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Guillaume Bélanger's List: Teacher profession: Guillaume Bélanger
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Schools grapple with solutions to thorny cyberbullying issues
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The girl’s parents, wild with outrage and fear, showed the principal the text messages: a dozen shocking, sexually explicit threats, sent to their daughter the previous Saturday night from the cellphone of a 12-year-old boy. Both children were sixth-graders at Benjamin Franklin Middle School in Ridgewood, N.J.
<!-- /seealsotop -->Punish him, insisted the parents.
“I said, ‘This occurred out of school, on a weekend,”’ recalled the principal, Tony Orsini. “We can’t discipline him.”
Had they contacted the boy’s family, he asked.
Too awkward, they replied. The fathers coach sports together.
What about the police, Orsini asked.
A criminal investigation would be protracted, the parents had decided, its outcome uncertain. They wanted immediate action.
They pleaded: “Help us.”
Schools these days are confronted with complex questions on whether and how to deal with cyberbullying, an imprecise label for online activities ranging from barrages of teasing texts to sexually harassing group sites. The extent of the phenomenon is hard to quantify. But one 2010 study by the Cyberbullying Research Center, a think tank founded by two criminologist who defined bullying as “willful and repeated harm” inflicted through phones and computers, said one in five middle-school students had been affected.
Affronted by cyberspace’s escalation of adolescent viciousness, many parents are looking to schools for justice, protection, even revenge. But many educators feel unprepared or unwilling to be prosecutors and judges.
Often, school district discipline codes say little about educators’ authority over student cellphones, home computers and off-campus speech. Reluctant to assert an authority they are not sure they have, educators can appear indifferent to parents frantic with worry, alarmed by recent adolescent suicides linked to bullying.
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A New Jersey high school teacher became the center of a Facebook controversy on Thursday after writing on the site that “homosexuality is a perverted spirit that has existed from the beginning of creation” and complaining about a school display recognizing October as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender History month.
<!--forceinline-->The teacher, Viki Knox, posted a photo of a display from the school, Union High School in Union Township, on her personal Facebook page last week. It included photos of Virginia Woolf, Harvey Milk and Neil Patrick Harris. When a friend asked if the school had really put it up, Ms. Knox wrote that it had, and “I’m pitching a fit!”
In subsequent posts, Ms. Knox, who teaches special education classes, defended her views in lengthy exchanges with other Facebook users, referring at times to God and her Christian beliefs. A copy of the comments was provided to The New York Times; her Facebook page was removed from public view. News of Ms. Knox’s comments was first reported on Thursday morning by The Star-Ledger in Newark.
“The district is taking the matter very seriously,” said Union’s superintendent of schools, Patrick Martin. “We are running a thorough investigation. We will take all appropriate actions.”
Dr. Martin declined to comment further on the investigation, or Ms. Knox’s background, citing laws that protect the privacy of public employees.
The state’s teacher database showed that Ms. Knox had 12 years of experience in the district and that she earned $72,109 in 2010. Some residents and parents said that she also advised a student prayer group, and that, until now, she had not been involved in any controversies.
Ms. Knox did not respond to messages left at the school.
In her Facebook posts, Ms. Knox wrote that while she had friends and loved ones who were gay, she believed that the way they lived was “against the nature and character of God” and that the high school was “not the setting to promote, encourage, support and foster homosexuality.”
Edward Barocas, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Jersey, said in a statement, “Although we do not agree with the sentiments expressed on Ms. Knox’s personal Facebook page, her beliefs and comments are protected by the First Amendment.”
But Mr. Barocas added, “Because her postings raised questions about her conduct within school, the school district can and should investigate whether she is performing her job in accordance with school policies and the state’s Law Against Discrimination.”
Members of Garden State Equality, a statewide civil rights organization that advocates gay rights, sent hundreds of e-mails and made phone calls to the district on Thursday demanding that Ms. Knox be dismissed because of her comments.
Steven Goldstein, chairman of the group, said, “If these Facebook posts are from Ms. Knox, she should not be teaching our children in public schools.”
John Paragano, a lawyer and former member of the Union Township Committee, said he had been offended by Ms. Knox’s comments, and questioned her ability to enforce the state’s tough new anti-bullying law.
“Teachers are at the forefront of that, enforcing that,” Mr. Paragano said. “My concern is that if this teacher has these feelings, is she going to call out the bullying of a gay, lesbian and transgender person?”
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MONTREAL - School officials suspended 80 students after teachers received death threats on Facebook, but some youths say officials overreacted.
Montreal police alerted detectives in St. Jerome, Que., north of the city, after detailed murder plans were posted last week by students from five schools. The Facebook page was created in August, and postings soon became violent. At one point, 800 students had joined the page.
"The statements ... were very violent and hateful," said teachers' union president Jean Dumais.
"It spoke of murdering teachers, with an hour and a specific date. Some teachers were concerned. They wanted to know if they were on the list."
One student, who officials say was the creator of the page, was expelled from school. The other students have been allowed to return to class and said they disagree with the suspensions.
"Do you think a Grade 8 student would kill people?" one girl asked. "I don't think so."
Another girl, among those suspended, added, "Teachers might have been afraid, but it's sh--ty for us."
When asked why she thought the punishment was unfair, the girl replied, "It was just a joke. They just should have shut down the site and talk to us but not suspend us for that."
Retired police detective Richard Dupuis told QMI Agency that the parents, not just the students, are to blame for the Facebook threats.
"Children are kings in their own houses," Dupuis told QMI.
He says some parents will defend their children at any cost, even if the child is in the wrong. Dupuis recalled a case years ago in which a teenage girl was charged with murder.
"The parents totally stymied (police)," he recalled. "They told her not to talk (to detectives), they covered up for the child.
"I told the parents, 'Do you realize what you're doing to the next generation when you act like this?'"
St. Jerome police led a cyber-bullying seminar at a local school Monday that parents were asked to attend.
"We informed them about the risks associated with the Internet, and also the things that their children are doing on the Internet that they don't know about," said spokesman Robin Pouliot.
A number of students could face criminal charges.
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QUEBEC — The province is making headway in its bid to boost student success.
That message emerged Wednesday at the start of a two-day forum in the provincial capital that has attracted more than 800 people involved in the push to keep Quebec kids from dropping out of school.
Education Minister Line Beauchamp said the high-school graduation rate has risen seven percentage points since 2004, to 73.8 per cent in 2009-10. (The statistics are after seven years of studies.)
At that rate, if current efforts to address the problem are maintained, Beauchamp said the province would be able to reach its graduation-rate goal in 2020. It wants to increase the rate to 80 per cent, for students under 20.
Beauchamp acknowledged the big gap in the success rate between girls and boys. It’s not a new phenomenon — and it’s a problem that exists virtually around the world, she said.
In Quebec, 22.6 per cent of boys drop out compared with 14.3 per cent of girls, according to the latest data, Beauchamp said, noting she has asked the Education Department to do more work to bridge boys’ gaps in reading.
“We can say that we are really on the right track. I think my important message today is to say that things are advancing…it’s undeniable,” Beauchamp told reporters after her speech.
Many factors are behind the improvement, Beauchamp said, citing as an example the reduction in class sizes in Quebec schools. She also pointed to more extra-curricular activities — and an extra $10 million investment for them.
Éric Lamarre, president of McKinsey & Co. Canada, gave feedback on progress made in student retention over the past few years.
He went through the “13 paths to success” that are part of the government’s student-retention strategy announced in 2009.
While the assessment is largely favourable, Lamarre said, he also pointed to areas where work is needed.
For example, one of the paths to success called for the addition of 200 extra resource teachers at the high-school level.
Lamarre described this as a false start.
While it was done, under new collective agreements those 200 teachers were re-assigned in order to lower class sizes at high schools, Lamarre said.
A resource teacher is a good tool to help keep those at risk of dropping out in classes, he said, “because when a youth who is in difficulty has a coach, someone who looks after him, it’s almost a second parent — it helps."
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LEFT: 0px" class="diigoIcon private TextIcon nocommented notShowIcon" id="96056508d96063c9e52d1dd09e072ab4-0Icon"> </div><br/><br/><div style="TOP: -23px; LEFT: 0px" class="diigoIcon private TextIcon nocommented notShowIcon" id="444e1a1d37f8c20a3fad060e29f57e02-0Icon"> </div>Comput<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>ers<br/> <br/>in<br/><br/> <br/><br/>the <br/>classroom make learning relevant for<br/> <br/>students<br/><br/></h1></div><br/><div class="clear"> </div><br/><div class="subheadline"><br/><h2></h2></div><br/><div class="clear"> </div><br/><div class="byline"><span class="name"><br/>By ANN TELLIER, The Gazette<br/></span> <span class="timestamp">November 1, 2011</span> <span class="comments" id="lblComment"></span></div><br/><div class="clear"> </div></div><!-- /story_share_bar_1.inc --><br/><script type="text" /></script><br/><br/><div class="sharebar"><!-- /story_share_bar_1.inc end --><!-- /story_share_bar_2.inc --><br/><div class="recomm"><br/><script src="http://connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"><br/> </script><br/><fb:like show_faces="true" layout="button_count" action="recommend" width="120" class=" fb_edge_widget_with_comment fb_iframe_widget"><span><iframe name="f1b69094d807067" frameborder="0" style="BORDER-BOTTOM: medium none; 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She lives in Pointe Claire.</p><br/><p>In "Do kids need computers to learn? Some schools are saying no," (Opinion, <br/>Oct. 27), columnist Henry Aubin raised the concerns some people have about the <br/>increased screen time and wired-in kids (and adults) that populate our 21st <br/>century. His focus was on schools and what digital road we may be going down <br/>here in Quebec.</p><br/><p>There is little doubt that pushing ourselves and mentoring our children to <br/>push themselves away from the tech table is a good example of healthy living. <br/>Dr. John Ratey (co-author of the book Delivered from Distraction and an <br/>authority on attention deficit</p><br/><p>hyperactivity disorder) has most recently focused on the problem of childhood <br/>obesity in the U.S. He partially blames increased time with tech and less time <br/>on the playground. Richard Louv, in his book Last Child in the Woods, rings <br/>alarm bells about our disconnect with the natural world.</p><br/><p>Isn't life about balance, though? Teachers of the 21st century do seek to <br/>engage our 21st-century students. Many have embraced new technology in order to <br/>teach our students in ways relevant to their present and, most importantly, to <br/>their future. Teachers have interactive whiteboards, iPads, smartphones, GPS <br/>devices, multitouch tables, computers and even some of the latest laptops on <br/>lease-and-buy programs as schools try to keep up.</p><br/><p>Pose the question to any teacher who has taken these steps into technology <br/>with his or her students: Would you go back to writing on fossilized rock with <br/>deceased sea creatures? No surprise: the teacher would probably opt for taking <br/>his or her students on a virtual voyage around the world, beneath the ocean or <br/>into outer space on Google Earth on their smartboard. A wooden protractor <br/>scraping across a chalkboard? Most would choose a flick of a finger that brings <br/>in a moving image with which anyone can measure angles. Bonus: the students will <br/>pay attention and understand it.</p><br/><p>In most elementary schools we use the latest technology before Grade 8. It <br/>doesn't mean our students don't measure pumpkins and count their seeds, mix blue <br/>and yellow paint to make green, run in cross-country events, sing, dance or <br/>read. It means we can do all that and take digital photos and video as we record <br/>the experiences, then share and talk about it. We can experiment with art media <br/>and use it in a virtual way on a tablet. We can record our phys-ed run times and <br/>where we go with the latest GPS. We share music and dance moves from around the <br/>globe. And we can e-read, e-write and Skype.</p><br/><p>One of the most recent teach-and-reach projects is about the use and abuse of <br/>digital communication: how to create a polite and informative email; the need to <br/>ask permission when taking a photo of someone, and to clear your intent for the <br/>use of that photo. This discussion of digital rights and responsibilities would <br/>be unlikely to take place if the technology were not in the students' hands.</p><br/><p>No doubt the students in Silicon Valley whom Henry Aubin wrote about, who <br/>attend a school with no computers in the classroom, have privileged access to <br/>all sorts of digital tools through their in-the-know parents. Would we deny our <br/>own children the same opportunities in their school careers? Or do we keep them <br/>in the past and let them catch up later, or perhaps <br/>never?</p></div></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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