It’s no secret I’m not 100% thrilled with how kids act today. The entitlement, their over-inflated sense of self-worth, the fact they want respect for existing, not for anything they may have done or earned and the complete lack of understanding that actions have consequences. So it was with a hearty chuckle that I saw this story on the news. From the Washington Post:
Snow days, kids and school officials have always been a delicate mix.
But a phone call to a Fairfax County public school administrator’s home last week about a snow day — or lack of one — has taken on a life of its own. Through the ubiquity of Facebook and YouTube, the call has become a rallying cry for students’ First Amendment rights, and it shows that the generation gap has become a technological chasm.
It started with Thursday’s snowfall, estimated at about three inches near Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke. On his lunch break, Lake Braddock senior Devraj “Dave” S. Kori, 17, used a listed home phone number to call Dean Tistadt, chief operating officer for the county system, to ask why he had not closed the schools. Kori left his name and phone number and got a message later in the day from Tistadt’s wife.
Now, before I get into the response of the wife, let’s talk about the kid. For the purposes of full disclosure, I grew up in New Hampshire and 3 inches of snow didn’t even warrant the thought of closing schools unless there was ice involved. So, for me, this is a non-issue. You go to school.
But for “Dave” Kori, he figured it was important for him to call an administrator, at home, to get to the bottom of this. He did this at school during the lunch break. Why didn’t he ask the administrators of his own school first. Go up the chain of command, so to speak. But he felt he was too important to deal with the school’s minions and a call to the top of the food chain was appropriate. This is where we are failing our children. We need to teach them about privacy, about boundaries and about making appropriate choices. If he (and his family) we’re so concerned about safety, why go to school? An excused absence from his parents would have be fine. So was it really a concern or was it just some smart-ass kid? We’ll see.
Then he got a voice mail from Dean Tistadt’s wife, which is transcribed as follows:
This is Candy Tistadt, Dean Tistadt’s wife. This message is for Dave Kori. How dare you call us at home?! If you’ve got a problem with going to school, you do not call somebody’s house and complain about it. My husband was up at 4 o’clock this morning, trying to decide the best thing to do, to send you to school, on a day when the weather man is calling for one thing and another thing happens. You don’t begin to know what you are talking about, and don’t you ever call here again! My husband has been at the office since 6:30 this morning, so don’t you even suggest that he purposely didn’t answer his phone. He is out almost every single night of the week at meetings for snotty-nosed little brats, and he may not have called you but it is not because he’s home because it snowed. Get over it kid, and go to school. Get an education, that’s what you’re there for.
There’s a reason I posted the transcript. I wanted to take the “Crazy Rant” sound out of the message. I would have dropped a few more F-bombs on him, but that, again, is because I was raised in New Hampshire. But she does make a few valid points. You don’t call someone’s house. Sounds like “Dave” made some false accusations as well as she is pretty upset that he thinks her husband is at home safe while he’s sent innocent children to school to die in the snow like the Donner Party.
But after this voicemail came the part I take greater exception to:
Not so long ago, that might have been the end of it — a few choice words by an agitated administrator (or spouse). But with the frenetic pace of students’ online networking, it’s harder for grown-ups to have the last word. Kori’s call and Tistadt’s response sparked online debate among area students about whether the student’s actions constituted harassment and whether the response was warranted.
Kori took Tistadt’s message, left on his cellphone, and posted an audio link on a Facebook page he had created after he got home from school called “Let them know what you think about schools not being cancelled.” The Web page listed Dean Tistadt’s work and home numbers.
The Tistadts received dozens more calls that day and night, Dean Tistadt said. Most were hang-ups, but at one point, they were coming every five minutes — one at 4 a.m., he said. At the same time, his wife’s response was spreading through cyberspace.
Within a day, hundreds of people had listened to her message, which was also posted on YouTube. A friend of Kori’s sent it to a local television news station, and it was aired on the nightly news program.
Kori, a member of the Lake Braddock debate team who said his grade-point average is 3.977, said his message was not intended to harass. He said that he tried unsuccessfully to contact Dean Tistadt at work and that he thought he had a basic right to petition a public official for more information about a decision that affected him and his classmates. He said he was exercising freedom of speech in posting a Facebook page. The differing interpretations of his actions probably stem from “a generation gap,” he said.
“People in my generation view privacy differently. We are the cellphone generation. We are used to being reached at all times,” he said.
Kori explained his perspective in an e-mail yesterday to Fairfax County schools spokesman Paul Regnier. Regnier said, also in an e-mail, that Kori’s decision to place the phone call to the Tistadts’ home was more likely the result of a “civility gap.”
“It’s really an issue of kids learning what is acceptable and not acceptable. Any call to a public servant’s house is harassment,” Regnier said in an interview.
If every voicemail, every email, every phone conversation can be posted online for the world to see (I posted this as well since it was already out there. I’m guilty of hypocrisy, but at least I know it and admit it) you are fostering an environment (not yet, since the kids are too stupid to realize it yet, but it’s coming) where secrets and facades will be the norm, yes-men will be rampant because no one will be willing to express their opinion in fear that it will be used against them in a very public forum.
Now the kid is surprised (and annoyed) with all the phone calls he’s getting. I hope he’s slowly realizing there are consequences for every action. Most kids don’t learn this until after the voicemail hits the yahoo, but if we can teach them some negative thinking, maybe, just maybe, we can help these kids before they make a really big mistake. Before we stop taking an entire generation seriously.
After reading my own post…I’m officially old.
