teaching and learning

Following up on the topic I posted about earlier this week, about the connection between self-harm and internet commuinities, this letter in the AGE today:

Don’t dehumanise us

THE concept of cyberspace has nothing to do with the fact that
these girls killed themselves. Being a teenager myself, I feel I
can shed more insight into the truth of the story than most adults
could ever pretend to. Teenagers bottle things up, too; we all do.
If they haven’t written anything about it on MySpace, they would
have written it in their journal, or at least would have thought
about it.

MSN doesn’t encourage suicide, if anything, it gives teens an
opportunity to talk about what’s on their minds without fear of
retribution. And the fact that psychologists and experts decide to
blame the subculture of “emo” just proves that we are always
looking for an easy answer to everything.

Please stop stereotyping. Saying that everyone who likes “emo”
music is contemplating suicide is like saying every Korean is
planning an in-school shooting: dehumanising.

Tess Darlington, Beaconsfield Upper

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