"but I know if I had been challenged, I would have lost." These are the words of Principle Donn Harris in the article “Minding MySpace: Balancing the Benefits and Risks of Students’ Online Social networks” when discussing the risk he took when suspending a student at his school for posting negative opinions of other students at the school. This article bring to light a huge question: Is it the schools job to police the activity of students online or not when they are not in school? After reading the story of yet another cyber-bullying case I can certainly empathize with Mr. Harris, but was it really his place to punish the student? In my opinion, NO!
Maybe it’s just me, but I come from the though process that parents should be given an opportunity to parent. This means that when out of school the school administrators butt out. Now certainly if the posting was made at school then they have every right to suspend students, but when an online posting is made after school hours then let the parent’s parent. In my mind the way cyber bullying should be handled is in this order: a teacher/administrator finds an improper posting or another student lets the teacher/administrator know of an incident that took place after school hours, the teacher/administrator now armed with this knowledge calls the parent and gives them the information and the parent in response deals with the child in a way that their family values seem fit. This is the end. Now let’s say the bullying continues. Now you take it to the next level, file a criminal complaint for slander or any other number of defamation laws. The point that I am trying to make is that free speech exists to let us voice our opinions, and the law exists to punish those whom push free speech to the extent of verbal assault. If we don’t respect these barriers then we have teachers that are basically parenting our children with their values instead of the child’s parents.
Works Cited
Brydolf, C. (2007). Minding MySpace: Balancing the Benefits and Risks of Students' Online Social Networks. Education Digest , 73, issue 2, 4-8.
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