I read this with a kind of laugh…though that is inappropriate I suppose.

I’m a 1st grade teacher in an Underperforming School in Oxnard. Sometimes I think my learning comes in real fits…I have teens I gave laptops to, my two girls, and noticed they were on them a lot. Or all the time. Then I began reading my daughter (foureyedsnail.blogspot.com) or the adults allowed version with great joy at her insightful writing. Then I opened a MYSpace patethic thing to see what it was and snoop on her. Of course she knows about blocking, tracking visitors…slowly I see you really can’t snoop on her- it’s more like her snooping on mommy snooping on her. I remember in my day in a far different realm writing things in a diary just to give my mom a few shockers if she read it while keeping the real writing in a place she still hasn’t found….All in all Sylvia put a thing or two there about atheism and orientation to cause the gray hair on my head to begin to just fall out. Like mom , like daughter…Of course there too I found many thoughtful pieces….some I copied over to friends.With permission. So I searched a few of her friends but then lost interest. Too busy teaching. I went on the site three days ago which is why I’d ever comment here…and found my name in another child’s blog when I found a blog search feature. In it a student I taught years ago in some laundry list of questions(something the kids like to do) listed me as a favorite teacher. Child now living I don’t know how…a million miles away. I thought. Wow.
So I’m thinking this is rather interesting, and see a piece written by a student long in the past involving discipline from my husband in a school site. Again somewhat like this I read a very upset kid…. My husband on hearing this said, “I’m glad the kid can write.”

We tend to look for the silver lining.

I’d been thinking a good bit about these shared dialogs since then…diaries online and potentials for instant communication and emotional instant communication and public communication.(and myself narcissia) I’m not sure how exactly to broach this with my daughter…she seems more savvy and aware of blocking, watching and fending than I am. At 17 she seems to have in place the kinds of practices of our home. Try not to go in someone’s purse or drawers, be invited, try to state your thoughts free of personal attack, be thoughtful, care…what shocks me especially at my age I guess is not only that someone would post bad things…but that it would have audience. But I never got that World Westleor Power Ranger’s thing either so there is plenty I don’t get including this. MySpace seemed to me from my two month experiment to have a ridiculously seedy component and sexualized negativety where interaction is reduced to base animalism…just a component but of enough concern to me as a mom I did speak to my daughter about that and insisted on proof that wasn’t going to affect her,looked at LiveJournal and since I know here-her actions , it’s not an issue except to me from a predator stand point.And maybe a bit more…I do wonder if I can practice what I preach. But I can see that parents would have very valid concerns…it’s ridiculous that at 47 with some serious decline in self I’d find myself repeatedly invited by the MySpacesite to join a live web cam to be on Long Hot Legs….and yet…there it is. I can image a teenager with time on their hands trying to debate the moral implications on that and “do the right thing” being weighed with “doing this right now”. Ah….it’s hard stuff.
My school district in the last year has just taken a very technological place with potentials and locked it all up-no access to blogs of any kind, no access to most links, webpage only thru the clunkiest thing ever and frankly I suspect they don’t want employees anywhere near these things on their time after sensing liabilities involved as well as knowing a little freer speech when you are forcing teachers into a lock step scripted instructional model might not be very good thinking. I do note that the substitution is they bought workbooks in a can and mandated minutes to students…and as they do poorly more and more minutes are required. It would seem this is a parallel to NCLB take-over accountability conclusions…if they only would just do exactly as we say…and more of it.
How fascinating I found your post. Thanks, Sarah Puglisi

By the way, looking forward to seeing you in Wichita Falls on the 16th.