Internet+Safety+Education

How should the districts handle Internet safety education? Should it be a stand-alone curriculum or part of the current curriculum? Taught by content area teachers or specialists?


 * Dena Says || In my opinion, I feel the schools should offer some education on this matter. It could come from a specialist teacher, the technology department, or even the school counselor. At our school the counselor receives most of the cyber bullying issues. Our school counselor runs many different groups and completes a series of classroom lessons each school year. I think this topic is perfect for the curriculum, which contains other topics such as character education for example. I feel Internet Safety should be a stand - alone curriculum. One year, our school had a guest speaker talk to the students during an assembly about Internet Safety. The speaker was a young girl; just out of high school who was a victim of speaking with a man who she thought was a fellow 16 year old. It turns out he was a convicted sex offender and she was actually assaulted. Her story really hit home for many of our students. The reality of Internet Safety set it to them as they listened to the speech. This is something, in my opinion, that is meaningful and that parents cannot provide their children with so we must take the initiative and do our part at school. On the other hand, many schools do not require social networking and therefore, I feel that some of this education needs to come from home as well. If parents are going to let their children partake in this type of socialization then they need to monitor it closely. The district cannot solely be responsible. ||
 * // Liz Says // || If we look at traditional "safety" lessons that are taught to children, most of them stem back to being a responsibility of the parents to explicitly teach, not the school. Examples: Don't play with matches, the stove is hot, look both ways before crossing the street, wear a helmet, etc. Those are not lessons that come out of any grade level textbook. Teachers need to be able to rely on parents to instill into the children some understandings of what is right and wrong, safe and unsafe.

The school can certainly reinforce anything that is taught, but the school districts (for the most part) have web blocks and safety features built right into the network. It is at home where the students are left to "surf" free. Parents need to be the watch dogs and have mature conversations with their children about the dangers of putting personal information onto the web. It is also the job of the adults to monitor what their children on doing on the Internet, posting on Facebook, writing in Blogs, etc.

Therefore, Internet safety should not be a stand-alone part of the curriculum, nor should their be a specialist paid to provide that sole topic. If we, as teachers, use "teachable moments" to explain dangers or to discuss within the context of a particular lesson, then yes it can be mentioned within the walls of the classroom. Otherwise, it is the responisibility of parents to monitor and enforce Internet safety issues. ||

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Useful Links: Helpful Information for Parents and Teacher Kid's health Internet Safety Safe Kids media type="custom" key="8779090"