I recently had a phone conversation with my daughter's high school principal and it's a good thing it was a phone conversation. I don't think he would have appreciated the face I made when he tried to talk about Twitter with me.
You see, my 16 year old daughter received an inappropriate request anonymously through Twitter. She immediately told me and, while discussing how to handle the situation, she asked if she could report it to her favourite teacher. This teacher then reported it to the administrative staff, the police were called in and action was taken very quickly. I am grateful for the serious expediency.
However, a week later, when I made a follow up phone call to the school, the principal was trying to explain the activity that had occurred on this Twitter page in the subsequent week and he stumbled in his explanation. He then apologized for his ignorance claiming that he did not know much about Twitter. I practically choked on my words of condemnation. He seemed almost proud to admit his lack of social media knowledge.
I don't believe this is anything to be proud of. A high school teacher should be knowledgeable in all forms of social media that his students are using. Social media is how his students communicate, connect, announce new relationships, advertise important events, entertain and are entertained, bully and stalk.
Educators have been trying to catch students in the act of 'passing notes' since pencil and paper replaced chalk and slate. Here is a digital note being passed for a global audience to read and this administrator chooses to ignore it because it is written using a device instead of lead?
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