I watched Global National tonight and ended up laughing out loud when this story aired. Turns out that a grade eleven student in Abbotsford, B.C. created a Facebook group titled “If 200 people sign this, I’ll kick (teacher Pat Mullaney) in the box.” Obviously the school wasn’t too happy about that and they suspended the student, Amanda Bunn, for three weeks only to later change their minds and expel her completely. The school even contacted police, but they decided not to investigate (smart move).

I think the school went too far here, and reacted far too strongly. But that’s not what made me LOL. It was Amanda’s father, Wally, who just cracked me up. He said he took away Amanda’s Facebook account and was “closely monitoring” her Internet use. LOL! Seriously, does he have his eye on her 24 hours a day? I highly doubt it. I don’t know what he thinks he is going to accomplish, besides maybe damaging his relationship with his daughter. If she’s like 99% of her fellow teenagers, I am sure she still has access to Facebook.

A new group has been created, called Let Amanda Bunn Back into School. Almost 300 people have joined the group, and there are over 75 wall posts (including some from Amanda’s father who, strangely enough, is posting messages under her account). This is one of the great things about Facebook – it has enabled a dialogue to take place about an unfortunate incident. Imagine if Amanda had written what she did on a poster in the school instead of on Facebook. She’d likely still be expelled, but there wouldn’t be a conversation about it taking place now.

On the other hand, had the incident not taken place on Facebook, there probably wouldn’t have been a national news story about it.

Read: Global National