Parker (2012) The Story of a Suicide
“They never saw any sign of depression, and can’t even see it
retrospectively.’As a parent, what it says to me is that what you think
you know, you don’t know,’ Joseph Clementi said. ‘And that’s a hard
thing, because we all think,I know what my kid’s up to. You don’t.'”
This statement could be true not only for Tyler’s parents but also for Dharun’s parents. Perhaps they did not know the names he called his friends or about the aggressive behavior he displayed. Neither set of parents saw anything to clue them in that something could go wrong. As a teacher that’s pretty scary. The thought that no matter how well I get to know my students, there is still this other world where my students are interacting with each other and making decisions is quite unsettling. I recently sat in on an advisory session about appropriate internet use. The chosen materials were incredibly cheesy and obviously fake. No one was fooled and no one took the session seriously.I think we need to do a better job and encourage students to make connections between their online lives and their actual lives.
This part scared me a bit too, from the point of view of a teacher as well as a parent. And one unfortunate part of it is that parents and/or teachers usually get stuck with the blame of a student’s actions. People begin thinking “Oh well if the kid is like that it must be the way he was raised or taught to be.” Yet the quotes from Dharun’s family member and the quotes of Dharun himself to the police/public/his family made it seem possible that perhaps this was only a side that Dharun was showing to his peers for who knows what reasons. I’m sure that Dharun did not want Clementi to commit suicide. It was simply part of what he claimed as his identity, and unfortunately it ended up possibly leading to Clementi’s self-harm (although there was mention that perhaps he was considering suicide before college).