Is the point of fear-mongering to have them quit using social networks, or to educate them to their correct and appropriate usages?

Ian H.s last blog post..Ridiculous ruling

I think that the most crucial thing we can maintain with our children, with our students, is trust. And I am consistently shocked at how quickly so many educators and police officers – and I have been both – are willing to throw that trust away.

We so often hear these “authorities” tell kids of the huge dangers in alcohol, sex, drugs, and now facebook, we exaggerate in such gigantic ways, and kids being kids, kids being experimenters who test things out, they discover the exaggeration very quickly and decide that adults are either clueless or are outright liars. And once they’ve decided that, we have lost our ability to influence them.

So in this case the counselor has taught the students that he/she is a liar who is willing to cheat to make a point, and who perceives his or herself as above the law. The police officer has confirmed for the students the worst stereotype of the thug cop willing to suppress all teenage fun. The parents went home that night, repeated the words of these misguided adults to their kids, and now everyone – counselor, cop, and parents have lost all credibility with these students.

We know there are dangers everywhere in the world, but we also know that statistically the most dangerous spot for any child is their own home, and the people most dangerous to any child turns out to be their own parents. I’m not suggesting that we terrify our children by exaggeration those facts either. But I am suggesting, as you do, that we invest our energies in the real danger areas, while we work to prepare our kids for their connected future by modelling the kinds of behavior which provide both outreach and relatively smart behavior.

Crossing the street is potentially life threatening, but we don’t lock our kids inside. We teach them to look both ways, and we prove to them that we are teaching them the true things by looking both ways ourselves.

The questions I am asking is how do we make classes like the ones you and Alec teach mandatory at the college and university levels? How do we get Saskatchewan curriculum writers to recognize the importance of including digital literacy into all courses? How do we get teachers to recognize they need to seek out professional development in this area if they are uncomfortable with it or risk being made redundant?

I understand the fear though; it is media sensationalism at its best. One horror story of an internet creep, gets far more press than things that really affect a lot of young people; we don’t even pay that much attention to poverty and what it puts kids through! For that matter, we would be better off talking to our students and parents more about the dangers of sugar and type 2 diabetes. That is a far greater danger than posting a few comments or pictures on the internet!

Thanks for sharing your story; it has me thinking.

Jens last blog post..I Have Something to Say