Teaching+Digital+Natives+About+Censorship

Censorship has been around for a long time. Teachers, parents and school administrations have always been concerned about the content that students read or saw on television. Now there is a new bad guy in town, the internet. The internet is not completely new but how to deal with internet censorship is still being figured out because of the differences between students 50 years ago and today's students.

Today's students are very intelligent in the world of technology; computers, cellphones, videogames, etc. It is this ability to navigate technology at a young age, and I mean ages 5 years and up, that gives them the name [|Digital Natives]. Because digital natives are so tech savvy adults are concerned for their well being like never before. We all know the different places the internet can lead you and only a fraction of the time is it web sites you intended to go to or useful information. There is so much garbage out there today it is hard for anyone to pick the good out of the bad.

So how do we inform our students about the dangers of the internet and how we try to protect them from the big bad world? Some people say we should censor the internet in schools so kids don't have to worry about stumbling on to undesired sites. Others say we should sit the students down and show certain examples of what is out there that they should, according to society, ignore. I feel that it is a combination of the two that will have the most effect on the students.

Students are curious about almost every topic out there, censorship included. So I feel that they should be informed of the actions that are being taken in their school in the terms of censorship. Making a webpage or a wiki is a great way to do this because not only have the students been told about what censorship is and how it directly affects them but they get to go out into the digital world and look for it. You could also do a class debate where teams debate the pros and cons of censorship. This way students get to see both sides of censorship and make an informed decision themselves about how they feel about the subject. If you get your students excited about this topic or any topic you are more likely to make an impact and your students are more likely to remember the lesson.

People talk about protecting their children from the world but eventually those same children have to go out into the world and fend for themselves. I feel that teachers are one of the influences in a child's life that is responsible for giving them the tools to do well in this world. As the [|saying] goes

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime."