Study examiines internet addiction

A new study examines internet addiction among teens, according to an article in today's New York Daily News:

"It's like a giant slot machine," says clinical psychologist David Greenfield, director of the Center for Internet Behavior and author of "Virtual Addiction" (New Harbinger, 1999). "You have stimulating and potent information and content, and then you have it offered in a way that has no boundaries, no beginning and no end." He says that's also the reason people check their E-mail so often: "There's an unpredictability, and you never know what you're going to get, how good it's going to be and when you're going to get it."

The problem with students who pass classes, but fail standardized tests

In today's "the test is everything" society, students who work diligently to make good grades, but do not necessarily do as well on standardized tests are being left behind.
An article in today's Washington Post examines this growing problem:

Supporters of the federal law (No Child Left Behind) say standardized exams are the best way to raise academic standards and the only way to hold schools accountable for results. Critics complain that time spent on test preparation saps classroom creativity and that test scores are just one indicator among many of student achievement.

Exhibit pays tribute to marching bands

A new exhibit at the Smithsonian Museum pays tribute to marching bands. The article in today's Washington Post includes this quote:

"Kids busy with bands don't have time to get into trouble if they are sincere and dedicated to the program," says Gwendolyn Hankerson, who taught at H.D. Woodson High School, one of the programs that still exist in the city. "Our kids met five days a week at 8 o'clock; and four days a week, we had 3:15 practice. They had 15 minutes to finish school and get to practice. We had summer practices and performances on weekends. For some kids, we were their life. They wouldn't even want to go home after practice. They would always be in the school."

Devil's Messenger website created

The official publication of my second novel, Devil's Messenger, is only a few days away. It's an exciting time for me, especially since this book does not include any preaching on the state of the present-day news media (for the time being, I will limit that to this blog).
A link to the book's website, which I have spent the last several hours working on, is being added to the links bar on the right hand side of this page. The website features a plot summary. a larger version of the book's cover, an about the author page, links to the IUniverse Devil's Messenger page, and to the novel's first chapter. More links will be added, as the novel becomes unavailable at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Books-A-Million, and other websites. It can be pre-ordered now from IUniverse.

Devil's Messenger is about as far from Small Town News as you can get. This is not another novel about the media, but a combination horror story and murder mystery. This is the description of the novel from its back cover (which also features a photo of me, an entirely different sort of horror story):

On one hot August night, 15-year-old Cassandra Harper's life is shattered. First, she becomes a victim of date rape, then the body of her beloved father, Richard Harper, is found slumped over the computer he gave Cassandra for her 15th birthday. From that point on, Cassandra withdraws from the world, reserving her communications to her anonymously-written blog…and to instant messenger conversations with her dead father. Devil's Messenger, a combination horror story and murder mystery, is the story of how Cassandra battles from the brink of despair to reclaim her life, and her evil father who attempts to continue his reign of terror from beyond the grave. Adding to the mix is Richard Harper's murderer, who is manipulating Cassandra's family and everyone else in the small community of Westport seeking the hidden fortune that Harper left behind. Devil's Messenger is a roller-coaster ride of terror from beginning to end.

Joplin man sues MySpace

Details are sketchy, but a Joplin man is suing MySpace.com, claiming the company's decision to delete two of his profiles amounts to depriving him of his freedom of speech.
In his lawsuit, filed today in U. S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, Brian Mora, 35, says he had profiles deleted on Oct. 5 and Nov. 1 "because an administrator for the respondent simply disliked something displayed on the petitioner's profile, citing a fraudulent reason and calling it 'a violation of terms of service.' "
The petition says MySpace has "abusively attacked the petitioner for displaying and exercising protected freedom of speech and freedom of expression" and won't talk with him about the problem in person.
Mora's lawsuit does not give specific details of what was on the deleted profiles but he asks the court to stop MySpace from interfering with his:

-Support of specific political candidates
-Support of specific causes and organizations
-Support of specific individuals and their professional and humanitarian efforts.
Mora is representing himself.

Article examines bullying problem

Some of the major problems facing teachers and school administrators concerning bullying are spelled out in an article posted on the Joplin Daily website.
Daily reporter Michelle Pippin interviewed the mother of the Memorial Middle School shooter, who paints a portrait of a pattern of a bullying that led to the incident:

"He came home once limping; he had been kicked by an older kid in the halls," she recalled. "He came home once with a huge welt on his head from someone slamming his locker door on his head when they passed him in the hall. His hand was injured once too. He did suffer from bullying. He would come home crying, begging us not to send him back to school."

The article make some strong points about bullying. It's there and it is not easy to deal with. School officials make every effort to deal with it, but principals and teachers are outnumbered and bullies are usually good at knowing how to hide their activities and which students are never going to say a word about them.

Of course, I note that the parents who talked to the Daily article never actually talked to school administrators about the problem, which would seem to have been the natural, logical step.

I am not native enough to think that things are perfect at South Middle School. Bullying incidents do take place, but we do our best to catch them and stop them as quickly as possible. Still, we do miss a few. We work to cut down on the number of problems by having teachers in the hallways between class periods and by having them all over the place before and after school. While it is impossible to catch everything that happens, we do manage to stop a number of potential problems before they begin just by our presence.

It just amazes me that with the amount of education students receive about the negative effects of bullying, and the publicity that the recent wave of school shootings generated, that we still see bullying. What in the world is it going to take to get through to these kids that their behaviors could have deadly consequences?

Survey paints bad view of today's teens

More than 80 percent of teens admit lying to their parents about something, and more than 60 percent admit to having cheated on tests, according to an article in today's Washington Post. Those who have taken my communication arts classes at South Middle School will recall the time I told the story of my speech at the Lamar Middle School Academic Assembly in the late 1980s.
I praised the seventh and eighth graders who were being awarded for making top grades for the entire school year, and noted that they did things the right way- they didn't cheat to receive their honors.
Then I told the story of someone who did. When I was a freshman at East Newton High School, I was not doing well at physical science to put it mildly and a major test was coming up.
Though I tried to study, I could not understand the material, so finally I decided to try something different, something I had never tried up to that point. The physical science class was seventh hour and I had a study hall in the cafeteria sixth hour. After spending a few minutes making a futile effort to understand my notes and the material from the textbook, I devised a plan. I began writing a few notes on the bottom of my shoe.
It occurred to me that when I walked to my next class, the notes might be erased, so I tested it by asking the teacher if I could get a drink. I walked in a normal fashion down the hallway and when I looked the notes were still there. Phase one was successful. Since I only had a couple of lines written, I figured I should see if the notes could be removed by rubbing vigorously against the floor just in case the teacher were to catch on. I tried it and the notes were gone.
When I returned to the cafeteria where the study hall was held, I furiously scribbled notes on the bottom of both shoes. Since the teacher had indicated we would have to be able to draw a diagram of a steam engine, I turned to the page in the book with such a diagram, pulled up my pants leg and drew it on my leg. I was ready for the test.
The bell rang and I bopped down to the science classroom, confident I was going to ace the test. Of course, that was not the way things worked out. Not one thing that I had on the bottom of my shoes was on the test and instead of drawing a diagram of a steam engine, Mr. Keith had us draw a picture of a turbine engine.
I flunked miserably.
After I related that story to the Lamar Middle School students, I noted that it proved once and for all that cheaters do not prosper. I felt pretty good about that speech, especially when an eighth grader approached me while I was covering a track meet at the high school later that week.
"Mr. Turner," he said, "Your speech meant a lot to me."
Beaming, I replied, "Thank you, that's always nice to hear."
"We had a test today and I put the answers on the bottom of my shoes and I didn't miss a one."