Posts Tagged ‘Video’

YouTube Turns Bullied Teen into a Hero

December 11, 2011

There is a simple reason why the video confessional of a bully victim goes viral overnight. The amount of children bullied around the world is horrifying. Clips like the one made by Jonah Mowry certainly cuts at a raw nerve.

A bullied 14-year-old has stood up for himself in an online video – and has become a national icon.

Jonah Mowry’s heart wrenching video was made at 4 a.m. It starts out simply as a teenage boy telling us his name, but it quickly turns into an emotional confession.

With tears in his eyes, Mowry tells people watching that he’s been bullied since the first grade because he is gay.

The video was made in August before Jonah started school and in the video he says he’s not ready to go back because he’s scared the bullying will continue.

The video might have remained buried on YouTube, but last week, Perez Hilton blogged about it and then it went viral.

The video has now been viewed more than 7.4 million times.

Jonah got tweets of support from celebrities like Nick Jonas, Rosie O’Donnell, Jane Lynch and anti-bullying crusader Lady Gaga.

On Friday, Jonah appeared on ABC’s “Good Morning America”. He told those watching that if you’re being bullied, don’t be afraid to tell someone.

“You need to tell your parents, even if it will make it worse maybe. You need to tell someone because keeping it in just makes it a lot harder. If you tell someone, it’s a big weight lifted off your shoulders,” said Mowry.

Jonah says once his story became a viral sensation, he was called into the principal’s office.

“He told me if anything happens, that he’ll do his best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So, when I came back to school, everyone was very supportive and very welcoming and nice,” Mowry said.

His final message to other kids being bullied is that it will get better. You can be happy. You just have to try.

The positive ending to his message will prove extremely heartening to victims of bullying who can see no end to the constant persecution in sight.

The Use of Video in Education

March 31, 2011

Attached is a wonderful clip of presentation given by Salman Khan.  Salman started making YouTube tutorial clips for his cousins interstate.  Not only did his cousins benefit from the online video tutorials but so did thousands of others across the globe.  He talks about how he quit his high paying job to develop online lessons that were easy to follow, interactive and humorous.  Soon his Khan Academy programs became a hit with teachers, changing the way maths is taught in class and helping to make homework more enjoyable.

Whilst I am not a convert to the style of teaching he is advocating, I find his approach quite fascinating.

What do you think?

Fighting Bullying Through Letter Writing Wont Work

March 30, 2011

After a recent speight of bullying incidents, the New Zealand Government has kicked into gear by …. writing letters to schools!

The letters, to be written by Education Minister Anne Tolley, will demand for schools to become tough on policing and preventing bullying.

What caused the need for such a response (albeit a lame one)?

This month, two teenagers were taken to hospital after schoolyard attacks. On March 8, a 15-year-old girl was punched and kicked as she walked home from Wanganui Girls’ College.

She was hospitalised and said the attack had left her unconscious, bleeding from the ears and with extensive bruising. The assault was filmed.

Also this month, a teenager was hospitalised after being beaten in another schoolyard fight.

The attack on the Lynfield College, Auckland, student was filmed on a cellphone and shared.

Whilst I find bystanders who film acts of bullying instead of intervening extremely upsetting, it seems that video evidence is the only successful device for waking Governments (as well as some schools) up to the realties of their inert response to this very serious issue.  If the Casey “Body Slam” incident had not been filmed, his school would still arguably be hiding from its responsibilities today.

Will writing letters work?  Of course not!

Mr Shearer (Labor MP) said tough action was needed not letter writing.

“John Key(Prime Minister) has a clear pattern of behaviour – he raises hopes high that he is going to fix things, and then comes up with wet solutions that don’t help at all.

Writing to schools about bullying is a good way of saying he is worried about the issue but a useless way of making a difference,” Mr Shearer said.

“If they want to get rid of bullying they will have to take on some tough and complex problems – including getting tougher on intervening with the families of bad kids and with bad parents.

“The Government has to start intervening in the huge gap between haves and have not’s in the education system, instead of making it worse. And the Government has to support anti-violence campaigns in the community instead of cancelling them to pay for high income tax cuts.”

In my opinion, schools that are failing to curb bullying, should be assessed and made to comply with the resulting recommendations.  If they don’t, the Government should strip them of their funding.

A school that doesn’t take a proactive and emphatic stance on bullies and schoolyard bullying, doesn’t deserve a cent of taxpayers money!

Time to Engage Our Students

January 17, 2011

It is as big a challenge now as it ever has been to engage our students.  Programs which treat children like robots and show a preference for rote skills and the dissemination of facts rather than debate, creativity and self-expression are limited, turgid and a thing of the past.

It was refreshing to read an article from The Guardian that encourages schools to get more creative:

But there is a long-standing debate in education about creativity and the need to inject more of it into teaching. Can it really be taught?

At The Chalfonts community college, a non-selective school in Gerrards Cross, Buckinghamshire, they believe very firmly that it can. As part of an “enrichment curriculum” all key stage three students spend whole days learning how to use video, animation and digital imaging with industry professionals as part of the school’s push to develop creativity across all subjects.

“The aim is to develop personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS), creative thinkers and team workers,” says Greg Hodgson, a senior leader at Chalfonts who also mentors students in the arts.

Digital technology such as digital imaging, film, animation, graphics and game-making is also a critical element in the school’s GCSE art curriculum where it has, says Hodgson, enabled otherwise under-achieving students and apparently non-creative students to blossom by harnessing their fascination with gaming.

“One student, one of the lowest ability boys I’ve ever taught, couldn’t really read and write properly and staff spent more time talking to him about his behaviour than his work. He particularly flourished when I gave him control of the tools and told him that he could actually teach himself.

“He was coding and writing action scripts using interactive Adobe Flash animation, which is a really high-level skill. One lovely piece of work featured moral dilemmas with the story of a girl who had the opportunity to steal. An angel and a devil both appear in the ether around this girl’s head and the reader/viewer has to choose: does she steal a chocolate bar or not? In fact, this is the first stage of gaming: the interactive viewer clicks and decides which line of a story to follow.”

ICT is constantly changing and digital technology is becoming more geared to assist us in the classroom.  Yes, it is difficult for teachers to learn, and I am as terrified by technological advancements as the next teacher.  But it is not just an important skill in today’s age, but also an opportunity to bring greater creativity to our classroom.

After all, students learn so much better when they are engaged and have the chance to think creatively.