures of your private parts to strangers.
Watch out for your kids. I won’t let mine have a cellphone, or a social networking page. Too many crazies out there. I know, I’ve seen it.
How about a guy sending directions & pictures to someone he believes is an 11 year old girl about how to perform auto-erotic asphyxiation wanting her to perform the act in front of her webcam????
LOL! My twin girls are miffed because they don't even have cell phones or IPods, but they've told me the same thing, their classmates spend their day with IPod in hand.
Heck, I've only had a cell phone for about a year. I don't understand these people walking around with their fingers frantically pressing the keypad or looking like an escaped Borg with a gizmo stuck in their ear and talking to thin air. Sure, some of it is business, but it somehow seems publicly rude, IMHO.
Why can't the school just tell the kids not to bring the techno-gear to class?
Is that so hard?
How would someone "anonymously" become your friend on a networking site? Perhaps what he should be telling parents is to educate their kids as to the rules they expect to be followed after creating their own personal site. (1)Don't add people you don't know, if someone is harassing you via facebook for example...report them to facebook and/or delete them as your friend. (2) Don't post anything on your page, or someone elses that you would find embarassing to yourself, or your family at any point in your life.... One rule we've always had in our house, is if you're under 18, your facebook/myspace must be open to anyone in the household...ie. the password is saved on the computer, and any parent can access their account. The sites themselves offer various levels of protection, it's time the parents educate themselves on the in's and out's. Online networking is only going to grow.
Kudos to this principal! It’s about time adults stood up against this kind of stuff. Cell phones, texting, facebook, and other social networking media are preventing children from learning how to interact in a civil manner with each other. Kids are much bolder and meaner when they do not have to say things to someone else’s face. It is much easier for groups to gang up on others when it is online. This is totally unhealthy for children. Kids are not able to brush things off like an adult could. They take it very personally and it can be damaging. I think it is leaps and bounds beyond old school bullying and teasing that we experienced when we were kids.
Adults are not as likely to “bully” each other online and even if they do, they have the emotional fortitude to get over it (in most cases, at least!).
I cannot believe that schools even allow cell phones on school property. What a distraction from learning, in addition to being such a negative impact on developing social skills.
My kids won’t have cell phones or be allowed to do facebook, etc., until out of high school. Maybe a cell phone, but it will be one that can only dial one number (home).
I would not say this principal is being a busybody. It is his job and responsibility to oversee the development of his students (educational and emotional), and letting parents know that FB is detrimental to this and suggesting that they ban it is just speaking the truth. Good for him. Wish more would follow.
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