Sexting

Living in an online, technologically advanced era certainly has its perks; however, young teens’ text messaging, picture messaging, and social networking can get out of hand if not properly monitored. If abused, these forms of communication can lead to “cyber-bullying” and can profoundly affect the emotional and psychological development of a child.

A quickly emerging form of communication amongst young teens is “sexting.” “Sexting” is the act of sending or posting nude or partially nude images of minors. Many youth are convinced that anything they want to do with their bodies and their phones is their business. Cell phones are a relatively new form of communication in our society and provide young individuals an unprecedented privacy and freedom from their parents or guardians. One in five teens has used this privacy and freedom to explore their sexuality by having sent a sexually-suggestive text or picture message. Young teens are often pressured by friends, respond to a sexual message they’ve received, and others willingly send nude photos of themselves to a boyfriend or girlfriend. These teens often make these decisions without thinking about the consequences. “Sexting” poses a significant social danger. Digitally sent sexually explicit material can be very easily and widely distributed. Trust is broken when an image is forwarded without the originator’s consent and this image is impossible to get back, having the potential to circulate forever. Youth engaging in this form of communication risk reoccurring embarrassment and victimization.

Youth who sext may face charges of producing, possessing, or distributing child pornography. As long as sexually-suggestive messages circulate, anyone with them may face charges. Furthermore, these pictures can find their way into the hands of sexual predators that prey on children and collect child pornography. This type of exploitation can be psychologically devastating for the creator.

How can responsible parents prevent their children from “sexting?” I believe the establishment of household rules and expectations regarding text messaging and access to the internet can help a great deal with this conflict. When expectations are not met, youth should face highly restricted and monitored access to the internet and texting functions. Although restricting and monitoring a teen’s access to the internet and other mobile devices may reduce his or her feeling of independence and sense of personal autonomy, this type of control may be necessary to protect the innocence of children everywhere.

STEM vs. more Arts

A compelling argument was made on both sides of the Curriculum debate today.
I was particularly impressed with Stuart’s presentation. Although his arguments may not have been delivered with the same fervor or passion of his opponent, his calm resolve and two statements in particular seemed to have a huge impact in persuading me on his side of the debate. His admission, in his opening, that his career choice was to be a Math teacher, while arguing for a more, well rounded curriculum that includes the arts, humanities, music and physical education was compelling in itself. At least it was compelling enough to provoke interest. The second point Stuart made seemed to cement my opinion on this particular debate. He stated that students that participate in band generally do better in Math. With that point stated it seems nobody is arguing whether or not Math is important however, perhaps the argument should be there might be more than one way to get there. Way to go Stuart!

Bullying

Social/Relational aggression among high school kids is harmful and dangerous. An argument can be made that kids will be kids and that bullying is just another one of those character builders that kids must face. Social/relational aggression has evolved with the evolvement of technology. What use to be teasing in the hallways, something that happened that a victim would put behind them, has now turned into something much larger. With text messaging victims of bullying can be continually harassed and their peer’s negative opinions of them can quickly spread in and out of school. An embarrassing encounter between a bully and a victim can now easily be video taped. What was once just gossip through the school can now easily be published on the internet. These technologies give an entirely new dimension to bullying and the degrees to which bullies are able to impact their victims. One could argue that social/relational aggression is not as harmful as physical aggression; however, after dissecting the outcomes of both types of aggression, in terms of the impact it has on its victims, we can reasonably conclude that bullying in any form is harmful.

Thank you all

Now this blog is going to be a bit different then the ones that we all have been posting thru out the year. I want to say thank you to all of you. This class with the interaction with each other thru the whole time is the best ever. now giving speeches to me is hard but we have all gotten thru it. My hats off to you. Talking to each other in your group about the topic and coming up with ideas or given your option about what is in class and expersing it out. Man this is the first class that we where able to fight on what we belive or hear out on what it is like in the world around us, by living , kids, love, what ever. I dont have a study about this or nothing I felt that we all need a pat on the back for the work everybody has done. Now that we only have over a little of a week, I can say this what a great run. Everybody in class has been able to speak out about everything. Well sorry Mondays it takes a few mins for us to warm up but still we have voiced what we think, and to me or to anybody that is the best way to understand everything or anything in this world. The teachers can tell you this is what it is and you take notes and move on in your life but to sit down and talk to each other with the teacher there improves everything. Well sorry to me I have seen where we started off a bit shy but now, how cow there is nothing holding us back. Thank you all.

More art in school?

I do believe that fine arts, vocational, and physical education classes are vital for secondary education. Granted the majority of jobs and advancements in today’s society fall within the realm of STEM courses, and in order to ensure the success of our nation and the children who live here we need these courses to be stressed. However, that does not mean that we can toss the other classes by the hip side. STEM does not include English, history, geography, or health classes and there is no arguing that these are important. With No Child Left behind there has been a push to STEM courses, and the ones left out are the fine arts and PE. These courses are necessary because not all students excel in the areas and they will not all grow up to have careers in these fields. Just because their strengths lie in other domains doesn’t mean that they should be given a lower chance at success. Currently I am attending Tech to become a high school Math teacher, so I know the importance of such courses. However, we cannot neglect the fine arts, if we do we will be neglected some of the brightest young minds in our country.

spanking your child

Now a days most parents are afraid to spank your child in public at all. Just knowing that if somebody sees you doing this act will they turn you in to the courts for abusing your child? Most of us that grew up with the paddle or the belt on the wall know that spanking was hard at that time but for me did me good. Ya we all did something to piss off our parents. Man I did it all the time not to do it but just because it was fun till you find out it was dangerous and that the parents are more upset of what you did because of the danger of it. My parents divorce when I was 7 so I lived with my mother thru the school year and then with my father thru the summer time. I was the only daughter and the only granddaughter on my father’s side so I can say this I was daddies little girl. I hate my mother so to live with her for 9 months of the year was like living in hell. On the first day of summer going to my fathers was the best time ever. But back to the spanking, my mother had a belt with my name on it and one for my brother’s name on it hanging on the wall next to the door. Man when she said to grab that belt and go to your room. Now that I am a mother of 2 boys and a aunt of 3 boys I only spanked my oldest a couple of times and I felt so bad that I had to change. I did not want to turn out to be like my mother. So I am a stern person. When I say something in my house my family knows that I mean business and that you better do what I tell you to do. I love my boys but I am their mother. Not their friend. So I have to be stern to them to keep them out of trouble. So if you choice to be the person that spanks or not and just send them to the corner you are being a parent.

Debate

Today there was a couple of groups that were able to give there debate. The difference on the option on each side is good. Now the one that I have to comment on is the arts vs. math etc. Now the reason why I am commenting on this one is that we did not get a chance to commit in class. I have two teens’ boys. One is in 6^th grade that is jr high and the other one is 9^th grade high school. Now my youngest loves to draw anything and everything. There was one person that said that there is not much math in high school above geometry. Well that is not true. My youngest just took the nations math test to see where he falls in “normal range or higher”, he received his test scores back yesterday. Man I am so proud. He scored to be a senior beginning college level. In the school that they are in, you do learn calculus and beyond. So I don’t know or understand the diff. you can request for the higher math if you want to in high school. Don’t get me wrong in some cases there might be where the schools only teach the lower math but I do believe there should be arts in class.