In the wake of yesterday’s federal grand jury cyberbullying indictment of a twisted MySpace hoax which resulted in a teen’s suicide, it seems a good time to revisit the cruelty of the schoolyard.

Except for one small thing…It didn’t happen in the schoolyard…

The perp was a MOM. (CBS video, and Larry Magid’s analysis/podcast here) Maybe if the fictitious Adina’s Deck teen detective crew were privy to the now infamous Megan Meier case, they may have been able to solve the mystery and spare a life before the cruel MySpace joke got out of hand…

What is Adina’s Deck you say? Adina’s Deck is a worthy, award-winning 30-minute must-see ‘mystery’ film aimed at educating 9-15 year olds about “cyberbullying” (defined as using technology to harass, humiliate, stalk, or embarrass others via the internet, digital technology and mobile phones)

Grounded in sound theoretical framework, and created by Debbie Heimowitz and Jason Azicri as a masters thesis for the Learning, Design & Technology program at Stanford University, the film gives kids the tools to ‘connect the dots’ on relational aggression and emotional distress…which can sink techno-savvy teens into sullen self-esteem quicksand faster than you can say ‘IM.’

Here’s a video clip from KTVU’s Mornings on 2 from last fall, interviewing Debbie & Jason of Adina’s Deck…

Teens? See it. Screen it. Live it.

Engage with the material on as many levels as you can to get your coping skills up to snuff and your resources in place for how to handle peer to peer nastiness if it ever happens to you.

Educators? Buy it. Use it.

Learn what’s going on in kids’ digital lives to guide them through rough patches, counsel without preach-n-teach tactics, and enable media itself to enlighten, engage and inform.

Now we’re hoping to partner with Bay Area Parent magazine’s TEEN edition to screen Adina’s Deck en masse in time for their back to school issue later in the summer, and hope to tap sponsorship via Preteen Alliance and other hospitals, school and corporate settings with a vested interest in the emotional health of children. (ping me if you’d like to donate your venue to host a screening later in the fall?)

Since Shaping Youth uses these same persuasive tactics to lift, reveal, and magnify the facts to understand the inner motivations (whether it’s peer pressure, junk food, or body image cues!) this jazzed me completely knowing we’d found a perfect fit.

It’s not a simplistic victimization formula, nor a gloom and doom power whine, Adina’s Deck couched the characters in ‘whodunnit’ mode like a cinematic version of the boardgame Clue…

This may sound bold, and it is, but it also fits well with the healing process to help kids open their eyes to the damage and suffering and put a face to the Q&A ‘up close and personal.’

This hands-on formula worked with Freedom Writers too, and we use it regularly with Shaping Youth’s ‘been there done that’ mentoring mode among peers.

Anyone that works with kids regularly knows this is a huge problem beyond the Pew Internet Cyberbullying Study facts and figures, when relational aggression comes out anonymously (and sideways) sometimes causing irreparable harm as in the case with Megan Meier.

Adina’s Deck producers Debbie Heimowitz & Jason Azicri (at left with cast) certainly know this, and they set out to create the film series as an intervention-based curriculum that addresses both the bully and the victim, to make change on the spot by building awareness, understanding, and hope.

Here are a few clips from our meeting, with the full interview to come once I find out their “next steps” with phase 2 & 3 which is in casting stage right now.

Yep. I sure know that one well…

A few other Shaping Youth Tips/Notes:

• Next, don’t miss the Stop Cyberbullying site, created by Andy Carvin of pbs teachers which has the latest updates of recent articles on this topic automatically generated in RSS feed form. (join for free)

• Also, on our Shaping Youth profile page there, I posted this poignant 3:30 YouTube video from ‘BlazingSky2006,’ a music montageof all of the needless ‘bullycides’ that have transpired…sad but breakthrough in its ability to capture ‘the big picture’ for kids, fast.
• • And finally, a word about A.D.’s run time: Shaping Youth teens found Adina’s Deck to be short enough to hold interest, but long enough to delve deeper and shift thinking in both the ‘victim and perpetrator’ sphere.
  • At 30 minutes, it’s the perfect length for me to be able to have a more robust dialogue with plenty of troubleshooting time for kids to convey their own personal experiences, and follow up with some of the social, psychological and even neurological causes and responses to bullying behavior.
  • Sidenote: Shaping Youth is interested in setting up some guest panels to address this on a larger scale, and working on creating a teen ‘Town Hall’ cable TV format at Media Center to air some of the youth outcomes of our fall educational film series, because we’ve found the youth feedback worthy of being captured on film itself!

  We’ve toyed with offering this to the producers as a ‘special features’ element, or add a little YouTube group for each film to house the content and reactions after each screening?)

  Your thoughts, readers?

  Should we set up a ‘Ning’ group for Shaping Youth to network globally about each film? Or post the trailers on YouTube and start a discussion group to share best practices and outcomes instead? Or are you burned out with ‘tmi’ altogether?’

  Specific virtual world screening ideas?

• Adina’s Deck might be a fit for Habbo’s ‘Hollywood’ theme, where they have guest speakers come in and take Q&A from the avatars and renowned William Morris Agency has joined the ‘Habbowood’ film circuit…Just as Dizzywood productively planted the deforestation eco-message, and Zookazoo offered the results of their Earth Day green gaming challenge…
• Whyville might be the perfect theme for Two Angry Moms’ since they have that ‘nutrition café’ in their virtual world where the avatars get curvy if they don’t eat right.
• And Shaping Youth advisory board member Michealene Cristini Risley’s new film “Silent Bravery, the Women of Africa” for the Girl Child Network in Zimbabwe fits perfectly with the Teen Second Life/Global Kids Initiative to open up meaningful discussion and mobilize youth action…(much like they did with their machinima film, A Child’s War funded by the digital learning division of the MacArthur Foundation) So I can see lots of possibilities here for positive media partnering…

But for now…it’s plenty ambitious to just support the work of other like-minded groups using the power of media for positive change, and build our partner org alliances to ‘be the change we wish to see in the world’ (as Gandhi would say).

Meanwhile, don’t miss the original cyberbullying dvd of Adina’s Deck, (along with their blog, educators guide, and message board forum) as an affordable, effective resource for opening up these important conversations.