Boston-Homer

The Trouble with loudmouths... 

The world has become smaller, much smaller. Information from across the globe can find us in seconds. Bombs in Moscow, shootings in Tucson, a State of the Union in D.C. All of these things would have taken hours to reach us not even ten years ago. It would have taken days a century ago. We are now in an era where information cannot travel any faster. We are swarmed by people's opinions, facts, humor, satire, and everything in between.

As an educator this can be a challenge. Kids are wired in a lot in their down time. Taking in positive and negative information. Things happen faster. It's what they expect. Instant access, in some cases, without an hard work.

As an educator I sometimes find myself frustrated with the outside world, frustrated because what I try to do with my fourth graders everyday is so easily offset by a stupid lyric in a song on the radio, or a chain email that they receive, or a bad joke on TV that they do not understand but have no problem repeating. 

As a society we have moved towards less restrictions, or at least we have moved towards easier access. A lot of what is out there now was out there before, now it is easier to find, and kids in some cases are more savvy than their parents. Making it hard to control what goes on every hour of every day. I do not envy parents one bit in the this day and age.

Across the country we have heard about students killing themselves because they are being bullied by peers. Now that people are constantly plugged-in there is no escape, no one to run to. It is not just in school, but it is on-line. Facebook, twitter, and email are ways for tormentors to make their target's life a living hell. So much so that it drives some kids to suicide.

This past weekend in the NFC Championship game Jay Cutler called it quits, he decided his knee was in too much pain and he could not play. I am not going to waste my time judging him for that decision. That is all his, he can own it or regret it, I honestly do not care.

What I do care about is the treatment and reaction by some of Cutler's peers, especially the reactions on twitter. These reactions are out there for all to see, and also for all to spread around. These are the moments in my life where I feel like my teaching in the class is balanced out by the stupidity of people outside of the school where I teach. 

 
 Raheem Brock getting to know Jay Cutler...
 
Raheem Brock, a guy whose team, the Seattle Seahawks, was crushed by Cutler and the Bears one week ago, decided to tweet while watching the game on Sunday afternoon. While watching the game he decided to attack Cutler. Here are the two tweets that stood out to me as I waded through the crap he has tweeted since Sunday afternoon:

"Cutler u little siSsy...how does it feel that ur back up's backup is the only 1that can put pts on the board!I bet cutler comes back now!"

"Cutler...wut a sissy! This is the NFC Championship game! Guaranteed if it was brett farve..he would still be in the game!"

These two tweets are calling out Cutler's manhood, calling him a sissy. Now do I understand that Raheem Brock and Jay Cutler are grown men? Yes. Does Brock realize that anyone can read what he writes? Maybe not.

Maurice Jones-Drew threw in a jab at Urban Meyer in his tweet. Urban Meyer is a guy who just retired from coaching at Florida due to medical issues. Here was Jones-Drew's thoughts when Cutler went down.

"the urban meyer rule is effect right now... When the going gets tough........QUIT."

Jones-Drew said that his comments were taken out of context (can you take a tweet out of context?). He said he was joking and did not know that Cutler was hurt. However, if you look at his tweet feed there are comments about Todd Collins being in the game before he tweeted about quitting. Then he  the next day he sent this tweet out, which in my eyes is another another dig at Cutler.

"Don't worry tweeps me and physical therapist mike ryan are hard at work and he keeps telling me don't QUIT...."

Jones-Drew missed the last two games with a knee injury. The Jaguars were in the playoff hunt. 

As athletes these two guys need to realize their effect on others, especially kids. This type of tweebuse (does that work as a word?) is reprehensible. If a student wrote something like this on someone's Facebook Wall or in an email they would have to answer to a teacher or administrator, and at some point the police. Cyber-bullying, or any kind of bullying needs to be done over the course of time. One act of unkindness does not make a bully. However, when Brock and Jones-Drew are calling Cutler names it opens it up to others, mainly kids, who think that they can do it too. 


Educating kids in this time period is a give and take. We have things that the kids are going to learn from outside sources. Sources more powerful than teachers and administrators. Some of these things are very positive and some are very negative. Are all athletes role-models? No, not even close. But I think when athletes put themselves and their opinions on the internet calling people sissys and attacking them in a large public forum, well then they do become a form of role-model.

Who knows, maybe this will launch Cutler into "redemption mode." Big Ben is about to cash his redemption check... someone has to be next.