Latest Fear Mongering Report: Parents! Pedophile Teachers Are Text Messaging Your Kids! Be Afraid!
from the fear-fear-fear-fear dept
Every few months someone has to put up some scary news article about something horrible that's putting our children at risk. Sometimes it's video games. Sometimes it's the internet. Sometimes it's social networks. CNN is the latest to join the pack with an article going a bit overboard on how mobile phones are providing a "secret path" for teachers to prey on your kids. It's based on some recent stories of teachers who had affairs with students, which they covered up via messages on their mobile phones. Is this happening that widely? Who knows? Are there any stats to show that this is a major problem? Stats? Who needs stats when we have a few scary anecdotes! Instead, you just tell the story, and then say, matter-of-factly: "Now, teachers have weeks, months and years to secretly undermine a child's parents and get a student to go along with sexual contact." Actually, that doesn't sound like it's mobile phones that are the problem, but teachers! I say we ban them all.Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
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Filed Under: fear mongering, mobile phones
Companies: cnn
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Now 14 year old girls? Throw the male teacher in jail.
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Teaching a male hes doing great having sex (in particular with someone whos supposed to be an authority figure) and the female that what she did was wrong is gross on so many levels.
The teachers shouldn't be going for your pants, regardless of your gender.
And this text messaging thing is stupid. If it weren't phones it'd be paper messages or after class meetings where the inappropriate interaction would be occur.
The problem is the teachers, not the phones.
Maybe we should ban schools while we're at it, so that pedophiles can't try to live by them. :
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I watched CNN yesterday for about 8 hrs while i played video games as an experiment.
All i heard for 8 straight hours was how great Hillary Clinton is followed by golden globe coverage with Larry King. What a facade of a news organization.
They are pretty much one infomercial/political agenda after another.
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Then we have a problem (not that there is anything wrong with that.)
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Double standard..
What difference is there that makes 14 year old boys completely independent and not in need of protection, but 14 year old girls are completely dependent and need protection?
Neither gender is intellectually/emotionally mature at 14, and while more 14 year old boys would be capable of harming a teacher that was being physically abusive than 14 year old girls.. the more common harm is not from physical abuse.
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Re: Double standard..
Still...How I would have longed to have been "groomed" by my junior high school spanish teacher.
The double standard is actually an internal conflict for males.
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Re: Re: Double standard..
Even if you don't believe that, what about the abuse of power? I personally believe that individuals in positions of power, such as teachers, professors, psychiatrists, have strong ethical (and sometimes legal) responsibilities to maintain their distance. Too often we romanticize these relationships (as many are regarding 14 yr old boys on this board) when we should instead be outraged.
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Re: Double standard..
Any teacher having a relationship with any student, be it elementary school or college, is inappropriate. It's the same standard in the military where a superior officer can not be in a relationship with a subordinate.
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HA!
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Fear mongering
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Circles
The point is, PARENTS NEED TO BE PARENTS! They will start banning txting and technology in school, but children will still be hurt. Just be a little more involved in your child's life. Let them know when they are little (3 and 4) that sometimes adults are scary and what to look out for. There are plenty of fun videos on personal safety (my 4 year old niece loves this one: http://www.mypreciouskid.com/stranger-danger.html). I think adults are too afraid to bring hard issues to the attention of a young child, but you can do it in a way that they know what is right and wrong without knowing the specifics. Talk to you kids young! If you wait until they go to school, your too late.
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I couldn't believe this story either
It's all based on a 14/15 year old boy who recieved naked photos of his teacher. (female gym teacher i think) I couldn't believe the news article headline was actually being thrown online. I didn't bother to read it I already knew it was tripe.
Overall the article was using fear to sell a few more online ad clicks. It is a waste of the readers time to have this reported on and I don't see the point. Everyone knows that if a person gives out their number to the wrong people bad things can happen. The real problem is that a teacher wanted to have this type of relationship not how she communicated with the teen. Obviously if someone is looking to have a relationship they will do what they can to have a dialogue. Just so happens that cell-phones are huge with everyone now adays.
It also removes the parent/kid barrier, but that isn't a reason to fear cell phones it's a reason to A) teach your children of right and wrong, responsibility etc, or B) if they teen is the one initiating the relationship to know when they can't share things with the world and when to delete things and not show them around.
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Re: I couldn't believe this story either
Ain't that the truth, they haven't done a story about Brittney Spears in what almost 48hrs...sheesh and they call themselves a news network
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My female gym teacher.
However I really don't think I would have been all that broken up about getting naked pictures of my English teacher back then.
Double standard or not, men are driven to procreate at a very young age. Women tend to be more nurturing so it's not really a double standard to say that a 14 year old boy will be less effected mentally, having sex with an older women than a 14 year old girl having sex with an older male.
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Re: My female gym teacher.
As the guy with the double standard further up proves in his statements, our society rewards men for being more sexually active and discourages it among females.
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Re: Re: My female gym teacher.
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Exactly. In fact, it is better to allow cell phone usage, because then there is evidence recorded of the inappropriate situation. To ban cell phones for this would be like banning paper and pens thirty or fifty years ago if a teacher wrote a romantic note to a student.
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All men are perverts? If all men are something, then its not perverted, it is just the way men are. That was my original point. Always has been, always will be.
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That's what makes it perverted. Men can get away with being sexually comfortable, but woman are labeled with all sorts of negative stereotypes. Some of those stereotypes can damage a young woman for life. Therefore, what's bad for one should be bad for the other. What's good for one should be good for the other. Equality.
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http://www.lisareneeward.com/wordpress/?p=103&referer=sphere_related_content
she took away her kids texting ability citing this story as one of the reasons.
Lets thank this woman for being one of the sheep that the news networks targets with these idiotic stories. I hope her womb goes barren.
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TheDock22 / Equality
Huh??
Equality is a totally artifical concept and has no basis in nature.
You would think me a loon if I insisted (like in Monty Python's "Life of Brian" ) that I be called "Loretta" and started demanding my "equality" to have a baby. Nevermind that whole not having a womb thing.
Men and Women are different. And I thank the Universe everyday I am reminded of that fact. If you're not happy with the way society treats women, you might try developing some strength of character and dropping the "Victim Mentality" and try serving the result up as a roll model for other women.
Hey, did I just ask you to "Man Up"?
See how easy it is to fall into the "You Should Be More Like Me/Us" trap??
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Re: TheDock22 / Equality
Because women don't care if other women are "easy" or "sluts". Men applied those stereotypes. But, no adult woman comfortable with herself cares what a man thinks anyway. I am concerned about young teenage women and the attitude that it is okay for boys to have sex, but not girls encourages the younger women to think sex is wrong. And it not wrong, it is natural just maybe not with and older person if you are too young.
But if we want to make young woman feel that sex is okay, just not with their teachers, than we must also teach our boys the same thing.
And there is no victim mentality, I am willing to step up and say treat me as an equal. Men get so mad if they sleep around and you call them a man-whore. If we can take the stereotypes, so can you guys.
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And personally, I don't think bad of sluts, unless of course they are fat or ugly. This world needs more hot sluts.
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LoL, that's awesome.
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More of Mike's BS
The basis of the article is not saying that cell phones are evil, but that due to technology today it is harder to tell if a teacher is having a perverted relationship with their students because they do not have to show any outward or physical signs of interest.
Before all this technology the only way for a teacher to seduce a student was the old fashioned way, a lot of in-person contact. When you see a student and a teacher hanging out ALL the time then you are bound to suspect that something is up. Even with traditional voice calling it may be obvious for someone to overhear a portion of it and realize who the person is talking to.
Now with email, chat rooms, instant messengers and text messengers there is much more privacy in the way communication is conducted and unfortunately this means that people can take advantage of this and do bad sneaky things.
But go ahead Mike, don't let facts and truth get in the way of your sensationalist garbage
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Re: More of Mike's BS
If the linked to article was properly summarized and worded, it would not be an issue, but, because of that one paragraph, the article leads the reader down the "evil cell phone" path. This is a text book example of "the pen is mightier than the sword."
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Honestly, it'd be really nice if someone just kept a running tally on these sort of stories.
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