Internet Safety Talking Points for Schools
A surprisingly sensible list.
E. Why are you penalizing the 95% for the 5%? You don’t do this in other areas of discipline at school. Even though you know some students will use their voices or bodies inappropriately in school, you don’t ban everyone from speaking or moving. You know some students may show up drunk to the prom, yet you don’t cancel the prom because of a few rule breakers. Instead, you assume that most students will act appropriately most of the time and then you enforce reasonable expectations and policies for the occasional few that don’t. To use a historical analogy, it’s the difference between DUI-style policies and flat-out Prohibition (which, if you recall, failed miserably). Just as you don’t put entire schools on lockdown every time there’s a fight in the cafeteria, you need to stop penalizing entire student bodies because of statistically-infrequent, worst-case scenarios.
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G. The ‘online predators will prey on your schoolchildren’ argument is a false bogeyman, a scare tactic that is fed to us by the media, politicians, law enforcement, and computer security vendors. The number of reported incidents in the news of this occurring is zero.
H. Federal laws do not require your draconian filtering. You can’t point the finger somewhere else. You have to own it yourself.
I. Students and teachers rise to the level of the expectations that you have for them. If you expect the worst, that’s what you’ll get.
J. Schools that ‘loosen up’ with students and teachers find that they have no more problems than they did before. And, often, they have fewer problems because folks aren’t trying to get around the restrictions.
K. There’s a difference between a teachable moment and a punishable moment. Lean toward the former as much as possible.
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O. Schools with mindsets of enabling powerful student learning usually block much less than those that don’t. Their first reaction is ‘how can we make this work?’ rather than ‘we need to keep this out.’
Harvey MacDonald • August 24, 2012 1:42 PM
“…The ‘online predators will prey on your schoolchildren’ argument is a false bogeyman…the number of reported incidents in the news of this occurring is zero…”
Cough Lower Merlon School District cough