The Horace Mann Facebook Scandal

Apr 03, 2008 07:58

I've been thinking a lot about the Horace Mann Facebook Scandal. The NYMag article intro says the following:

When students created Facebook pages that viciously attacked a teacher, and when their wealthy parents on the school’s board defended them, Horace Mann was forced to confront a series of questions: Is a Facebook page private, like a diary ( Read more... )

fieldston, personal history

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la_directora April 3 2008, 13:51:55 UTC
I just read the article you linked to. Wow. I went to an exclusive, private school myself. And I can't imagine ANY of this kind of crap happening there. At least not back when I was there. Now? Maybe. And it's exactly this kind of thing - parents siding with their poor kids instead of acknowledging the need for discipline - that is leading to the entitled, self-important group of people that is running our country, with our current president serving as the poster boy for the movement.

I love the idea of ethics classes running through a child's entire education. That is awesome.

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nex0s April 3 2008, 13:55:38 UTC
Well, my school is run by the Ethical Culture Society :)

They have had a HUGE role in making me who I am today.

N.

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la_directora April 3 2008, 13:59:26 UTC
That's awesome! (Though I love the bit in the Wikipedia article about how the school was originally a free school to benefit lower income residents of the city, and is now has tuition of $30K for preschool. Ah, progress. :) )

If I ever had children, and could afford New York private schools, I would totally send my kids there.

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nex0s April 3 2008, 14:23:57 UTC
My big heartbreak is that I probably won't be able to send my kids there.

But we'll apply... and apply for financial aid too :)

N.

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rivka April 3 2008, 14:46:52 UTC
Parents who were contacted said things like, "The kids are stressed and say racist and sexist things sometimes" giving tacit approval to these attitudes.

Okay, in what freaking UNIVERSE am I, as a parent, supposed to be okay with my kid using racism and sexism as a stress-buster?

Stress is an excuse for not getting your homework done or losing your temper when challenged on an intellectual point or perhaps skipping school to go to the zoo. Stress is not an excuse for oppression.

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la_directora April 3 2008, 16:53:41 UTC
Word!!!!!!

I grew up in Fort Worth, TX. And was around for the whole Legion of Doom thing back in the mid-80's. You may have heard about it. It got huge write-ups in places like Rolling Stone. Vigilante group at a local high school who set pipe bombs in order to "control" what they saw as a drug-using, problem-causing population at the school, which mostly equated to the part of the school population that wasn't white. One of their most charming tricks was painting graffiti on the bike paths of the park behind my house that said, "Ethiopian n*****s must die." It scared the crap out of me ( ... )

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