Virginia Becomes First State to Mandate Internet Safety Lessons

kaufmanmoore writes "The Commonwealth of Virginia has become the first state in the nation to require that students in all grade levels receive a form of internet safety lessons. The story is scant on details about the lessons, but describes one recently at a high school where the presenter showed a social-networking profile of a convicted sex offender posing as a 15 year-old girl. "

This is great but...

This is a fine idea - The internet is a treacherous place for children.

But I'd rather see mandatory parenting.

Re:This is great but...

Even good parents may not be particularly Internet savvy. I think this is a great idea, especially if at least some of the lessons are given by other kids.

I remember once helping out at a teacher conference in summer between 8th and 9th grades to help teach them (the teachers) how to use their new Macs (back around 1992).

Re:This is great but...

This is a fine idea - The internet is a treacherous place for children.

The web, in general, may be an inappropriate venue for a young child, but it's hardly treacherous. In fact, I'd say that the risk of being targeted and hunted down in some manner is probably far less than your local playground. Which is to say the risk is small enough to put aside, and hardly something that merits the exaggerated press coverage, let alone the subject of a government mandated safety policy.

Besides, if a child of any age is inclined to participate in "chat rooms", then they'll have plenty of supervisory company from law enforcement officials and TV celebrities.

What would real Internet Safety Program look like? I'd start with something that includes unhiding file extensions on Windows systems to prevent the .exe nonsense that unlike the bogeyman, is a real and demonstrable threat.

But I'd rather see mandatory parenting.

Agreed. But they're both working, and too busy or too tired, trying to make a living. Guess the responsibility falls on the rest of us, huh?

Re:This is great but...

I'll be damned. An insightful goatse link.

Abdication of responsibility

Some time ago school was a place you went to to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. Slowly schools are getting more loaded with stuff that should be taught by parents/community: sex ed, health studies, morals and ethics and now safe browsing.

Soon schools will also have to teach kids to dress: "Now remember class, you can't wear a striped shirt with plaid pants".

It does seem that school is getting to be less about education and more about daycare (so that parents can go and have careers instead of raising kids).

Re:This is great but...

I'm not "Won't someone think of the children?" apologist. But, some parents are internet-illiterate. So, what's wrong with one extra source to say "Hey - There are dangers out there. Be careful." So be it. I'd much rather see parents educate themselves, but I think that calling this a MS/**AA FUD tactic is a stretch...

wrong topic

Teaching kids about the internet is a great idea. Unfortunately, being aware of adults seeking to trick them into sexual situations is NOT an internet issue, it is a social issue that has basic rules that should apply to all types of communication and interaction, no matter what the channel or method of communication might be (if you don't know what the basic rules are that I speak of, then you are probably a child molester). Health class is the area to address issues of adult/child abuse.

The real issues that teens and pre-teens need to be taught about in regards to the internet are:

1. If you post text, a picture, or video on the internet it will be there indefinitely, and everyone will potentially have access to it. This works for pics of all types, from sexually inappropriate things to pics from a party where people are drinking to social networking 'interests' lists. We've all heard stories of people getting turned down from a job b/c of a facebook profile. Young people need to know about this early.

2. Cyber bullying. For crying out loud, this is huge, and young people are the most vulnerable. Kids need to know that what gets put online has real consequences, and conversely, to not take rumors or gossip posted online seriously. We've all seen the story about the girl who killed herself b/c a neighbor (parent posing as a teen!) was saying hateful things about her.

3. What the internet is...a computer network. No more, no less. It's a powerful communications tool, just like a car is a powerful transportation tool. If you don't understand and respect what it can do, you or someone else will pay for it.

I know I kinda sound lame and schoolmarm-ish on that last one, but it's true...damn I'm getting old.

The Virginia school classes are nothing more than ignorant reactionary bs meant to calm the irrational fears of soccer moms who watch too much Dateline.

Re:wrong topic

"Unfortunately, being aware of adults seeking to trick them into sexual situations is NOT an internet issue, it is a social issue"

This is absolutely correct. Not only that, it is WAY better to have your kid learn the basic rules of safety when there is a thousand miles of wire between them and the person that is trying to take advantage of them. (sexually or not) The idea that kids should learn how to deal with these people in face to face situations FIRST is just not logical.

I agree with #1 and #2, but 'Cyber Bullying' is exactly the same situation as sexual predators. Bullying is not a different situation because it is on a computer. Schools want to pretend like it is because it allows them to extend their authority and thus power outside of the schools. In a hundred years, schools have not addressed real life bullying that includes the same things that happens online as well as physical assaults. Your example of the girl who killed herself, helps make this clear. The girl never did know that the person who first pretended to like her, and then said very mean things was an adult. The fact that it WAS an adult is totally irrelevant. The fact is that boys have pretended to like girls, only to spurn them later has been happening for as long as we have recorded history of male female interactions. It is safe to assume that it was going on well before we started recording history. The same can be said of girls pretending to like boys and then spurning them, as well as adults to adults. The girl killed herself because she was infatuated and got dumped. No one would have blamed the telephone for this if it happened over the phone, or the school if a boy had done this to her there.

I would want to see the schools dealing with real live bullying before they start even considering dipping their greedy hands into my home. Heck

Re:This is great but...

All non-academic lessons I've taken have boiled down to that.

Hunter saftey course (guns in general): don't be an idiot. don't point guns at people. use that organ located between your ears.
D.A.R.E: don't do illegal drugs or alcohol, most will mess you up.
Drivers Ed: Use common sense, follow the law, don't be reckless. (ironically nothing about actually driving)

I guarentee this lesson will be: "Don't give out personal information. Don't post pictures. Use fake names. All men are men, all women are men, all 13 year old girls are FBI agents or Pedophiles. Don't meet with people in real life."

So flip it around

Have a class where the kids all get fake identities, and try to get on the network and steal the fakes from each other.
Give the kids a lesson about phish, you bore them for a day. Teach the kids to phish, and you could educate them for a lifetime.

Re:This is great but...

You're right that a lot of this overlaps with the "use common sense" lessons from other contexts. But the thing is that kids really don't all have a ton of common sense. In fact, a lot of kids demonstrate shockingly little of it at times. Maybe they have it and choose not to use it, or maybe it's just not fully developed.

It's one thing to say "don't meet strange people handing out candy." It's a good lesson and one that schools should mention since a lot of parents don't remember to. Heck, when I was in elementary school (pre-Internet) they taught us that kind of basic safety lesson.

But not all 3rd graders will extrapolate from "don't take candy from strangers" to "don't expose yourself on a webcam for a 'girl' in another state." [reputation...erblog.com] I'm sure that any future-slashdotter would figure that one out without any help, but not all kids are above average.

If this is really just adding lessons about Internet common-sense to lessons about real-world common-sense then it's probably on the net a good thing. Kids haven't developed their common sense yet and can easily get hurt by it.

Re:This is great but...

Ever consider that the reason kids have no common sense is because they are spoon fed everything they should or shouldn't do? It seems like we do everything we can to prevent young people from actually using their brains to make a decision, and then we're upset that they can't think on their own and use common sense.

Re:This is great but...

If the classes were a 1 hour session of someone saying "Hey kids, them thar internets can be dangerous. Don't go trusting people. Use common sense.", that would be fine.

Well, to be honest, as common sense isn't so common, I'd cover some specific issues, like how to recognize scams, internet predators, basic guidelines to protect your identity, and so on.

Of course, personally I'd fold it into my idea for a 'life studies' course - no it doesn't have much to do with biology. It's simply the best name I can think of at the moment.

Basically, it's a course designed to impart the skills generally necessary for a fulfilling life in a modern society. I started off with sex ed, gun safety, spread out to basic liability, contract and criminal law*. Not falling for scams, whether it be real world or internet. Practical budgeting, house purchase procedures, etc... In areas where it's necessary, how to properly do laundry, basic healthy cooking**. Basically, what stuff is good to know, doesn't take a whole semester or more dedicated to teaching it, and at least possibly isn't covered by existing courses, as I'm sure some rearranging could occur.

I mean, I don't know about you guys, but while my parents covered liability and such, I didn't get much of it in school, but I see examples all the time where it would have saved a lot of money, effort, and stress if they had known a bit of it. Sure, history and geography is all to the good, but I spent months memorizing maps - so I could pass quizzes that consisted of a map with the names removed and slots to put the missing names cities, rivers and lakes in. I guarantee that I performed a brain dump after each quiz. I know where Baghdad, Tikrit, and the Tigris river is on the map more because I'm in the USAF and have to worry about it. I didn't care in High School, I knew how to read a map and index even back then.

And that's just ONE example of courses that I feel were more or less wasted time when I was young. Especially given the easy reference and research source today - the internet. History courses are good, though I think there should be less emphasis(at least compared to my time) on names and exact dates.

*Possibly involving carefully selected TV court cases off of shows like Judge Judy.
**Preferably tasty, because that's the best way to get people to eat it.

Re:This is great but...

A) Realize that no matter how much you warn them of the "dangers" of the Internet, kids will still get on it

B) Realize that many teenagers will rebel and still get on

These are the same. And abstince-only education doesn't work with sex either. The point is to teach them safe habits.

C) Realize that by teaching ways that predators will stalk them, they will think they are safe if they don't have those

Well, to a large degree, that's true. If you never give anyone enough information to track you down, and never meet people off the internet, then you are pretty safe. If they find out your IP address they might be able to find out your neighborhood/block. But you even avoid that by not directly connecting with people.

That does discount spyware, but that seems like a second class of issues (or second class by the school.).

D) And lastly, realize that this opens up an avenue for propaganda by MS and the *AA to try to squash innovation by spreading FUD with how "pirated" things always has viruses and can lead to identity theft and being stalked!!!One!11!![sic]

Sure it seems like a good idea, but remember the government gave us the DMCA and most likely doesn't know anything about what the 'Net is really like.

Wow, way to combine three typical slashdot dislikes. First, it was the federal government who gave us the DMCA, not Virginia. Second, a lot of the DMCA makes sense (the safe-harbor provisions). I suppose you are talking about the generality of the term 'encrption scheme' so that it applies to ROT-13 and the law against having mechanisms to get around it? Well, even that seems more carelessly written than evil.

And even if there was a lot of anti-piracy in the class, that 1) seems valid, as pirated software is more likely to have spyware than the non-pirated alternative (exception that proves the rule, P2P clients). 2) Even if it was used to curb piracy, how does that lead to a lack of innovation? I would understand software patents, but... 3) Even if that was a negative consequence, teaching kids good online habits seems to outweigh it. 4) Piracy *is* illegal, and the government *should* support upholding the law.

Political rant: I don't understand how the Republicans/Libertarians can win elections with attitudes like yours. Of course, if you think government will always fail, and you are in charge of it, it will. My coworker claims that all architecture meetings take forever and end indecisively, but of course he has the power to cause that outcome.

Re:This is great but...

There is absolutely NO REASON to teach our children physics... A) Realize that no matter how many sample problems they work through, kids will still find problems that they have not seen before B) Realize many young scientists will rebel and say nothing can travel faster than light or that mass and energy are the same thing C) Realize that teaching students about inertial frameworks will just make them think they know how to solve problems that involve non-inertial frameworks D) And lastly, realize that this opens up an avenue for propaganda by CERN and the *AAS to try to squash discovery by spreading FUD about how fundamental discoveries require trillion dollar colliders!! Sure it seems like a good idea, but remember the government gave us the ATOM BOMB and most likely doesn't know anything about what the laws of nature are really like.

kneejerk reaction

from the nanny-state dept.

I know the usual kneejerk reaction here to any government act taken in regards to children is to immediately stick one's fingers in one's ears and shout NANNY STATE until one is hoarse, but I really don't see anything especially forbidding about teaching some basic internet safety skills in school.

Re:kneejerk reaction

I see it as on par with mandatory traffic safety. ... both of which I'm all for.

Do they warn users to avoid Digg?

or maybe it is better to keep all the mommy and daddy basement dwellers in a single location to keep an eye on them.

This just in . . .

The lessons will take an "abstinence only" approach, and will feature a videotape titled Internet: A System of Tubes of Terror showing the like-true story of an 18 year old whose accepts an invitation to a slumber party that turns out to take place in the basement bedroom of a 320 lbs., 48 year old furry fan.

A good idea that won't turn out well

I'm a sophomore in high school in Maryland. My school has had people give speeches on Internet safety multiple times. Typically these lessons serve more to teach inaccuracies about the internet (as the people who teach them tend to know nothing about the internet) and scare people away from the internet based on those falsehoods, then actually teach people how to be safe on the internet. Obviously my experiences are not a guarantee of what will happen in Virginia, but as I said, I have been through these things multiple times and they have never turned out well.

Re:A good idea that won't turn out well

Having done most of my education in Virginia (6th grade through PhD), I think I have some idea how this is going to go. First, the teachers will receive a bare minimum amount of instruction and education into this. There will be some cookie-cutter materials that the department of education will pass out, and they'll make teachers sit through some class. But the bulk of the instruction will consist of the teacher plopping an over-produced, over-dramatic, under-budgeted, cheesy videocassette into an old VCR that the school should have replaced last century with something more modern. The teachers will then do nothing more than to facilitate some type of bogus group discussion on this whole internet thing. And, of course, the students won't take it seriously at all. Because how can some grown up know more about the facebooks and myspaces out there -- "grown ups aren't supposed to use these things." So half the students will end up practically sleeping through it, and the other half will end up cracking wise-ass jokes at the teacher and getting smart. So the overall effectiveness of this will be essentially nil.

Oh wait, I forgot! The most important benefit of this program is actually for the state legislators who passed this, because it makes them look like they're "thinking of the children" and trying to "protect the precious little snowflakes", so that some numbnut can get re-elected and steal more money from the state's coffers. Yes folks, this is how politics works in Virginia. Surprised? You shouldn't be.

Relevant education

I wish schools would teach people about things they need to do in life such as how to get a house and all the necessary utilities, how to rent an apartment, how to open a bank account and what you might want to do to prepare your finances for the future, how to look for a job, etc.

Internet abstinence

Surely internet abstinence should be taught.

Re:Fine but

I think a course in basic economics...

Really, a course in personal finances is better than a course in basic economics (I had both, personal finances in middle school, so it was limited to balancing a checkbook.) Basic economics doesn't really help in your day-to-day-life. Furthermore, the lack of nuance in basic economics can be pretty devestating to a person's understanding. For instance, I feel like most lassie-faire libertarians only studied basic economics, and thus their eyes glaze over when you talk about the need for government intervention to protect people from externalities, or that natural monopolies exist, are good, and need to be regulated.

There are other lassie-faire economists who are quite educated (moreso than me) and have more interesting points. But the average person seems to leave basic economics with 'completely free market == good, anything less == USSR'. With no ability to back it up, that kind of kneejerk reaction is just bad in any field.

Re:Fine but

How about a course in basic economics for our own President! Forget the students! I just wish Bush knew this shiat,... ;-)