Ever look around in today's world? In mean, seriously, have you watched the news lately? This is the way the world works and learning this is also a valuable lesson. Ignoring it isn't going to make this problem go away. Yes, when you allow bullying to go on, you're ignoring the problem. I'm advocating that we deal with the problem head-on, at the kindergarten level, before it becomes ingrained. One way to make the world a better place is to make a conscious effort to teach children how to deal civilly with their interpersonal conflicts. Some kids are able to figure this out by themselves, but there are a few in every classroom that need help.
Look at any business environment where people are even remotely ambitious. Think there's going to be back-stabing going on? Think there's going to be people who don't care either way? And that's where most of the world works. Hell this is even true to some extent in academic circles. And see how productive these poisonous, backstabbing environments are! I used to work with a guy who kept trying to copy and take credit for my work, because he was underqualified for the job and was scared. Everybody used to laugh at him on the side because he was such a useless and awkward guy... had all sorts of mean and childish nicknames for him. We could have continued the situation where our boss would have gotten half the work out of us because my coworker was always trying to make himself look good at the expense of productivity. Instead, I had a firm but friendly talk with my coworker, discussed how we should divide the work, promised to help him a little, and didn't laugh at him. After that, though things weren't perfect (he still had issues with other coworkers), they were a lot better between us at least... and we spent a lot less energy on conflict and competition, and more energy on actually getting experiments to work.
It sounds to me like you're making the old argument that teaching kids how to behave is creating a too-sheltered environment.
I'm sure that kids will have plenty of opportunity to learn how to deal with teasing, bullying, backstabbing, and abuse in "real life" even if they have positive, inclusive experiences in school. However this doesn't mean that we shouldn't do our best to prevent these things where we can. Everybody also has to learn how to be civil in adult life as well. Also I don't want unnecessary social lessons interfering with academic learning and performance.
And, "you can't say you can't play" teaches would-be bullies valuable lessons in being kind to others. I think it's best to teach kids from a young age how to cope with feelings of dislike for others, feelings of insecurity, etc. It's a somewhat complicated concept, and the book deals with a lot of the issues that come up-- how can you have a special best friend if you have to let everybody play? Why should you let somebody play with you if they don't own a My Little Pony, or if they aren't very imaginative, or if they are mean? All these issues are discussed, and many seem solvable.
I may have learned a lesson through my bullying experience, but I did know some children who were ostracized from age 6 to age 18. They never learned to deal with it, their peers (myself included) never learned to help them or stop bullying them, and what was the use of that?
I am not scarred from the brief experience, but reading the posts of many slashdotters I see how bullying can often be abuse.
I skipped through most of the storytelling segments but the underlying message and treatment sound good to me. The author proposes that children be taught from kindergarten up that they can't exclude playmates from games while at school. Sort of an extension of the "don't bring cake unless you have enough for everyone" rule. She finds that if children are not allowed to form cliques, you don't get kids being pushed to the bottom of the pecking order by 2nd grade and staying there for the next decade. I remember how some kids in my school were untouchables at the age of 6-- now it breaks my heart to think of it.
As a parent of a preschooler, the bullying issue concerns me. My son's a pretty sturdy little guy, and we'll teach him to not mind rough teasing, but I refuse to let him bully or be bullied. I'd rather see him suspended than not hit back if he's physically hit. I want him to recognize when another kid is not comfortable with teasing. I'll expect him to step in and defend the powerless, and include them in his games. And, I'll make sure he knows my expectations.
Though I was generally able to take care of myself, I was bullied in middle school, during a vulnerable time after coming back from a semester in another country. Actually it occurred because a teacher, who clearly disliked me but in the absence of nothing else to criticize, picked on me for not speaking loudly enough from my seat in the back of the room. After she singled me out, the classroom bullies realized that I was fair game. Because I'm a polite person, I refrained from answering back for months, but finally I made some comments that questioned their motives and underlined how pathetic they were being... Then somehow many of my classmates, who must have felt uncomfortable throughout the bullying, came out on my side and it stopped. But I have never forgotten the feeling of dread and helplessness, to be surrounded by hostile enemies and indifferent bystanders.
Good luck to all of you who were scarred by this unacceptable behavior... know that many more people may understand your experience than you think.
What have you accomplished by blocking accidental exposure? Another reason to block accidental exposure is that maybe it would cut down on the number of people getting "hooked" on child porn. Especially, if there's a way to prevent children and teens from accidentally seeing child porn while they are at the developmental stage where fetishes are formed and sexual tastes are most susceptible to influence, that is a good thing.
... but not in my house! I refuse to be the lax parent who lowers the standard for the other families.
At 16, my brother-in-law used to walk out on his parents and stay out all night, 2 nights, or 3 nights at his girlfriend's house... her father liked to be the hip dad who could talk to the young. Without this haven, BIL would have gone off in a huff, hung out with his friends until they got sick of him, then slunk back home by nightfall. This all eventually led to some unhappy nights in jail and years of probation for my BIL on drug charges, not to mention the rehab. Granted my in-laws made some big mistakes raising him, but when they were trying to fix their mistakes, it was all the harder because he had found an adult enabler.
No, I can't monitor 24x7 but my son (right now too young to worry about more than peer pressure to watch Thomas the Train)will have to know that there is a fair possibility of a random check, whether at home or elsewhere. For this to work out, I'll have to be in agreement with the parents of his friends, which means I'll have to take time to know and meet these people. Hopefully I can teach my son to avoid stepping into danger on purpose, but he's always pushing the envelope now and I don't see that changing when he grows older. Even an alert kid can make mistakes out of sheer inexperience especially if s/he falls into bad company. At least the chance of being busted may tip the scales towards virtue, maybe giving my kids an excuse to avoid dangerous things they don't really want to do anyway-- "Forget it, you know I can't, the old lady will find out and she'll tear me a new one."
I see IM monitoring as one more tool that parents have at their disposal to keep watch over their children. Just as I intend to retain the right to enter my kids' rooms at almost any time while they are living under the same roof as me, my children will also have to endure the possibility that we may overhear their phone conversations by chance, will meet all their friends and friends' families, and will sometimes monitor their email, IM, or other communications. If they belong to a network we'll join it too. This will be done quietly but openly, but less frequently as the kids become more streetwise and show themselves worthy of trust.
When my son climbs on the jungle gym I don't have to follow him around anymore and guide his every step-- but I'm sitting there on the bench, ready to warn him or catch him, if he's trying something way beyond his current skill. He expects it, and it's my duty... and the only things that will change over time are the size of the jungle gym and the distance of the bench.
The fact is, this "service" is not a service to students
It's a service to the students who do NOT cheat. If you struggle for hours to research and write your own paper, yet get a worse grade than someone else who bought theirs, you may suffer instead of benefiting from your honesty. Even if you learned more than the cheating student, you may be denied admission to schools, scholarships, or even jobs which are given to the cheaters on the basis of their higher GPAs... an outcome which is bad for education and society in general.
I don't want to about how only truly clever and effective people are smart enough to cheat when homework assignments are BS anyway, okay? While a minute knowledge of James Joyce probably won't help a student design a better engine, the ability to research a problem, to synthesize information, explain a thesis, meet a deadline, and distribute credit fairly are valuable skills that are needed everywhere. These are skills that are not learned or rewarded when students plagiarize.
"Debit card theft can be far more severe than credit card theft for consumers. For starters, different consumer protections apply. Account holders are liable for only up to $50 of credit card fraud -- but consumers can be liable for the entire balance of their bank account after debit card fraud, according to federal banking regulations. Many banks voluntarily extend credit card-style protection to debit cards, but they are not required to do so.
Moreover, debit/check/ATM card fraud means money is instantly missing from the consumer's account. That can lead to bounced checks and other hassles. In credit card fraud, consumers generally never lose the money and simply don't pay the bill for the fraud."
I've always refused to use debit cards ever since a friend of mine lost her debit card and somebody withdrew her checking account. In the end she was liable for only $50, but she didn't have access to her money for a month until it was sorted out with her bank.
This reminds me of the not-incorrect observation by a certain Harvard dean that women, in general, tend to be better in areas not related to math and science. Regardless of the merit of such a claim, the current political climate is such that any observation other than the obvious is regarded as demeaning. Even obvious differences are often taboo. It would be fine to observe, for example, that asians tend to excell at math and science, but mentioning that they're generally shorter than their european counterparts would be considered insulting by some, regardless of the fact that being smaller has many advantages for survival.
Ahem. Summers wasn't trashed because he merely observed that men and women aren't found in the same proportions at the top of math and science related fields. He was trashed because he spent a large and rather incoherent segment of his talk trying to say that innate, genetically determined ability was the CAUSE of a fair amount of this observation. And he based his argument on some bathroom reading, the heavy use of the term "standard deviation" (as if it gave his opinion statistical weight), and anecdotes with his twin toddler daughters who liked to play house with their toy trucks. Nobody would have cared about his sloppy thinking if he weren't the President of Harvard and therefore in the position to affect the future careers of many young woman scientists.
Getting back to the original article, I am skeptical because the genome is huge and if you look hard enough you'll find coincidences. Of course I haven't read Pritchard's primary study so maybe they allowed for that.
At your service,
A short, asian, woman who is good at math and science (and staying at home to take care of a toddler)
Slashdot Mirror
It sounds to me like you're making the old argument that teaching kids how to behave is creating a too-sheltered environment.
I'm sure that kids will have plenty of opportunity to learn how to deal with teasing, bullying, backstabbing, and abuse in "real life" even if they have positive, inclusive experiences in school. However this doesn't mean that we shouldn't do our best to prevent these things where we can. Everybody also has to learn how to be civil in adult life as well. Also I don't want unnecessary social lessons interfering with academic learning and performance.
And, "you can't say you can't play" teaches would-be bullies valuable lessons in being kind to others. I think it's best to teach kids from a young age how to cope with feelings of dislike for others, feelings of insecurity, etc. It's a somewhat complicated concept, and the book deals with a lot of the issues that come up-- how can you have a special best friend if you have to let everybody play? Why should you let somebody play with you if they don't own a My Little Pony, or if they aren't very imaginative, or if they are mean? All these issues are discussed, and many seem solvable.
I may have learned a lesson through my bullying experience, but I did know some children who were ostracized from age 6 to age 18. They never learned to deal with it, their peers (myself included) never learned to help them or stop bullying them, and what was the use of that?
I am not scarred from the brief experience, but reading the posts of many slashdotters I see how bullying can often be abuse.
http://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Say-Play/dp/0674965 906
I skipped through most of the storytelling segments but the underlying message and treatment sound good to me. The author proposes that children be taught from kindergarten up that they can't exclude playmates from games while at school. Sort of an extension of the "don't bring cake unless you have enough for everyone" rule. She finds that if children are not allowed to form cliques, you don't get kids being pushed to the bottom of the pecking order by 2nd grade and staying there for the next decade. I remember how some kids in my school were untouchables at the age of 6-- now it breaks my heart to think of it.
As a parent of a preschooler, the bullying issue concerns me. My son's a pretty sturdy little guy, and we'll teach him to not mind rough teasing, but I refuse to let him bully or be bullied. I'd rather see him suspended than not hit back if he's physically hit. I want him to recognize when another kid is not comfortable with teasing. I'll expect him to step in and defend the powerless, and include them in his games. And, I'll make sure he knows my expectations.
Though I was generally able to take care of myself, I was bullied in middle school, during a vulnerable time after coming back from a semester in another country. Actually it occurred because a teacher, who clearly disliked me but in the absence of nothing else to criticize, picked on me for not speaking loudly enough from my seat in the back of the room. After she singled me out, the classroom bullies realized that I was fair game. Because I'm a polite person, I refrained from answering back for months, but finally I made some comments that questioned their motives and underlined how pathetic they were being... Then somehow many of my classmates, who must have felt uncomfortable throughout the bullying, came out on my side and it stopped. But I have never forgotten the feeling of dread and helplessness, to be surrounded by hostile enemies and indifferent bystanders.
Good luck to all of you who were scarred by this unacceptable behavior... know that many more people may understand your experience than you think.
... but not in my house! I refuse to be the lax parent who lowers the standard for the other families.
At 16, my brother-in-law used to walk out on his parents and stay out all night, 2 nights, or 3 nights at his girlfriend's house... her father liked to be the hip dad who could talk to the young. Without this haven, BIL would have gone off in a huff, hung out with his friends until they got sick of him, then slunk back home by nightfall. This all eventually led to some unhappy nights in jail and years of probation for my BIL on drug charges, not to mention the rehab. Granted my in-laws made some big mistakes raising him, but when they were trying to fix their mistakes, it was all the harder because he had found an adult enabler.
No, I can't monitor 24x7 but my son (right now too young to worry about more than peer pressure to watch Thomas the Train)will have to know that there is a fair possibility of a random check, whether at home or elsewhere. For this to work out, I'll have to be in agreement with the parents of his friends, which means I'll have to take time to know and meet these people. Hopefully I can teach my son to avoid stepping into danger on purpose, but he's always pushing the envelope now and I don't see that changing when he grows older. Even an alert kid can make mistakes out of sheer inexperience especially if s/he falls into bad company. At least the chance of being busted may tip the scales towards virtue, maybe giving my kids an excuse to avoid dangerous things they don't really want to do anyway-- "Forget it, you know I can't, the old lady will find out and she'll tear me a new one."
I see IM monitoring as one more tool that parents have at their disposal to keep watch over their children. Just as I intend to retain the right to enter my kids' rooms at almost any time while they are living under the same roof as me, my children will also have to endure the possibility that we may overhear their phone conversations by chance, will meet all their friends and friends' families, and will sometimes monitor their email, IM, or other communications. If they belong to a network we'll join it too. This will be done quietly but openly, but less frequently as the kids become more streetwise and show themselves worthy of trust.
When my son climbs on the jungle gym I don't have to follow him around anymore and guide his every step-- but I'm sitting there on the bench, ready to warn him or catch him, if he's trying something way beyond his current skill. He expects it, and it's my duty... and the only things that will change over time are the size of the jungle gym and the distance of the bench.
It's a service to the students who do NOT cheat. If you struggle for hours to research and write your own paper, yet get a worse grade than someone else who bought theirs, you may suffer instead of benefiting from your honesty. Even if you learned more than the cheating student, you may be denied admission to schools, scholarships, or even jobs which are given to the cheaters on the basis of their higher GPAs... an outcome which is bad for education and society in general.
I don't want to about how only truly clever and effective people are smart enough to cheat when homework assignments are BS anyway, okay? While a minute knowledge of James Joyce probably won't help a student design a better engine, the ability to research a problem, to synthesize information, explain a thesis, meet a deadline, and distribute credit fairly are valuable skills that are needed everywhere. These are skills that are not learned or rewarded when students plagiarize.
I've always refused to use debit cards ever since a friend of mine lost her debit card and somebody withdrew her checking account. In the end she was liable for only $50, but she didn't have access to her money for a month until it was sorted out with her bank.
You can read his talk here: http://www.president.harvard.edu/speeches/2005/nb
Getting back to the original article, I am skeptical because the genome is huge and if you look hard enough you'll find coincidences. Of course I haven't read Pritchard's primary study so maybe they allowed for that.
At your service,
A short, asian, woman who is good at math and science (and staying at home to take care of a toddler)