A Girl's Nude Photo, Altered Lives
Jan Hoffman
New York Times
March 26, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/27/us/27sexting.html?pagewanted=1&ref=general&src=me
Topic: High Tech flirting turns explicit, Altering Young Lives
Key Points: Last year in Olympia Washington this case of middle schoolers being arrested for 'sexting' made the news, the article follows the longer term ramifications when the naked photo goes 'viral'. The girl who originally sent the photo was not arrested, but three others were for disseminating it, making it more a case about bullying than child pornography.
Relevance: As we have discussed in our Learning Communities class, we are expected to know what's going on with our students. We need to know how easy it is for bullying to occur using this media. The article goes into considerable detail how the administration handled the issue and is using it to educate new middle schoolers.
Oi. Such a mess!!! This is something that we definitely will need to watch out for as teachers, but, I feel that the ultimate responsibility for a child's cell phone use comes down on the parents. They are the ones that have provided the students with the technology that is capable of "sexting". Once something like this starts to spread, it goes viral. I have in Eugene who is high up in the police department (one of the highest ranked women in the country) and even her son got a little mixed up with "sexting". She monitors his cell phone (and he knew it!) and found photos of his girlfriend wearing nothing but a belt she had bought him for a present... evidently the present was the belt and the photos. YIKES! As parents, they put a stop to it pretty much immediately, told the kids about how SERIOUS it is and involved both sets of parents. Something like that can get so out of hand so quickly it's scary.
ReplyDeleteThis is something that is being talked about in popular media as well that reaches out to teens. A couple weeks ago, an episode of Glee, touched on the idea that two high schoolers making a sex tape would be considered child pornography - the characters on the show had no idea when they were planning it! I think it's important to make kids aware of the consequences of something like this... I'm sure at the time the students didn't realize what they were doing had such dire consequences (not that that is an excuse in any way).