US School Curriculum to Include Online Safety?

Stony Stevenson writes to mention that the US National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) is pushing for school's to include cyber-security, online safety, and ethics lessons in their normal curriculum. "The National School Boards Association reported that 96 per cent of school districts claim that at least some of their teachers assign homework requiring internet use. But there is still no formal education on how to stay safe, secure and ethical online, despite the fact that the internet, like the real world, has threats and dangers which students may come across in the normal course of a day. These include communications from identity thieves, online predators and cyber-bullies."

Comments

Relative risk

[nasor]

I suspect that a child is vastly more likely to be hurt or killed traveling to a real-world library to get books for their homework than they are to run into any sort of "danger" online.

Care needs to be taken...

[vigmeister]

to ensure that restrictions imposed (like always tell your REAL age to websites when they ask you if you are 13) don't spike curiosity in the kids to do things they otherwise wouldn't. How about parents make the rules (if they know how to) or they buy software to protect their kids in addition to some kind of summer camp run by private companies or by NPOs. I fear that these teachers will be paid $24000 p.a. and predators might end up with these jobs to game the system. Privatized/non-profit sponsored education will help improve the quality of education.

Captcha - 'counsels'

Cheers!

Re:How about...

[EMeta]

Which is all good and lovely, except there are some problems kids can get themselves into before all this education is done. You teach a child to look both ways before crossing the street because they my encounter cars before they are fully cognizant about the particular biology and physics that would make a child-car collision unfortunate. Similarly with many other things. Certainly, for said program to be effective it should be given at latest in middle school, but elementary instruction would be far more effective. I don't expect a 10 year old to deduce the problems of opening attachments from spammers. I don' think that means they should be doomed to trial and error.

Yay

[kahei]

there is still no formal education on how to stay safe, secure and ethical online,

Yay, sanity prevails! At least, as of this instant.

The trouble is, teaching maths, grammar and history to kids whose career goal is to be a supermodel is inherently hard. Worthwhile, but difficult and even expensive. On the other hand, teaching them 'how to stay safe, secure and ethical online' is easy. Pointless, but easy and free-as-in-beer. If you're running a school or formulating an education policy, you're going to be tempted.

Luckily, immigration policies and economic conditions are generally still such that educated people (educated in regions where the career goal is to get an education and move to the West) continue to immigrate. Yay again!

Re:The Internet, Like the Real World, Has Threats.

[corrie]

I suppose the best lesson is that the Internet is not the real world, although it can have real world implications, and should be treated as such: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Rape_in_Cyberspace

Re:yea right

[russ1337]

>>> it'll probably end up being a "it's illegal to copy images/music/movies from the internet" lecture every day.

Yeah, you're probably not far from the truth there.

In New Zealand they've just introduced a program, as reported here:

Actor Temuera Morrison is being used as the face of a nationwide campaign against film and television piracy.
Secondary schools throughout New Zealand have been sent movie posters featuring Morrison for their classrooms as part of a campaign launched in Auckland today.
The posters show Morrison appealing to school children to do their part by only buying legitimate copies of their favourite films.
The 4000 posters recommend students "Buy Original; See Original" and have been distributed to over 2700 secondary schools across the country.
The campaign is the initiative of the New Zealand Federation Against Copyright Theft, supported by the Ministry of Education.

I think this is fucking bullshit. Why the fuck are TradeGroups getting into our schools and doing their bidding. What, are the steel unions next? Will the Printing Union be putting posters around saying "Don't use a photocopier - it's steeling!"

Be very careful that a proposal like TFA outlines is not a wolf in sheep's clothing....

Re:"and ethical"

[Speare]

I don't see what the beef is with teaching kids about copyright laws as they are today. Perhaps it would be an appropriate time to discuss the matter and introduce various points of view.

If that was the curriculum, I'd be overjoyed. But (1) the teachers don't know much about this field, so they're talking off some handy curricula circulars from the district, and (2) those curricula circulars are written by, and the legislative priorities are set by lobbyists and corporate interests. Do you think they'll include that bit about "discuss" and "various points of view"? It is like getting , oh, I don't know... RIAA drafting the Iraqi constitution's intellectual property protections.