Overstepping our Boundaries?
March 12, 2008 by bicej
This article details students use of MySpace which caused them to be suspended from athletics. The tag line for this article is “Blood, Chains, leather and a 17 year-old girls” (Newell). I’ll admit it sounds pretty promiscuous but do coaches and teachers have the right to suspend or censor their students use of their personal social networking site? Should we even allow coaches the freedom to act as yet another overbearing intrusive authority in these kids’ lives? The coach who headed this crusade against the 17 year old girl said this:
“What she found on one of them [her students personal sites] made her realize she needed to do something. ‘There was a lot of Vampire-Y stuff’; ‘It was getting hard-core. It was inappropriate for a 17 year old” (Newell).
After I read this I had only one question. Who gives this coach the right to decide what is appropriate for a 17 year old girl, who is not her own daughter, to do on her free time? From a critical pedagogy stand point wouldn’t it have been more constructive for the coach to ask why this girl was acting like this? What lead her to embody such a dark persona? The coach’s language passes judgment on this girl almost immediately: “lots of Vampire-Y stuff”; this language this is used to essentially point a finger at the girl and say “sorry you’re not like everyone else and because of that you’re wrong.” The coach went on to force the student to change her personal page in order to stay apart of the team. The article did go on to elaborate on problems that other coaches had including their students and alcohol use. I will by no means defend this; these students acted inappropriately and were punished accordingly. I know from personal experience how much influence a coach has on their student-athletes and it pains me to hear of a coach forcing a student to change a personal web page, that wasn’t illegal in anyway, because I wonder what lesson the student took from it. Did she think hey: “maybe what I posted was a little out there?” or was it more along the lines of “being creative and expressing myself only leads me to catch flack from my coaches and teachers.” If teachers, coaches, and schools keep limiting student’s creativity we might just end up with a large group of very bland individuals.
MySpace Pages Pose Headache for Coaches
By The Indianapolis Star (Matt Newell)
February 7, 2008
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[...] bicej wrote a fantastic post today on “Overstepping our Boundaries?”Here’s ONLY a quick extractThe article did go on to elaborate on problems that other coaches had including their students and alcohol use. I will by no means defend this; these students acted inappropriately and were punished accordingly. … [...]
I agree 100 percent with you on this matter. What position does a coach have to determine what is or is not appropriate for a 17 year-old to have on their Myspace? I would be interested in seeing what else was on the student’s page because if “Vampire-y stuff” is all that the school found that they did not like then they have no right to bother the student. If it was suicidal writings or chats about performing a school shooting then I would understand the coaches concern and sympathize with the whole ordeal. But individuality is no call to discipline a student.
Having an individual personality and different interests is what high school is about. Students are trying to figure out who they are, what they like, and what they want to become. How are students supposed to explore different aspects of the world if teachers and coaches won’t allow them the right to express themselves.
I can’t help but wonder if there was more on the young lady’s page than just the “Vampire-y stuff” because I have a hard time believing that a school would really act solely based on images of vampires and other similar things.
I understand that teachers and coaches want to prevent school violence, student suicides, and underage drinking but at some point we have to ask if we are slowly taking away every bit of the students’ individualities.
One question came into my head right away. What in the world are these coaches doing, surfing the internet for their students myspace? The very idea of a coach determining what is approprate for a teenager WHO ISN’T HER DAUGHTER is absurd, and bordering on immoral. The parents of this student should have been up in arms, calling for the coaches resignation. To my mind, everything about the coaches actions are completly unprofessional.
Wow, considering that I am keeping a blog on banned books and censorship, this is a very interesting post. I would like to address to points here, the first concerns internet behavior. While everyone is free to write or post whatever they feel. I am certainly not suggesting censorship in this manner. I think my position however, after keeping my blog and learning a thing or too, has evolved. I believe in a certain responsibility. As teachers we, more than most, should know about responsible cyber statements. Even the pictures that we post to a site are fair game for anyone. To steal something for Dr. Rozema, the internet is becoming exceedingly transparent. That is to say, anyone can find everything we put up. It is almost as if people can see our key strokes. Whatever we put up there, no matter what the intentions, or who it is meant for. Is fair game and can be tracked down. I think teacher’s have a responsibility to inform our kids of this. So, while this coach could have chosen another course of action, at the very least, I hope instilled into this girl the importance for caution. She may be in a position someday where she finds people far worse than just her coach seeing what she has put up. Improper posts can come back to bite you in far to many ways. This is something we must learn as educator’s ourselves, and also something that needs to be passed on to our students.
Finally, I agree with you about the coach’s actions. You stated, “Who gives this coach the right to decide what is appropriate for a 17 year old girl, who is not her own daughter, to do on her free time?”. This is a critical question regarding censorship. What gives anyone the right to ban anything? I do not think that people possess this right overtly. I do feel, as teachers, we have an obligation for dialogue. While I do not think that out right banning is in order, I do feel that age appropriate discussions should be taking place.
The more articles I read about censorship, the more fuzzy everything becomes. When I first started my blog, I was dead set against censorship. I believe I still am, but I do think we need continuous discussion. I don’t think we should turn a blind eye. Knowledge is the ultimate force to reverse ignorance. But we should not be ignorant about the affects some materials have on immature audiences. I feel that as long as we keep talking, and keep thinking, we will be alright. It is when the dialogue falls silent and absolutes are passed, it is then we are in real trouble.
Gah! That is crazy. Since when is vampire-y stuff inappropriate ever? Ok maybe for k-2 grades vampire movies might be a little much. But, if I remember correctly I was a vampire for Halloween in third grade. That part is beyond me.
I agree with you completely. Since when does someone who isn’t a parent or guardian allowed to decide what is appropriate for a single individual. Why is she allowed to control what goes on in this girl’s personal life. Now I know some will argue that if you put it on the internet it is no longer considered your personal life. But, even still, I find it pretty creepy that this coach is on girls myspaces looking at what they do in their time away from school.
The only way that I could see any action being done about someone’s myspace is if during school time it was being used. That is the only way it makes sense to me.