Sexting--sending sexually explicit text messages via mobile phone. Sometimes containing naked pictures.
People do this, they talk sex, seduction, and share their randy dreams. Sometimes it's called love talk. When adults do it, it's considered indiscreet. When teens under 18 do it, it's a crime.
Yes, grade school and high school kids sending/receiving naked pictures of themselves/their classmates are being arrested and charged with child pornography--the sexual predator charge. (Two recent examples--the first involves middle school students in Valparaiso, IN and the second features high schoolers in Plainfield, IL.)
What's going on here? Have we lost our minds? Hormonal teens are fascinated with sex, experimenting, eager to experience life (just like they have forever) and suddenly it's criminal.
How can this be? What's criminal about a naked body or body parts? Nothing in my mind. You want to send me a picture of yourself without clothes, go ahead. I'll be glad to take a look and I won't think badly of you. And it won't be pornography. And it's not pornography when a twelve-year-old does it either.
When two high school juniors are in the early (or late) stages of the mating ritual and share nude pictures with each other and text about the magical lure of their bodies, this is not a crime. It is not pornographic, it's normal.
No, you didn't do this when you were a kid. You didn't have the technology. Should kids do this? Not really. It's indiscreet and if the nude photo is shared around the school,it can cause problems.
But is the a criminal matter for the police and the courts?
Hell, no. It's a matter for parents who need to teach their children how to be sexually responsible, discreet and thoughtful. And how can it be a crime for a teenage Lothario to have a picture of his naked 15-year-old girl on his phone when the girl herself took the picture and sent to him? Once again, a naked body is not pornographic nor criminal.
So why are kids being charged? Because there is still a large group of Americans who are puritanical and are very uncomfortable with sex, any aspect of sex. But it's out of fashion to stand up and demand that sex go back to its Victorian underground. No, the NeoPuritans can't do that without looking foolish, even to themselves. So they've latched on to the concept of protecting children from predators and have used to engineer a whole set of new blue laws onto the books in the name of "saving our kids from harm."
But they've gone too far and the results are insane. We have customs inspectors searching for proof of crimes committed in other countries, beyond American jurisdiction. We have criminals who have served their time, held without bail, a clear violation of their rights. We also have teeny-boppers charged as pornographers and principals searching phones like members of the vice squad. What the hell has happened? Can't we just sit down and be reasonable about all this?
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Why Johnnie Can’t Read—It’s All Dollar Talk
Much talk in the US about school reform and reaching the unreachable, those children growing in poverty who attend segregated, minority schools. Arnie Duncan, recently profiled in the New Yorker, restructured underachieving schools in Chicago, believing that different teacher and a new set of peers learning in different buildings would help the poor performers do better. The Chicago Tribune’s op ed page recently featured a debate about vouchers. Conservatives around the country damn teacher unions for protecting incompetents and refusing to tie pay to student achievement. Charter school’s are also touted as an answer, providing an escape from the strangling bureaucracy and indifference of big city systems.
None of these approaches has succeeded in reaching the hard-core, chronically under-performing student population. Duncan’s approach has failed in Chicago where the school’s have been marginally improved, if at all. Vouchers and charter schools perform a little better but are selective in admissions. They avoid the worst of the worst. No wonder they look good.
Teachers have dug their heels in on performance pay because they know the real key to success is lowering class size. In public and private schools where students perform at high levels, the class size in grades K-12 is somewhere between 10 and 20. In urban public schools, the class size is often 30+.
That means those kids who need the most attention and bring the least amount of middle-class acculturation to learning get the least individual attention. Studies have shown that even the most remediated children learn quickly once they have established a positive, personal relationship with their teacher, something few can do in a mob of 30+.
So why don’t school systems decrease class size? Because adding more teachers will cost a lot of money. If you have 3000 remediated students in a school system being taught in 30+-to-1 classrooms, you have about 100 teachers on the payroll. Put those kids in 15-to-1 classrooms and you have 200 teachers and salary expenses have doubled.
So school systems continue to short change the remediated, poor students, put them and their teachers in a box where they can’t succeed and then blame the students and teachers who are being manipulated for the failures of the administrations. Neat, convenient and completely ridiculous.
None of these approaches has succeeded in reaching the hard-core, chronically under-performing student population. Duncan’s approach has failed in Chicago where the school’s have been marginally improved, if at all. Vouchers and charter schools perform a little better but are selective in admissions. They avoid the worst of the worst. No wonder they look good.
Teachers have dug their heels in on performance pay because they know the real key to success is lowering class size. In public and private schools where students perform at high levels, the class size in grades K-12 is somewhere between 10 and 20. In urban public schools, the class size is often 30+.
That means those kids who need the most attention and bring the least amount of middle-class acculturation to learning get the least individual attention. Studies have shown that even the most remediated children learn quickly once they have established a positive, personal relationship with their teacher, something few can do in a mob of 30+.
So why don’t school systems decrease class size? Because adding more teachers will cost a lot of money. If you have 3000 remediated students in a school system being taught in 30+-to-1 classrooms, you have about 100 teachers on the payroll. Put those kids in 15-to-1 classrooms and you have 200 teachers and salary expenses have doubled.
So school systems continue to short change the remediated, poor students, put them and their teachers in a box where they can’t succeed and then blame the students and teachers who are being manipulated for the failures of the administrations. Neat, convenient and completely ridiculous.
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Haitian Earthquake and the American Media
Three plus weeks after the earthquake and the only story the American media is telling concerns the “orphans.” No info about food distribution, the shelter situation, the clearing of rubble, the resumption of economic life or the functioning (or lack thereof) of the Haitian government. No, all we get is the maudlin focus on the “orphans” as the networks attempt to position themselves as in touch with “the most vulnerable victims of these horrendous events.”
That strikes me as bull. It’s nothing more than a sickeningly sentimental attempt to wring tears from the public eye, dollars from its wallet and ratings points from a tragedy while failing in its responsibility to tell the full story. The reporting is unbalanced and not really informative except in the most banal, superficial manner.
The missionary kidnappers from Utah who may be charged with human trafficking for trying to remove some thirty kids from Haiti without papers have been amusing as they wandered into the maw of this insatiable news beast which is hungry for “feel good” stories. What was initially reported as a “saving the children” story, the story of altruistic Americans rescuing orphans from chaos and starvation, has become instead a story of smug American arrogance.
It turns out that less than half of the children stopped at the Dominican Republic border were orphans, the others had parents who signed custody over to the missionaries. These missionaries were nonetheless convinced they were bringing the children to a “better life” in America’s material plenty rather than with their parents. That’s a mind-boggling assumption. So is their assumption that their good intentions to “help the children” excused them from observing the laws of Haiti.
Shouldn’t the focus be helping people in need, reuniting families and assisting Haiti in becoming a better place to live rather than ripping off other people’s children. I don’t think this is what Christ had in mind when he said, “Suffer me the little children.”
That strikes me as bull. It’s nothing more than a sickeningly sentimental attempt to wring tears from the public eye, dollars from its wallet and ratings points from a tragedy while failing in its responsibility to tell the full story. The reporting is unbalanced and not really informative except in the most banal, superficial manner.
The missionary kidnappers from Utah who may be charged with human trafficking for trying to remove some thirty kids from Haiti without papers have been amusing as they wandered into the maw of this insatiable news beast which is hungry for “feel good” stories. What was initially reported as a “saving the children” story, the story of altruistic Americans rescuing orphans from chaos and starvation, has become instead a story of smug American arrogance.
It turns out that less than half of the children stopped at the Dominican Republic border were orphans, the others had parents who signed custody over to the missionaries. These missionaries were nonetheless convinced they were bringing the children to a “better life” in America’s material plenty rather than with their parents. That’s a mind-boggling assumption. So is their assumption that their good intentions to “help the children” excused them from observing the laws of Haiti.
Shouldn’t the focus be helping people in need, reuniting families and assisting Haiti in becoming a better place to live rather than ripping off other people’s children. I don’t think this is what Christ had in mind when he said, “Suffer me the little children.”
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