Dean Shareski on Alye Pollack’s Bullying Video: How Can We Help?
Today’s writeup on Alye Pollack’s YouTube video about the bullying she endures at school inspired Dean Shareski (who’s a must-follow on Twitter) to write up his thoughts on how we can respond. Student expression is taking new forms, as several leaders have pointed out – but how can we respond to that expression differently?
How Can We Help?
I’ve been a strong advocate for shifting school’s narrow focus of writing to include more contemporary forms like video. It’s clear this skill is going to be essential for our students to communicate in a youtube world.
Two years ago I wrote a post about the Best Job in the World. My argument centered around the idea that we need to get on this. I loved Stephen Downes’ response:
They are, of course, creative and imaginative and effective. Now for the kicker: ten years ago, not one student in a hundred, nay, one in a thousand, could have produced videos like this. It’s a whole new skill, a vital and important skill, and one utterly necessary not simply from the perspective of creating but also of comprehending video communication today.
This phenomenon of requiring people to create videos to “show their stuff” is growing and will no doubt continue not just as a cutesy fad but as standard fare in job recruitment, college entrance, dating and pretty much any other purpose you can imagine.
Today I viewed the video by Alye Pollack. What struck me was the simplicity and sincerity of the video. Low production but high impact. Here’s someone who understands how to reach an audience.
In addition to the students not being able to produce something like this ten years ago, we can respond them in ways we couldn’t ten years ago. With some, it’s the click of a button to show a sign of support. Not much effort but when thousands or millions participate, it does demonstrate popularity if nothing else. In the case of Alye Pollack, it seems we can and should do more. The comments left on her youtube video are for the most part very supportive and encouraging. I hope she takes solace in that. But I continue to wonder what more can be done. From her video, she says she loves her school. As is the case often, parents and adults struggle to resolve these issues. While we all can do better, I wonder, if like this case, the broader community indeed strangers could help?
I don’t know what that means. I’ve contacted her parents via twitter. There’s also an email and Facebook page. The vigilante in me wants to send a message to all the kids at her school that are causing her pain. I doubt that’s the response we should take but what could we do as a community of caring adults to support and aid these situations? Shirky talks about cognitive surplus, maybe there’s some kind of emotional surplus that could be garnered? Facebook pages and comments are useful but I maybe there’s more. If there is, I want in.
Dean Shareski writes about education, with a focus on educational technology, at Ideas and Thoughts and is an internationally-recognized thought leader in education. You can also follow him on Twitter @shareski.
10 Comments
Dean,
What struck me right after reading your post is how lost we are here.
I’ve been thinking about the issue all day. We’ve watched a video where someone describes not only their individual pain, but relates it to others – lots of others. It’s a flat-out statement of suffering and she’s saying she needs help. It’s not subtle; she just says it.
That’s all clear as a bell, but like you said, “I don’t know what that means.” On one level I feel like I get every bit of this; on another level, I’m clueless.
Now what? What are we going to do about it? Is it enough to be as diligent and proactive as we can in spotting these needs with kids we encounter?
And isn’t that what we were thinking before? How does a kid like this fall through the cracks?
Unfortunately lots of kids “fall through the cracks”. What’s scary in this case and many is that this kid seems to have loving, caring parents. I used to think that was enough.
What’s been evident in other conversations I’ve had lately is that there is a real sense of evil in many of our schools. Evil, in the sense of kids who for whatever reason, are malice and callous and have no empathy for others.
My daughter started teaching High School this year and told me that in her Psychology class she should a video of a feral child. It was a deeply saddening clip and most students were struck by the horror this child endured. Except for one student who laughed and made a hugely inappropriate comment. From what my daughter told me this was not simply a one off comment that a adolescent might make to impress others. It was a consistent theme for this student. While everyone in the room were touched by the video, this student laughed it off. I see more and more students like this.
Empathy to me is the cornerstone of a civilized society. We need to teach this from pre-school up in the same way we teach any other valued skill or disposition.
That’s certainly one response or action but I also think if we can raise money for kids in third world countries, use social media to incite revolutions, surely we have to be able to reach out and make a difference for one child.
Dean,
I don’t share your sense of an emerging ‘evil’ in schools. Maybe it’s that I’ve got an eternal, naive (which I admit) sense of optimism regarding kids and that I believe in their inherent goodness. There are definitely kids who *are* sociopaths, but I don’t think we’ve got any more (or less) of them running around than we used to.
What I do think is that we’re in uncharted territory in terms of socialization and communication. The sheer number of hours and social exchanges kids have now with the internet and cell phone use means they’re navigating literally *thousands* of rapid-fire obstacles – at a time when they’re most vulnerable and least able to deal with them.
The fallout from that, whether it’s the root of bullying or the root of kids’ difficulties with handling bullying, seems to drive the conflict – not anything evil.
I think the range of acceptable behaviour has increased. So perhaps the same number of sociopaths may exist but in an age of tolerance, and global, instant communication and sharing we see things we never knew existed. I’m not making a moral judgment but there’s little debate that our schools and society in general sees more behaviour problems than it ever before.
You’re right that the persistent nature of technology in this case is a major part of the issue but I also worry about desensitization. If I showed that video to students 10 years ago, would it illicit the same reaction as it does today? Sure, most people are horrified but I’m guessing the Pollack family had to delete many comments on youtube that were mean spirited and even perhaps evil.
Dean,
That’s a great point – I think “the range of acceptable behavior has increased” is an EXCELLENT way to put it. Now I think I have a better understanding of what you were saying before.
Why do you think schools as institutions – maybe your own, if you don’t mind talking about it? – have increased their tolerance for behavior that, say, 40 years ago was unacceptable?
I’d go even further regarding deleted comments – I’m sure dozens of people left comments telling her to kill herself. I’ve seen it a million times online and I’m sure you have, too.
Downloading the video now to share with my students at school. I don’t know that there is anything we (the students and I) can do for Alye that isn’t already being done, but I do think that this video might be able to help some students at my school that feel the same way.
Bill,
I’m with you here – I think this girl and her family probably have a lot more than they can handle at the moment. It’s also important to remember that we don’t know the specifics of her situation at all… who knows what her actual circumstances are? There’s almost always more to every story.
Great idea to show kids. Real, fictional, doesn’t matter – it’ll make even the youngest kids think a little more about how their actions and the actions they witness affect people. We can’t have too much of that kind of reflection, can we?
A child has expressed how she feels about other childrens behaviour towards her at school. She says she is close to self harm and needs help. Does it really matter that we don’t know the context in which this situation exists? I am gravely alarmed that it seems from your comments that the context for this childs feelings should in some way influence whether or not we believe her. She feels what she feels. Another child has confirmed that she is suffering at school. She hints at death, the absolute answer to ending the pain of being bullied. No one should need to know more. It should never have come to this. She is a symptom of what isn’t working in her school. I am sure she is not alone.
Hi Monica,
Thanks for weighing in. On one level I agree with you – the context doesn’t matter. Let’s take an extreme example and say the video turns out to be a complete and total fake and that no such person even exists. Would that make any of it less true, or less applicable to how we’re trying to deal with bullying? Not at all – at least in my opinion.
What I’m worried about is a million people playing amateur psychologist and therapist. I’m simply not willing to do that. I don’t know the girl, her family, or her circumstances and I think pretending to is a mistake.
I think we should take what we can from the video – which is a combination of those ‘context-free’ points we’ve raised and the meta points like Dean raised.
I showed this to my 7th, 8th, and 9th grade classes this morning. They were all silent, respectful… there were even a few tears. We had a discussion about how even if someone laughs at what you say to them, you may still be hurting them.
This afternoon one of them went on Formspring (a website where people can leave anonymous or not anonymous questions/comments toward each other) and she had a rash of “you whore” and “kill yourself, emo” comments, from people in her class – some of whom who had been crying over how unfairly Alye was treated.
Many kids just feel that this doesn’t apply to them. That what they say isn’t what pushes others over the edge. That it’s “no big deal”. That it’s the other guy who’s the bully, not them.
How do we convince them of the truth?
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