The early discoverers didn’t have a map to help them navigate from their flat world into a round world, and now it would seem that we really don’t have a map to help us navigate from our round world into a world that is suddenly flat again.
[…] When I first started interviewing teenagers about bullying, they would dismiss my questions. “Bullying is so middle/elementary school,” they’d say. […]
[…] Of course, teens do take it seriously. And they do misinterpret when people are messing with them. And they do take minor social infractions personally. And then things escalate. And here’s what makes bullying so difficult to address. So often, one person thinks that they’re not at fault and that they’re simply a victim of bullying. But those who are engaged in the bullying see it entirely differently. They blame the person and see what they’re doing as retaliation. None of this is communicated, of course, so things can quickly spiral out of control without anyone really knowing where it all began.[…]
Empathy, Not Technology, Is Core of the Problem and the Solution
[…] We need interventions that focus on building empathy, identifying escalation, and techniques for stopping the cycles of abuse. We need to create environments where young people don’t get validated for negative attention and where they don’t see relationship drama as part of normal adult life. The issues here are systemic. And it’s great that the Internet is forcing us to think about them, but the Internet is not the problem here. It’s just one tool in an ongoing battle for attention, validation, and status. And unless we find effective ways of getting to the root of the problem, the Internet will just continue to be used to reinforce what is pervasive.
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Finally, a well said and researched article that recognizes that the Internet is not the problem… It just amplifies the issues already present.
The bullying that Ann and her brother endured was as cruel as anything that happens on the internet and back then, before cell phones, cell phone cameras, MSN, Facebook and YouTube, it didn’t matter if the information didn’t go beyond the class or the school because that was the scale of the ‘whole world knowing’ anyway.
Blaming the internet or technology for making bullying worse is like blaming a gun for shooting someone. It’s not the tool, but how you use it that matters.
We need to develop empathy from a young age, infuse caring across the curriculum, and as Dana says, stop validating negative attention and start breaking the cycles of abuse that escalate into hurtful scenarios, (both on and off the internet).
“Empathy, Not Technology, Is Core of the Problem and the Solution!”
I am no longer teaching in the classroom. My work now deals mostly with principals, vice-principals, and parents. I still see my basic job as the same. How do I find ways to help people approach their challenges with courage, confidence and optimism? How do I persuade principals and vice principals that they need to be prepared to risk being wrong in order to find ways of responding creatively to the particular context of their school?
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A great blog post, well worth the read. I especially like the last sentence and think it could be changed in a number of ways:
How do WE persuade *principals and vice principals* that they need to be prepared to risk being wrong in order to find ways of responding creatively to the particular context of their *school*?
Replace *principals and vice principals* and *school* with:
• teachers and class
• students and class
• my children and family
• ourselves and lives
The last one doesn’t really fit grammatically but the reality is that fear of being wrong, of failure, is such a barrier to most people that people don’t even take ‘safe’ risks.
Related: http://pairadimes.davidtruss.com/beg-for-foregiveness/
and this video:
I shared this in a comment on Tom Altepeter’s post titled ‘Family‘ today, and wanted to share it in my own space too:
What should we do with tools to make them great?
November 6, 2010 by emapey
David Truss (via @sabridv) suggests what we can do with tools to make them great
1. Give students choice
2. Give students a voice.
3. Give students an audience.
4. Give students a place to collaborate.
5. Give students a place to lead.
6. Give students a digital space to learn.Compare this list to:
– Stephen Downes Connectivism Principles:
1- Autonomy
2- Diversity
3- Openness
4- Interactivity and Connectednessand to
– Chickering and Gamson Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education
1. encourages contact between students and faculty,
2. develops reciprocity and cooperation among students,
3. encourages active learning,
4. gives prompt feedback,
5. emphasizes time on task,
6. communicates high expectations, and
7. respects diverse talents and ways of learning.As George Siemens posted, It’s not about tools. It’s about change.
It’s the change underlying these tools that I’m trying to emphasize. Forget blogs…think open dialogue. Forget wikis…think collaboration. Forget podcasts…think democracy of voice. Forget RSS/aggregation…think personal networks. Forget any of the tools…and think instead of the fundamental restructuring of how knowledge is created, disseminated, shared, and validated.
Eduardo did a great job of putting together several ideas around the same theme such that the whole is greater than the sum of it’s parts!
On my post David Warlick added, “Give the learners a sandbox.”
I like the idea of ‘Play’ and also that he changed ‘students’ to ‘the learners’.
It is my main critique with the emotional-feel-good message of Ken Robinson’s focus on creativity. First, we need to get over the view that our generation is astonishingly unique. Hasn’t every generation faced new technologies to solve problems not foreseen? The present moment arrogance that invades much of school reform thinking is frustrating. And, I might as well add, the pendulum-thinking mindset that is evident in Robinson’s view is damaging in the long term. If a view of educational reform is defined by the current reality that it is reacting against, rather than a holistic model of what it will produce in the future, then we’re playing a game of short-term gains, planting in our revolution the seeds for the next revolution that will push back against gains that we make now.
… Developing capacity for complexity. Complexity is the DNA of society. Whenever multiple agents interact, outcomes are uncertain. Failure to account for complexity in organizational design, teacher preparation, and business planning is a short path to frustration. Yes, it would be nice if the world was complicated – like a puzzle where every piece has a right place. But it’s not. It’s complex – like a weather system where changes in one aspect of the system cascades and influences the entire system, often in unpredictable ways. Unfortunately, complexity is not built into the educational system. We seek “general right answers” rather than “contextual right answers”.
The pendulum-thinking issue has been on my mind, but I have not been able to express it as well as George does here. It reminds me of the dichotomized digital native vs digital immigrant issue which can also be counter-productive.
I also wonder how many ‘rules’ and ‘expectations’ are created because of present moment arrogance? Are filters our equivalent of book burnings? Are our subject blocks created by a parochial curriculum? Are typing skills equivalent to quill pen skills of the past? How is our arrogance counter-revolutionary?
In the second section, I love the puzzle vs weather system metaphor! Using a metaphor exemplifies contextual complexity!
When I started my daily ink, I really thought I could do a daily hand-written journal and that I could stick with it. But the reality is that despite wanting to live in both worlds: http://daily-ink.davidtruss.com/daily-ink-both-worlds I am very tied to the digital world! I walk around with my phone, I don’t walk around with my journal. I went away on a retreat last week and took my journal with me. I didn’t feel like writing on the long journey, and was fully occupied on my holiday while there… thus no daily-ink. I came back and left my journal in my travel bag, which I just found today almost a week later. Ooops!
Time to wake up…
I regret that I didn’t…
rather than educate the public, “Waiting for Superman” carpet bombs them with misrepresentations fueled by dubious assertions and denigrating images of public schools and teachers. Beneath its discourse of urgency, altruism and political purity parading in a messianic language of educational reform and a politics of generosity are the same old and discredited neoliberal policies that cheerfully serve corporate interests: privatization, union busting, competition as the only mode of motivation, an obsession with measurement, a relentless attack on teacher autonomy, the weakening of tenure, stripping educational goals of public values, defining teacher quality in purely instrumental terms, an emphasis on authoritative modes of management and a mindless obsession with notions of pedagogy that celebrate memorization and teach to the test. High stakes accountability and punishing modes of leadership, regardless of the damage they wreak on students and teachers, are now the only game in town when it comes to educational reform – so much so that it is called revolutionary.
From: t r u t h o u t, “When Generosity Hurts: Bill Gates, Public School Teachers and the Politics of Humiliation”
By Henry A. Giroux, October 5th, 2010
What a great quote!
