Does creating fear ever work when it comes to teaching children and teens? Or adults, for that matter? Are we really more likely to stop doing gratifying things just because we know they’re bad for us? If we look at the number of people who are still eating fast food regularly, ingesting sugar, smoking, drinking alcohol or doing drugs… then the answer is a resounding NO.
When it comes to educating others about social media, we need to remove the FEAR and open up some honest dialogue.
Why Digital Citizenship Classes aren’t Cutting it…
In my experience, digital citizenship and responsibility is something that feels like an “add on” in the classroom. Teachers call up an expert or a resource officer to come in and do a presentation for the class, which can often be the end of the conversation. The clear problem with this is that the need to learn about digital responsibility doesn’t go away… social media follows our students and their families home at the end of every day and is a massive part of the world we all live in. We can’t assume that because students have access to it, they know how to use it responsibly.
The Digital Citizenship Policy Planning Guide confirms this:
Schools and teachers cannot assume that students are digitally savvy simply because they are connected. Clearly, students are not often learning to be safe and responsible internet users at home, so schools and teachers must make sure that students are acquiring these skills in the classroom; otherwise, we are putting young people at risk (p.7)
In The Social Dilemma, Johnathan Haidt says that students “…come from school and they’re on their devices. A whole generation is more anxious, more fragile, more depressed…” As someone who is very passionate about the health and wellness of our students, this is terrifying! We absolutely should be concerned… but is scaring our students really the answer? Is taking away devices and blocking websites the best way to deal with this issue? Sure, it might work for a while, but there needs to be a bigger underlying shift here to lead to lasting impacts.
I believe that to create real change, we need to keep the conversation flowing as much as possible. Instead of adding the topic of digital citizenship as an extra, we should be embedding it into as many outcomes as we can within our existing curriculum.
But HOW?
Thanks to the Saskatchewan Digital Citizenship Continuum, we have a great place to start. In a previous class, I decided to try taking topics from the continuum and apply them to the middle years curriculum as seen on SunWest School Division’s Outcome Maps. It took a lot longer than I anticipated, but I have grades 5 and 6 located HERE with printing/saving instructions.
After watching this documentary called TikTok: Eating Disorders, Racism, Censorship and Distorted Realities, it’s easy to see all of the connections that you can make to the Health Curriculum, especially with the older grades.
The documentary also lends itself to great conversation starters for students. It’s okay to spend time on apps that could potentially be harmful, as long as you are aware of the tactics used to keep you engaged with them. Driving a car can be dangerous if you’re not properly prepared and trained, so why should it be any different with social media?
“When I was your age…”
It seems to be a common thing that each generation feels some nostalgia for the way that they grew up and likes to compare their upbringing to that of the younger generations. As humans, we like to stick with what we know and what’s comfortable… but that doesn’t make new things bad.
A colleague of mine lent recommended a book called “The New Childhood: Raising Kids to Thrive in a Connected World” written by Jordan Shapiro after a discussion about how raising children is so much different compared to the way it was when we were growing up. I haven’t had the chance to dig into it too much, but I did pull this quote that really resonated with the topic of teaching social media to students:
Despite what fearmongering research tries to suggest, technology is not inherently soul-sucking or narcissistic. The real problem is that we haven’t provided our kids with images of a fulfilled online life. We haven’t yet offered them the digital equivalent of great literature. Hence, our children don’t know how to be happy in connected society, because we haven’t taught them how to make sense of their online lives. (p. 206)
It’s our job to model how to use technology to live happy, healthy lives. It’s not always going to be perfect, but it’s not going anywhere. As educators and as parents, we need to teach boundaries for appropriate technology use as well as the possible downfalls.