Today I'd like to continue my previous discussion found here about a young girl who was intimidated into giving up her facebook password to school personnel.
Day 2 in my series concerns parenting. Specifically the growing trend of schools usurping the place of parents and parents letting it happen.
In this incident the school has taken it upon themselves to regulate what a child is doing outside of school hours. I can understand that, if the student was truly making sexual comments about another student on a public forum such as facebook, it could cause a disruption in school. But what ever happened to calling the parents and expressing your concern about what is going on outside of school? It is completely within a parent's rights to pry into a minor child's life, including social media, especially when there is suspicion that the child is doing something harmful to them self or others.
Allowing schools to regulate this behavior puts us all in a huge gray area. That is evidenced by the first time this girl got in trouble for posting that she "hated" one of the school monitors. Every child, at some point or another, criticizes a teacher or other school professional. And the truth is sometimes the criticism is justified. To suspend a child for school for saying no more than that they hated someone is a ridiculous level of censorship.
"In this incident the school has taken it upon themselves to regulate what a child is doing outside of school hours. I can understand that, if the student was truly making sexual comments about another student on a public forum such as facebook, it could cause a disruption in school."
ReplyDeleteYeah I have issues with what the school is doing here. I think were both in agreement that if say the kid was say making threats and the school found out via somebody saying something to them, then that's one thing.
"That is evidenced by the first time this girl got in trouble for posting that she "hated" one of the school monitors"
This strikes me as a freedom of speech issue. Is the schools grapth on discipline so fragile that it can't take a student disliking another student or staff member? And further more can they not take this being made public?
I don't see the need to discipline the student at all for such comments made outside of school.
How does this teach values such as freedom of speech?
-Ler