Some items from
Kidlink's Response Approval Team's
log of challenges and subsequent decisions.
"Most kids are just the nicest
and serious involved persons,
with the most lovely concerns and desicions and hopes.
"The others" are so few."
Anne-Tove Vestfossen, 2000.
Oh, no!
A South African girl wanted to solve the AIDS
problem by "gathering them all in one place to die out." Well. She
was accepted. The moderator thought it was best to let her ideas be tried
out in discussion with other kids in other worlds....
"One boy saying: "God damn it middle school"
"I hate everybody. I dont want to make friends. I am suicidal. Oh, I and
i am a 13 yr old boy just playing around." And to question 2: "I want
to kill myself." - My first thought was: What if he needs help??? So
I left his response for a day or two for a second thought, and then deleted
it. Nothing for Kidlink, I thought. And who is qualified to help? I hope
my decision was right."
"A 16 year old (handsome, - he had sent his picture)
who had registrered the age 20, while in the text told he was 16.... returned
with his responses put right, and stressing that he was very serious young
man, and that I should not worry ...."
"A dutch boy of 14 or something, with only interest:
computing, had not answered the last two questions, so I had sent him a message
about that - Soon he sent the response back, short, but filled out - and
in answer to: "What can I do now to make this happen", he had written:
"Do as my sysop tells me".
"I once had a whole class of older music students
- with teacher. They wanted badly to try their project in kidlink. So i wrote
everybody the message that entering kidlink this way was not right, but that
they maybe could try to ask Kidproj's manager what to do in a private
email... I wonder what happened"
"It really is so interesting to learn about the
different cultures by reading the responses. One thing i had not realized
before was how many schoolkids in Denmark have work besides school. And how
proud they seem to be about it - while children workers is a world-problem
agenda.... Just different......"
" I never stop being sorry when i notice the
foul language that so often automatically is used by young people not speaking
English as their first language. It tells maybe about what language/culture
(and behaviour/culture) the English culture is exporting."
