I don’t want to write about something that got me down at school, but I can’t escape it. I could write about saying goodbye to the cooperating teacher who just left yesterday, or I could mention how we just finished reading House on Mango Street and how I learned to love the book through teaching it.
But right now this disturbing incident keeps bothering me. There was a fight in the cafeteria on Thursday when I had lunch duty. I was talking with an administrator when a swirl of several hundred kids gathered like thunderclouds around the eye of the storm. Two girls were pulling on each other’s hair and screaming at each other. Two adults who got there more quickly pulled the girls apart from each other. I was saddened (though not surprised) to see so many students excited, almost elated, about the fight. I’ve seen it many times before at my school. The latest buzz… “Did you know Sally and Susy were scratching each other and pulling their hair out because of X and Y?”
But that wasn’t what upset me the most. A freshman had his cellphone aimed at the fighting, taking pictures of the girls at their worst, ready to post it at MySpace or Facebook or maybe just to send it to someone else’s phone. My question is, why is this his instinct? I know the mob mentality kicks in and the basest of human instincts are released when kids are around a fight, but why the instinct of, “Cool! I can post this on the Internet!” when two girls are in a rage with each other?
I love technology. We use it in class all the time. We diminish barriers to communication and understanding with it. But we can also destroy reputations in keystrokes. And now I’ve seen where we’re at with technology. Kids are ready to record everything and anything that might catch someone else’s attention.
I don’t want to position myself as a fuddyduddy who thinks of “us” (mature adults) against “them” (immature kids whose motives can’t be comprehended). But I’m trying to wrap my mind around why kids grab for their cellphones to record these kinds of moments. I realize cellphones can also help catch criminals and record injustices that need correcting. But we’re also stuck with this other side I’ve just witnessed, the one where if other people are present, anyone might have a moment of their life posted in cyberspace, possibly forever.
Incidentally, the administrator I was with managed to get the cellphone and talk to the student about his behavior. I’m not sure he understood what was so wrong. Another lesson to add to our curriculum, I guess.
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