Category Archives: Civil Discourse

Now More Than Ever

21st Century Skills, blogging, Civil Discourse,

It has taken me nearly two weeks to muster the energy to write this post.  You see, I’m a Unitarian Universalist, and on Sunday, July 27, a gunman walked into the packed Knoxville church and opened fire.  Two died and seven others were wounded.  A letter found in his truck indicated that he harbored hatred for liberals and gays who he perceived as preventing him for getting a job.  Subsequent reports revealed a deeply troubled man who planned to keep shooting until the police came and killed him.  It would be easy to write him off as another crazy person who had somehow gotten his hands on a gun.  And, even as I mourn for the Knoxville church, I know this isn’t the worst mass shooting nor is it the last.  But this one hit pretty close to home for me and not just because it was directed towards people of my faith.  Another reason is because it also reminds us that promoting civil discourse is one of the most important things we can do as we send our students out into both the real and virtual worlds.

That was the theme of an article I wrote–“Don’t Feed the Trolls: Using Blogs to Teach Civil Discourse“–for Learning & Leading With Technology that appeared in the May 2008.  I’m in the process of getting permission to put the article on my website so for now you need to be an ISTE member to read it.  Why is this important to this story?  Because I, at least, had my head in the sand when it came to the rhetoric of hate that has been directed towards liberals.  Evidently, joking about killing liberals and issuing liberal hunting licenses is fair game for cable news commentators, radio entertainers, and conservative bloggers.  I wrote about this in my personal blog:

Really?  Someone, anyone, finds it funny to talk about killing people like me because of my political views.  I might find Russ Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly offensive but I would never wish their death.

And I found myself wondering how we got here…where hateful rhetoric like this is not only accepted but seemingly encouraged.  While I wouldn’t want to blame people like Sean Hannity for what happened last Sunday, his ongoing war against liberals certainly didn’t help.  For someone who is mentally unbalanced, these relenting attacks become an underlying soundtrack to a tragic life and offer up an easy target.  Tom Friedman says that while he was sleeping, the world got flat.  While I was sleeping, the world got ugly.

We can DO something about this, folks.  We can talk to kids about how words–whether spoken or written–really matter.  I’m sure there are liberals out there who are also guilty of negative rhetoric although my own bias might make it more difficult for me to really hear them.  As you head into the school year and start getting your kids on the web, please take the time to include civil discourse in your conversations with them.

Students Call Officials’ Homes When School Isn’t Called Off For Snow – News- msnbc.com

21st Century Skills, Civil Discourse, Media, Media Literacy

Students Call Officials’ Homes When School Isn’t Called Off For Snow – News- msnbc.com

So, the MSNBC story and it gives some better detail.  The most important piece, probably, that wasn’t covered in the AP story was that this wasn’t the first phone call:

But recently, this role has resulted in dozens of phone calls to his home, many from students and some in the middle of the night. Other students have sent profane e-mails to the administration.

So, now we get a better view of the situation at least from the administrator’s wife.  Interesting media literacy lessons, here.  Check different stories.  Wait for a day before drawing too many conclusions.

Think Twice

21st Century Skills, adult learning, Civil Discourse, Media Literacy, New Media, Paradigm Shifts, technology, YouTube

From a colleague of mine as part of a discussion of protecting privacy:

Sorry, if you’re offended that I embedded it, but you need the effect before the story. Here’s the AP version. And, here’s Doug Feaver’s take on it at the Washington Post. Feaver reviews comments from readers on the story. He says, “I’m with the kid, but of course a recording of whatever message he left has not been made available so perhaps I would have a different view if it were.” That’s what I thought was interesting. The only person who can publish Kori’s message is the administrator’s wife. And, as long as we can’t hear Kori’s message, we really can’t judge for ourselves. Did she delete it? Or, is she just not adding fuel? Or was it a pretty reasonable message and she just overreacted? In the end, it probably doesn’t matter, but like, Feaver, I wonder in whose favor the pendulum of public opinion would swing if we heard the original phone message.

Here were two of my favorite back and forth comments about the incident:

readerny said, “I don’t agree with the tirade by the woman who answered the call, BUT as an employer of young adults, I can say that there are some (not all) who are overempowered and think that they know the whole story, or more than you do, and should be running the show themselves…”

But Nicester wrote, “Overempowered kid” and “self-centered youth” – OK, that’s one perspective. Sounds a bit like “whippersnapper” or whatever the Greatest Generation was calling the Baby Boomers when they were dropping acid and rolling in the mud at Woodstock…”

I just feel sorry for this woman, sacrificed on the altar of the digital generation gap. And, like the story about Heath Ledger and the blogs, it’s a story about the future of “news” in the 21st century. What if the kid hadn’t had access to the Internet? He might have sent the tape to the television news, but they have may have demanded to have his recording. He gets to bypass all those gatekeepers and tell his side of the story in a way that kids have never been able to do.

In the end, I find her tirade to be funny rather than offensive. “Snot-nosed brats” was the worst of it. It is more important as a reminder that digital recording and distribution is almost transparent, and perhaps will finally lead to people living by the old adage, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.” We have left behind the era of deniability.

I’m tagging this one 21st century skills because I wonder how this fits in? I’m also going to tag it adult learning 😉

Evidently, He’s Never Heard of Godwin’s Law

Civil Discourse, thinking out loud

Just got my afternoon update from the Chronicle of Higher Education. It referenced this article from The Birmingham News.  A fight has been going on over two-year colleges.  Joe Reed, the number 2 man at the Alabama Education Association, wrote a scathing letter to the chancellor of the two-year college system in which he compares him to Adolph Hitler.  I guess Reed has never heard of Godwin’s Law.  While this law usually refers to online discussion forums, I believe it applies in this case.  It says, “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”  In addition, according to Wikipedia, “There is a tradition in many newsgroups and other Internet discussion forums that once such a comparison is made, the thread is finished and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically “lost” whatever debate was in progress.”  Guess Reed loses…