Do you know the story of Amanda Todd? The story has received a lot of publicity in Canada, but possibly people outside of our country don’t know much about it.
Amanda Todd was a teenage girl who was horribly bullied and abused and this fall, tragically took her own life. The incident set off a firestorm of controversy across our country and set many people to soul searching. Before she took her own life, Amanda posted a video to Youtube that was a cry for help.
If you haven’t seen it, please take the time to do it.
Knowing that Amanda took her life only a short time after this was posted makes it even more wrenching to watch.
But this story goes deeper. A few days ago, the Globe and Mail newspaper reported on an incident where a teacher in a classroom had shown this video to his students and now parents are calling for him to lose his job. The full story is here.
While any story has at least two sides and perspectives and it sounds like there are a number of parts to this story that aren’t being fully reported on, I was just as disturbed by the fact that
“Durham District School Board superintendent Anne Marie Laginski (has) said (that) memos have been sent to all schools in the district telling them not to show the video.”
I’m disturbed by a superintendent stepping in and banning a certain piece of content from classrooms. I’m disturbed by a school board that doesn’t seem to want their students to interact with content that has important implications for their lives. This was a national story that appeared in almost every media stream that Canadians had access to. Banning it from classrooms would simply force students to watch it from home where they may have been doing so on their own.
The internet and the information it gives us access to makes it more difficult to stick our heads in the sand and pretend that controversy doesn’t exist.
I’m interested to know what people think of stories like this one. Should we restrict controversial content from classrooms? (age appropriate of course) Does having access to the internet and information make it impossible to hide from situations like this?
The article reports that the school board superintendent said the video was “clearly not acceptable” but no reason is given. It is not clear at all to me why the video is not acceptable unless they believe that watching a video of a person who is dead is wrong. (This of course really limits the number of appropriate videos that can be shown.)
Does this school board promote banning other media such as books?
Hi Clarence,
I have personal enough connections to this which for the most part have kept me silent. I’d like to speak up here in a comment though, so forgive me if this seems more like a blog post than a comment.
First of all, the story is huge and goes well beyond Canada. If you go to http://www.google.com/zeitgeist/2012/#the-world You’ll see that for 2012 Amanda Todd is 8th in global Searchers and 3rd in People. It is indeed a story well worth talking about!
That said, I’d never show this video in a class. I don’t think I’m equipped to do so. You see, there are so many issues in the video. It isn’t just about bullying, it’s about stalking, it’s about emotional crisis, and it’s about suicide. A suicide that has brought global fame to a young girl whose family and friends would gladly give it all up for another chance to tell her that everything will be ‘ok’.
While I understand the family choice to make this tragic event into a lasting memory that pushes people to stop bullying and to have a lasting positive effect, I also know that rather unstable teens in many parts of the world are looking on and wondering if in death they may get the attention they never got in life. That scares me.
I wouldn’t play ‘this’ video in class. Because I don’t know if there are parallels in one of my student’s lives? I don’t know if it will upset a student who then hurts silently as a result. I don’t know if I have the counseling skills to detect how such a powerful video might affect the emotional state of the students in my class? I doubt most teachers would.
Here is a song and video dedicated to Amanda http://youtu.be/CM3-g-F9AhY It was sung live at her memorial. Here is my friend’s daughter singing at her memorial: http://www.vancouversun.com/life/Lights+twinkle+Port+Coquitlam+people+gather+honour+Amanda+Todd/7567970/story.html
And a news story: http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/TV+Shows/The+National/ID/2306521909/
There are ways to share the story and not share the video. How young is too young to show it? Do the counselors in the school know it is being shown? Is suicide an issue for one of the students in the class? In the school? Are there teaching resources?
The video shares a young girl’s very painful experience, from her own perspective… One students might connect with even more than we do… One that we have a hard time looking at objectively (in your words ‘wrenching to watch’), and students will find even harder to look at objectively. A teacher/counselor that I am friends with has mentioned how a significant number of students that she works with have spiraled into darker-than-normal places since Amanda’s death.
If we try to ban this video and stick our heads in the sand and pretend our students won’t see it, well then we would be ignorant and foolish. However, if we say to teachers, “Please don’t show ‘this’ video, it may be rather hard for some of our students to handle”, well I think that might actually be a good idea. To me this isn’t a banning issue, it is an issue of care and safety for some of our most vulnerable students. In telling Amanda’s story, I would want it to be told in a way that we ensure there are both positive cognitive and emotional messages that are shared. While I think her story is an important story to tell, I don’t think her video tells it in a way that makes it an ideal teaching tool, and in some instances, it might even be reckless.
David; first of all, thanks for stopping by and leaving your story here. It sounds as if you have a fairly close connection to this story so I thank you for this honesty and openness.
It sounds like you have a fairly close connection to this story, not simply emotionally as many of us do, but also based on your geography. While this story struck home everywhere, events like this (that many people who work in schools or with kids are tragically all too familiar with) that are close to us need to be treated with kid gloves.
While I write openly on my blog about my teaching and my classroom, I don’t write much about my school as a whole. That is on purpose to protect everyone around me and to respect their privacy. I don’t work in a perfect place. We have students who have problems and difficulties and darkness as well. Like almost everyone does. The decision was made in my school to watch this video with age appropriate classes while the teacher and the counsellor was in the room. It brought tears, anger over the incident, and some powerful discussions. Did it change anything? I’m not sure. Bullying hasn’t disappeared and students still find themselves in difficult places. But I still feel it was important to do.
This blog post is only partly about Amanda’s story. It’s also about the decisions of schools to ban uncomfortable content. As people who work with kids each day in a modern society, we know that they have access to this stuff, and much, much more that would make us squirm. We need to be aware of that and work within that context. We need to face reality head on. I would rather be there with and for a kid who encounters disturbing content than have them face it alone. At least I know, even if it makes me uncomfortable, that they have someone to discuss it with and try to make some sense of it with.
Thanks again for willing to be here in this space and share your important thoughts and perspectives.
I read many of the comments on the original story and one parent who’s child was in the class seemed to say it wasn’t so much the video as the way in which the teacher, who apparently wasn’t the classroom teacher, barged in and began an intense and graphic discussion with these students.
Given the delicate nature of this topic the age of the children I think it requires much more care and intention when discussing this video and the topic of suicide and bullying in general. Not that the video should be banned or the topic ignored but I get the idea that the parents were more concerned with how it was handled more so than anything.
I completely agree that a topic and content like this needs to be handled carefully. I also agree that the parents seem like they had other concerns. But, given that fact, why did the school board ban the content from all classrooms? Would a better way to deal with this not have been to put out talking points or a classroom viewing guide or something like that for classroom teachers, counsellors, etc?
Schools are by nature conservative institutions that a often reactive. We live in a different world now. A world where content and issues have lives of their own. Students live in a personal media cycle. It is time for us to figure out how to deal with difficult content and not simply ban it.
In the wake of the Newton shooting, I sit here responding to this post and comment stream.
Our distirict sent out an email Friday, asking teachers not to show film footage and news reports in classes. It also suggested the same for partents in their exposure to media that they will be viewing with their children.
Clarence, while I both fundamentally and philosophically agree with you about banning, I also think there are things we need to be very careful about presenting in classrooms. You said, “The decision was made in my school to watch this video with age appropriate classes while the teacher and the counsellor was in the room.” I’m not convinced that would happen in all schools or all classrooms. I agree with Dean about the care and attention needed to handle things like (school shootings, stalking), suicide and bullying.
Discuss the topics? Absolutely! Show graphic or what could be disturbing video footage? I’m not so sure? But we live in challenging times to lead an organization. Saying, here are some resources to combat bullying is far more easy and less liable than, “If you are going to share this video, then these tools can help”. I don’t buy the idea that since kids can see the video on their own, then we should show it as well as discuss it at school.
I’ve seen a number of blog posts where educators are suggesting the topic of “Am I safe?” after the school shooting. That bothers me. I’m willing to bet that hundreds of thousands of students that might have felt safe in their school, and would not have questioned their own safety, will now think of that question and perhaps be more frightened than if that question did not get discussed.
Our world is full of graphic, horrific things that our media chains make sure that we are bombarded with. I wonder if ‘Idiot with a gun in Newton’ would have chosen a school if other gunmen didn’t have their photos and names plastered across tv screens every time one of them decides to get on countless lists of people who have done similar deeds. I also wonder if we should be sharing ‘highlights’ about these same things in school… without specific resources and support networks in place to deal with how these things can affect students. Well intentioned teachers are not enough.
Banned videos? I’m still not a fan of the idea, despite everything I’ve said… but if I ran a school district, I might suggest that the Amanda Todd video or footage from the school shooting would probably not be a good idea to show without parent, administration and counselor consultation. Yes, that might slow down our reaction time in a news-by-the-second world, but I think there is as much opportunity to unintentionally initiate harm as there is to help when we share sensitive and potentially disturbing current events with students.