Cyber Safety

When I was in high school, we were at the forefront of having technology at our hands. Because of that, we often knew more than our teachers did. Some teachers were somewhat well-versed in Facebook which was basically the only social media available at the time. During our health and career class, our teachers would tell us how to make our sites private. They would do this by showing how easily they could get into our sites. But of course we never listened because we never really understood the dangers. I remember there was a video about a girl in England, who gave out too much information and a stalker was able to find her at school.This was one example of a scare tactic my teacher used in my classroom.

I think that scare tactics are useful up to a certain age but as students get older, it is important to use real life situations that have ended in harm to individuals. Although these topics might be hard to talk about, they are extremely important and we as teachers need to have these conversations. This type of reality could be useful for middle school and high school students. Children at an older age have more access to the internet so it is our job as educators to educate the safety of it. The story of Amanda Todd was an awful story that unfortunately took the life of a young child. As a teacher I want to teach my future students about the safety and responsibility of being online.

As an elementary school teacher, I think it would be important to partner with parents during these discussions so that they know how to support what the teacher is trying to get through to children. Wearing a seatbelt, wearing a bike helmet, washing your hands, and many other day to day things that we in society do to be safe took time to become commonplace. Making connections to real life situations will help young students and parents understand the dangers. If we can teach everyone to privatize their settings, then people’s online life can be safer. I know this will come with time but I think we as teachers and future teachers need to constantly be aware of.

Thanks for reading! If anyone has any suggestions on how they would approach cyber safety please leave a comment below!