A recent post about Twitter got me thinking about my own students.And then I made my first mistake. I looked a few names up on Twitter, admittedly, bad students whose dumbshit-edness required some sort of answer.
And they were worse people than I could ever imagine. Racist, misogynist, drugs, alcohol, just plain ignorance of anything approaching adult civility.
And Facebook was mostly the same. Hate speech cloaked as funny jokes.
Now I can't get any of it out of my head. I see these dumbasses and think about the reprehensible things they have posted in public. I don't want to tech them. I don't want to spend even one more second wasting my energy on such scum.
Oh why did I do it? It can't be unseen.
Call them out. Let everybody learn what you learned. Although it's all "public", nobody outside their group of friends probably knows about it. You shouldn't show their Twitter feed to their classmates during class but let faculty know. Let HR know. Let the school newspaper know. They will either learn that such behavior is unacceptable or they'll figure out how to adjust their social media privacy settings.
ReplyDeleteLike Ben says, I'd be so tempted to cut out those posts and post them like we do here and show them in class to talk about them. I wouldn't do that, but I'd be tempted. Instead, I'd likely bring it up in a conversation about how "confused" I am by some of the things I've seen on twitter (without calling out anyone in the class) because it shows a side to people that you hadn't anticipated.
DeleteI can feel for you Kimmie. I get the some of the same feeling just seeing my students out in public. They are like feral creatures. And I feel like I was a pretty wild child, but I couldn't keep up with them.
ReplyDeleteTheir casual hate for things that are different though, that's one I don't understand. Aren't we more tolerant in this century? Or is that a lie?
They are sometimes like this in class, when cornered... they're really instinctual beasts sometimes.
DeleteTwitter is horrible. Ever since the Twitter-Domo has been retweeting especially inane stuff I've been transfixed. I don't mean to be dense, but can they really know that their tweets are public? Do they maybe not know how to make it just for friends?
ReplyDeleteNow you know why I rarely solicit discussion from any class. What's on their minds is too depressing.
ReplyDeleteIt's so cute you think ANYTHING is on their minds.
DeleteA good teacher should give them the benefit of the doubt, although the SMELL should be a warning that this won't last long.
Deleteyou know what, I am going to use the info in a lecture. I'll mix in some other things that don't belong to my students. excellent. Thanks for the idea!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to hear back. Your "Why" posts are so great. I look forward to them each week.
DeleteNot only do they not understand "public," they don't understand the basics of how Google accounts work.
ReplyDeleteThe YouTube user names/uploads/comments connected to their email addresses? Spectacular.
Now you know why, whenever anyone calls them "digital natives," I just laugh. It is a complete myth that they are "at home" with technology, and not a one of them can program.
DeleteNatives is good, although I'm about to get offensive to native peoples world-wide. This generation is _within_ the technology, they can't see the technology for the internets, as it were. There's a vague mythos of how things work, and a lot of legends, many with tiny grains of truth but little fact.
DeleteThey can text up a storm, but figuring out how to insert a footnote in MS Word is necromancy. They can Facebook under their desks like champs, but figuring out how to download a PDF from JStor. . .
ReplyDeleteJust KNOWING what a footnote is can confuse them. I have a footnote after my work email and have written; "This is the best way to reach me" in the footnote. Several students said they didn't know how to "make the tiny little 1" in my email address. Head::desk
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