Jeff Utecht needs a little help understanding the difference between using a pseudonym on a blog and being deceptive. He asks
What is the difference between us telling a student to use a fake name on their blog or on the web and a 13 year old pretending to be 18 on myspace? We teach them to be safe on the web, to hide their identity to basically ‘lie’ about who they are.
Since I’ve chosen the pseudonymous path with my group, I have something to say about this. First of all, a pen name is not “basically a lie.” It is not meant to deceive. A pseudonym is simply a cover or shield, and not an impersonation. Many authors – Mark Twain, Dr. Seuss, Lemony Snicket, Lewis Caroll, to name a few, and countless rappers have used pseudonyms. Kids are not confused by this.
There is much more to a person’s identity than his name. Our voices, interests, our associations with other people and places, all speak to who we are. People can reveal a lot about themselves without using a real name, or a full name, and the use of any particular name doesn’t imply the construction of a false identity. Prinicples of ethics and safety apply regardless of what we name ourselves.
Identity construction is a personal matter, and something that teachers should be conscious of with students – especially young students who are still quite naive about personal disclosures. I don’t think this is as much about safety or honesty, as about respect for privacy as students learn what it means to create an online presence. The power relationship between teacher and student could compromise our sudents’ desires for privacy if they feel compelled to reveal their names (even just their first names) to support the teacher’s beliefs about being forthright. What choices do they have left in school, after all, when even simple attendance is compulsory? Using pen names may be a conservative approach, but it’s not necessarily dishonest or deceptive.
When I opted to use my own name on my blog, in the beginning, it was a conscious decision that I made freely, weighing the implications of a choice that I barely understood at the time. I think my students should have the benefit of some experience and time to grow before they make their own choices. There’s a difference, we all recognize, between lying and keeping some things private.
5 Comments
Hi Doug,
I agree with you, and I do understand way it is important. What I’m struggling with is we bring students into school and we make them use a pseudonymous. Then they go home to myspace, xanga, MSN, you name it and they use their real name. That just seems like a disconnect to me. It’s like filtering sites at school. We tell them they can’t go to YouTube while at school and when they get home where is the first place they go? To the sites we are keeping them “safe” from. I like the idea to use initials or First name only. To me you remain who you are and I think students can buy into that. Of course it has to do with the age of the students as well.
Thanks for the conversation!
The issue of pseudonymous/anonymous participation is particularly relevant in collectivist societies, such as Japan where I live and work: the pressure to conform to group norms is pretty intense, and a class is a group. It’s the tyranny of the majority, such that you almost never get genuine participation. People suppress their real voice in order to conform and not stand out. Anonymity is vital if the instructor genuinely wants to hear individual opinions and feedback, and not group-think.
I suspect when we do this name creation, it’s result of a pathological problem in the bigger group we don’t/can’t solve and assume the pen name.
Women (as S. Puglisi) ,or whatever construct, used these tricks to hide, to be seen gender free. To be read as “a man”.
Writers like Twain did this really for the most part , though not entirely, to be able to say the “unsayable” or hide in their regular life from this writer identity or writer’s truth and consequences. Students do need to learn, examine, discuss this as they grow. Though i doubt it’s Content Standard talk of present.
My uncle adopted a different whiter last name to hide Jewish ansestry to get dental patients at a time the world might not generally go to a “Jewish” doctor/dentist. It’s symptom.When you can’t be the Sarah you are, it’s to address a world that can’t have that Sarah, but needs another construct. You are trying to either fly under the radar or to speak the truth you must ..lessening the resultant reaction enough to get it out. What a statement on worlds.
Schools know the net holds the possiblity of predators and legal messes, so do teachers. So we address it sideways by telling kids that in the old days we could walk to town by ourselves, but now we can’t let you out in the front yard because, as Gabby my 1st grader said today talking about why kids must tell me where they are going after school…as one disappeared briefly yesterday…”people might kill us”. Well thanks for the bottom line.
Sadly we fail as adults and as leaders and as visionaries to look out for these things which are really dichotomies, as the enormous clear “warnings” they are. I can’t let them use their name as I can’t see them safe. Yet I see the on-line communication also as so potentiially enriching. Great. Or there is the lawsuit thought, or the possiblity of something all messed up with all of this in some conflict from humans not seeing childhood and the preciousness of this and what they do as holy ground. It’s a dirty little secret we teachers get to shoulder and take through our decisions. . It’s a kind of big red light.
Kids want to use their name on My Space or wherever as they are at a time when being real, valid, authentic, themselves means everything, to them. I recall those days and struggle at 47 to find them again. No, we can’t allow our kids to be unsafe in an unsafe world of people with pathology or as pointed out within cultures of group think which is not allowing individualization. It’s a kind of danger to them.
What gets to me is that onto small shoulders these issues fall.
I looked into MySpace this summer seeing some things that allow me to say the sexualization/ad /usuary nature of the space makes it a hard place to stomach both as mom and teacher….but I of course wonder what this tells me about the health of the culture, about the needs unmet, the structures, the kinds of communication we are evolving.
I however disagree anonymity is vital to hear individual opinion…not in this or any lifetime for me embedded anywhere I can’t buy into that…sadly for I understand the point being made and really respect it for the truth it carries and I’m afraid of that truth…, I’m too a part of roots formed through the struggles of my people…sadenned and unable to assist in that way by creating that namelessness as a way to say things, in any culture, into a generalizable truth of doing things in anonymous ways as a “method” to create a voice. I’ve hated it forever related to evaluations, comments on fixing things at my teacher work. If my name isn’t there what’s the point. This I’ll never lose or fail to instruct. I’m me…I’m Sarah. I’m willing to deal with it. I have to. I have to be an adult. Sorry cultures evolved to drone this away, it’s the biggest death stroke I know . I see it as group insanity when this is necessary. It can’t ever be given over, one’s voice as self. Ever.
If I’m the only teacher I ever meet who is willing to haul out my name and write to things I’m seeing using my name with resultant pressures it is my reponsiblity as a leader and as a person of character to show that in the end we stand up, are counted, speak our truth, accept consequences and in doing that each day to greater and greater extent it provides a basis for toning down the group think.but I meet braver folks everyday.
I’m living that at present in a most unpleasant way. So it goes. I know it , live it.
And I suspect it allows me enough insight to say anonymity is just nothing I want. And i don’t want it for kids either. Some part of me rebels at this ……..tho I will in working in an unsafe techno world substitute names or create avatars or something as a head nod.
But it’s infuriating.It’s ridiculous.
Marco’s point about collectivist societies is relevant here, in Alaska. This is a big state, but with the population of a small city, and it has a society that is highly interconnected. When a kid mentions on the internet that she stayed with her grandma in such-and-such village, there may be several hundred people who could figure out exactly who she is talking about. A Google search for that village name could turn up this little kid’s blog entry. And the inferences that might be drawn from seemingly innocent information are way beyond my ability to predict.
Safety is a concern, yes, but I’m not too worried about that with the heavy moderation I have the site configured for.
As Sarah points out, obfuscation for whatever reason is only necessary in an imperfect world. I follow the path of least resistance in this case.
interesting
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http://privacy.emigrantas.com – all about privacy in the Internet
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