The Classroom

My heart hurts right now.

For an upcoming PD my principal suggested that we do a session on Nexopia – to see what our students are up to at home and to gain more insight into their lives. Being the “techno teacher” it was my job to seek out these profiles and prepare a way to show them to staff. I knew I wouldn’t like what I saw…. but I didn’t know how much I wouldn’t like it.

In hind sight it may not really be as bad as it looks. Swearing, making sexual innuendos that they really have no idea they mean – basic teenage posturing. We all did it to some degree as kids. But even when we did it publicly – it was private. We did stupid things, and then we were done. Thanks to the internet they do stupid things, and it’s recorded for posterity.

So we do our best to educate our kids about the internet. Try to tell them how this might impact their future – but just like us at that age, future is the real f-word. We didn’t care about the future, just the now. They’re the same way. But the truth is we really don’t know what the future holds for them. More and more people are doing background checks using the internet. And thanks to things like internet archive and the wayback machine the silly things they do will follow them forever.

They, like us, are just trying to find their place in the world. But they don’t get to do it in the privacy of their basements or the malls. They do it on the internet – with the entire world to act as their audience. We can shake our heads and tell them it’s all they’re fault, they didn’t have to go on-line, use the tools we made for them. Sleep in the bed that they made… but they didn’t make it.

We designed the sites. We didn’t stop them when we saw where this was going. We allowed advertising companies to market sex to young kids (they call it age compressing). We weren’t there to guide them through the troubled waters of our wake. We made the bed – and they have to make the best of it.

That’s not to say that they can’t assume some of the responsibility – but as adults much of it is ours. We set the boundaries or lack there of, and the children will follow. I remember as a kid how the Simpsons were taboo when they first came out. A cartoon for adults. I’ve been told the Flintstones were the same way. Now I use both to teach concepts to my students. They’ve become mainstream.

Students feel pressured to join their peers online, to do the things everyone else does – just like we did. Only now their teachers can look at it on PD days.

How fair is that?