YOU FOOLISH PSEUDO JEDI

Kobos wrote:

Phoenix Vidensia wrote:

Kobos wrote: I tend to agree with what you said above, however, I want to go down the rabbit hole here a bit. Could you please define livelihood?

Much Love,
Kobos

Ability to support oneself financially.

Would mental health fall into this? Simply because could one suffer financial hardship due to their mental health? How then do we judge this?

Is finance the only way to measure liveliness?

Much Love,
Kobos

Livelihood...

Furthermore, before you even try it... Don't.

I don't consider negatively impacting a person's mental health (because you express things they don't like online) to deserve any sort of legal consequences, much less a ban online.

However, continual harassment, even after the person has told you to stop three times, DOES warrant a ban, though likely not legal consequences, unless livelihood, persons, or property are verbally threatened, damaged, or lost.

I actually agree with you, beyond threats to direct violence or harm I really really think we need to avoid legal involvement. Deplatforming/Banning should be considered a final step to avoid this.

I would say that livelihood does include mental health but the effect on that of the internet is what the individual makes it.

Please do not assume you know where I am going, I simply want to present a different perspective than what you and I hold. Personally, I look at online interaction as such, if someone is being that much of a jerk, I'm just likely to step off for a bit until I understand it rationally or just don't care anymore. If worse comes to worse I just drop the conversation and move on, it's the internet, it's full of Sh#T posters, has been since I was a teen when that interwebs really took off. AOL IM the starting of all interweb hate.....Damn you AOL

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

Kobos wrote: I actually agree with you, beyond threats to direct violence or harm I really really think we need to avoid legal involvement. Deplatforming/Banning should be considered a final step to avoid this.

I would say that livelihood does include mental health but the effect on that of the internet is what the individual makes it.

Please do not assume you know where I am going, I simply want to present a different perspective than what you and I hold. Personally, I look at online interaction as such, if someone is being that much of a jerk, I'm just likely to step off for a bit until I understand it rationally or just don't care anymore. If worse comes to worse I just drop the conversation and move on, it's the internet, it's full of Sh#T posters, has been since I was a teen when that interwebs really took off. AOL IM the starting of all interweb hate.....Damn you AOL

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

I also look at this as a parent because all of these electronic connected devices is allowing things to happen that didn't exist nearly to the same degree when I was in school. I grew up with bullies just like many other kids. And typically they stopped when you fought back. Consequences. Now, kids can be bullied and trolled on social media. Memes can bounce around the whole school at the speed of light. And if you ever had a bully and remember how that 1 kid made you feel and then multiply it by some nameless faceless crowd that seems to be against your very existence... there's really no comparison. I'd rather walk 3 miles to school in the cold than have to deal with the metaphorical cold environment that many kids today have to face.

And so, as a parent, I know that a lot of kids today are committing suicide because of this. It's not a joke. It's not funny. It's a serious issue. If your kid even starts to experience bullying you as a parent should call the school immediately. And schools have to be wary not to allow an environment that is so toxic that children cannot handle it. Because either they want to die or they want to kill. In many cases we can simply question the mental health of that child and act like they were to blame because yes, what a crazy reaction to have. And yes, we can and should talk about easy access to guns and weapons of war that they shouldn't be able to get their hands on. But I don't think the level of bullying and harassment going on, using technology as a megaphone, should be ignored either. I wish it was someone other than Melania but there is a need for an anti-bullying campaign. It's just meaningless coming from this white house.

But no, bullying is not okay and bullies should be held "somewhat" responsible for the damage they cause the same way as if you would be liable if you yelled fire in a crowded building; the same way you can be held responsible for inciting a riot. Words are words but words can move people. Words can become action. It is immature to only consider direct consequences and shrug at all the indirect consequences of your actions. No, if something is foreseeable then you have a responsibility to see it and avoid it. I use my turn signals religiously, even if no other cars are around. Why? To reinforce my own habits to make sure that I'm adding to the safety of other drivers on the road. Why act like what we do and say doesn't matter to other people? Of course it does. You may choose not to see it, and it may affect different people differently, but just because one person deems themselves unaccountable for their own influence, doesn't mean we have to nod in agreement. To me, that's not even a Jedi vs Grey vs Sith thing. That's just a mature vs immature thing to which I say "grow up". Words actually do matter.

ZealotX wrote:

Kobos wrote: I actually agree with you, beyond threats to direct violence or harm I really really think we need to avoid legal involvement. Deplatforming/Banning should be considered a final step to avoid this.

I would say that livelihood does include mental health but the effect on that of the internet is what the individual makes it.

Please do not assume you know where I am going, I simply want to present a different perspective than what you and I hold. Personally, I look at online interaction as such, if someone is being that much of a jerk, I'm just likely to step off for a bit until I understand it rationally or just don't care anymore. If worse comes to worse I just drop the conversation and move on, it's the internet, it's full of Sh#T posters, has been since I was a teen when that interwebs really took off. AOL IM the starting of all interweb hate.....Damn you AOL

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos

I also look at this as a parent because all of these electronic connected devices is allowing things to happen that didn't exist nearly to the same degree when I was in school. I grew up with bullies just like many other kids. And typically they stopped when you fought back. Consequences. Now, kids can be bullied and trolled on social media. Memes can bounce around the whole school at the speed of light. And if you ever had a bully and remember how that 1 kid made you feel and then multiply it by some nameless faceless crowd that seems to be against your very existence... there's really no comparison. I'd rather walk 3 miles to school in the cold than have to deal with the metaphorical cold environment that many kids today have to face.

And so, as a parent, I know that a lot of kids today are committing suicide because of this. It's not a joke. It's not funny. It's a serious issue. If your kid even starts to experience bullying you as a parent should call the school immediately. And schools have to be wary not to allow an environment that is so toxic that children cannot handle it. Because either they want to die or they want to kill. In many cases we can simply question the mental health of that child and act like they were to blame because yes, what a crazy reaction to have. And yes, we can and should talk about easy access to guns and weapons of war that they shouldn't be able to get their hands on. But I don't think the level of bullying and harassment going on, using technology as a megaphone, should be ignored either. I wish it was someone other than Melania but there is a need for an anti-bullying campaign. It's just meaningless coming from this white house.

But no, bullying is not okay and bullies should be held "somewhat" responsible for the damage they cause the same way as if you would be liable if you yelled fire in a crowded building; the same way you can be held responsible for inciting a riot. Words are words but words can move people. Words can become action. It is immature to only consider direct consequences and shrug at all the indirect consequences of your actions. No, if something is foreseeable then you have a responsibility to see it and avoid it. I use my turn signals religiously, even if no other cars are around. Why? To reinforce my own habits to make sure that I'm adding to the safety of other drivers on the road. Why act like what we do and say doesn't matter to other people? Of course it does. You may choose not to see it, and it may affect different people differently, but just because one person deems themselves unaccountable for their own influence, doesn't mean we have to nod in agreement. To me, that's not even a Jedi vs Grey vs Sith thing. That's just a mature vs immature thing to which I say "grow up". Words actually do matter.

So, the bullying thing in childhood is important to look at. It is something I deal with everyday, the thing often becomes how do we stop it? I ask because we as educators look for ways to comfort those on the receiving end and punish/dissuade those on the giving side. However, and this is not an exaggeration when I say the actual amount of time and resources going into this is destroying our system as we know it. So, then it becomes an idea of parental involvement, when do parents teach kids that the things others say are not always truth or are relevant to them, and stop leaving it to the school to teach that for them? We as schools are also limited due to liability, we act and we get sued, we don't act we get sued and in the end all that hurts is the students not involved in the lawsuit, educational resources and the educators whose careers are ruined.

I think the idea of childhood bullying doesn't necessarily fit in the context of TOTJO though.

I agree that words matter, however, there is still the flip-side of that in the person on the receiving end chooses how much they do. I have recently felt the sting of someones words, it sucks it hurt but I also let it to a point instead of being able to let it go for what it was.

I don't know this is a quandary for me there are a lot of things that go on here particularly when you bring the school environment in. However, when sticking to the confines of here (TOTJO) I do believe we should be setting a higher standard for the adults that use this site both to not be a d-bag and to not assume everyone is being a d-bag on purpose.

I hope that made some sense,
Much Love,
Kobos

I forgot to put this in on the original post for an example: We had a kid last year that was recieving messages via one of the major social media platforms, they came to me showed me the messages, I promptly took them to my boss. My boss looked at them, we called in the other party and had a discussion. What we found to end up being the case was that both parties were actively engaging each other. At that point the latter was punished before the investigation was complete. Once it was complete we has both meet with a councilor and talk it out. Now when all of this was done both parties parents came in and began demanding action against the other as well as pointing out that as the school we should not be interfering with their kids social media. So, in that situation what are we expected to do? Like I said it is very very tricky and I honestly don't have a solution besides taking it case by case but it does take a lot of time when you have a general population of 2000 students, and we are a small school for the area I live in.

Much Love,
Kobos

Kobos wrote: So, the bullying thing in childhood is important to look at. It is something I deal with everyday, the thing often becomes how do we stop it? I ask because we as educators look for ways to comfort those on the receiving end and punish/dissuade those on the giving side. However, and this is not an exaggeration when I say the actual amount of time and resources going into this is destroying our system as we know it. So, then it becomes an idea of parental involvement, when do parents teach kids that the things others say are not always truth or are relevant to them, and stop leaving it to the school to teach that for them? We as schools are also limited due to liability, we act and we get sued, we don't act we get sued and in the end all that hurts is the students not involved in the lawsuit, educational resources and the educators whose careers are ruined.

I think the idea of childhood bullying doesn't necessarily fit in the context of TOTJO though.

I agree that words matter, however, there is still the flip-side of that in the person on the receiving end chooses how much they do. I have recently felt the sting of someones words, it sucks it hurt but I also let it to a point instead of being able to let it go for what it was.

I don't know this is a quandary for me there are a lot of things that go on here particularly when you bring the school environment in. However, when sticking to the confines of here (TOTJO) I do believe we should be setting a higher standard for the adults that use this site both to not be a d-bag and to not assume everyone is being a d-bag on purpose.

I hope that made some sense,
Much Love,
Kobos

As a parent thought, or an adult in general, words of comfort are going to sound hollow, empty, toothless if not backed up with rules and enforcement. Kids live to test boundaries. And sometimes you have to set an example so that other kids are afraid of doing it the same way adults are afraid of the consequence of bank robbery or a myriad of other crimes (I don't know why I keep using one example).

I do perfectly understand the limitations of the school system. Sometimes you're (sorry, no other ways to say this) damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's not the school's job to raise children; simply to intervene if a child gets out of line during their custody. If the school doesn't go far enough then whatever a child knows they cannot do at home they'll do at school.

We used to have tough teachers. You just knew that teacher wasn't going to let you get away with anything. And it wasn't just in their class. They might be standing in the hall between classes. Just their general presence was felt and inspired a healthy amount of fear. And that continued even after they took spanking out of school. It's an attitude thing. I remember having to write sentences after class or whatever even when I wasn't trying to disruptive. Teachers need tools like that and teachers have to fight, to some extent, to maintain certain tools if they're also going to be held to account.

I recognize it's a difficult position to be in, and that they didn't ask for it. Parents didn't necessarily ask for it either because we shouldn't have to harden our kids simply because some parents send little monsters to school. In fact, for certain things, I would make parents pay fines. And failure to pay the fines result in detention. You get 3 detentions and fines get bigger. After that, if you don't pay the fine then your kid gets expelled and black balled in that school district for a year. If that means they will be held back then hold them back. You have to have consequences. Teachers don't get paid enough to get pushed around.

I'm not in a position to tell teachers what to do, of course, but as a general rule if you don't stand up for yourself and your position, and you let parents run over you, not only will parents run over you, but the kids will travel that same path and they'll run over you on a daily basis. A lot of parents even feel like they can call and cuss out a teacher. I'd be like, nope. You get your child out of my class room then. And teachers have to stick together on those issues so its not like there would be enough substitutes to replace them all. And no one likes subs anyway. But bottom line, children will do whatever you let them get away with. In order to protect all the nice innocent and soft kids, you gotta get mean! At least sometimes. If a kid never sees you get upset then they don't even know what will upset you. After awhile they start losing the sense of where the boundaries are and school starts feeling like the wild wild west. And if their parents expect you to only be nice, which I hardly believe, then its the parents that need to be punished. And if you have to put a proposal together with all of your "good parents" and let their voices add to it which will then outweigh any bad parents and their complaints. As long as you have enough support the principle and the school board will back you up (assuming they know in advance what the plan is).

Zealot,

You have no idea how nice it is to hear that sentiment from a parent, really it is. I tend to be the good guy teacher but when kids get out if line I will become dead serious, the kids I have had know when this is happening and the demeanor and feel of the room changes. That is one of the tools I use, sometimes colorful language helps (I am at high school level so, they can a handle a few swears). Sadly though there is often little support behind those of us that use tools to try and enforce a general rule of courtesy. From a teacher's point of view it would be so excellent if more parents had your attitude and made it public that they did because that would be the start of maybe getting certain issues under control. for example actually being able to hold standards. This year was the first year out of the 4 I've been in the educations system, where an administrator said, "you know if a student doesn't meet expectations it's ok to fail them. It is something they need to learn from." Having our principal say this was amazing and sadly this attitude is an anomaly. I have actually been forced (I guess I could have given up my job for principle)to pass a kid who literally missed 39 days of class, 30ish were cuts. That was my first year, it blew me away that my department chair literally made me do it, with veiled threats to my position.

Sorry this turned into me going off subject and airing out some complaints, but thank you for bearing with me!

Much Love,
Kobos

Kobos wrote: So, the bullying thing in childhood is important to look at. It is something I deal with everyday, the thing often becomes how do we stop it? I ask because we as educators look for ways to comfort those on the receiving end and punish/dissuade those on the giving side. However, and this is not an exaggeration when I say the actual amount of time and resources going into this is destroying our system as we know it. So, then it becomes an idea of parental involvement, when do parents teach kids that the things others say are not always truth or are relevant to them, and stop leaving it to the school to teach that for them? We as schools are also limited due to liability, we act and we get sued, we don't act we get sued and in the end all that hurts is the students not involved in the lawsuit, educational resources and the educators whose careers are ruined.

I think the idea of childhood bullying doesn't necessarily fit in the context of TOTJO though.

Stopping childhood bullying isn't the solution, giving parents authority over their children is. My parents taught me that what people said, online on off, wasn't necessary true. I was taught "sticks and stones" and stood up to a few bullies as well.

Furthermore, I agree as well that childhood bullying doesn't apply here. We're not children, and I think parents here need to get that through their thick skulls. An internet forum isn't a daycare, adults aren't children and shouldn't be treated as such.

Hmm this is interesting. I hear people all the time make claims that they were bullied at various times in their lives but I have rarely if ever heard anyone say they were the bully. So interesting question, how many here were bullied and how many here were the bullies?

I will happily admit to being on the side of the bully in my youth as well as being subject to bullying. So, is a common experience of many. To say you are only the victim is to only focus on the effect of actions on the self. In time I have grown to regret where I was the bully. And still do, because there are times I am the bully. I do not get to choose how others interpret me. I do however, control the way I phrase things to avoid the action and try to do so when I can.

Much Love, Respect and Peace,
Kobos