responsibility

UT students create ‘Be Strong’ to take lead on mental health, bullying issues

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At Utah’s Olympus High School, students are taking the lead to combat bullying and mental health issues like anxiety and suicide.

The school’s student body launched an initiative to start the 2018-19 school year called “Be Strong,” and it’s aimed at creating “safe spaces” for the Salt Lake City students to discuss important issues including bullying and mental health in a supportive environment, KUTV reports.

“I know the affects of bullying,” Be Strong student leader Keziah Mayer told the news site. “I have 10 other officers who work with me and we come together at forums once a month.”

The forums rely on experts to come in to speak with students about mental health issues, how students can seek help, and the close connection between those issues and others like bullying.

“We’re going to have a lot of speakers come in and talk about anxiety awareness,” Mayer said. “I know that a lot of people who suffer from anxiety take it out in … not the best ways. And I know that can lead to bullying.”

Other efforts are as simple as challenging students to say “hi” to a new person every day, said Ian Jones, student body president.

“You hear stories of kids saying ‘hi’ to each other in the halls and it goes a long way,” he said. “So, simple things like that, to counteract the bullying that goes on.”

The group is reaching out to parents to speak with their kids about bullying, and promoting free resources like the SafeUT app – which allows students to report bullying anonymously. Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley told KUTV he expects Be Strong will prove effective than other anti-bullying efforts, simply because the message is coming from the students themselves.

“Frankly, students listen to their fellow peers a lot more than they listen to their adults,” he said. “We’ve seen a lot more in the last few years of them taking on these roles of anti-suicide, anti-anxiety, welcoming, anti-bullying messages.”

The Be Strong leaders are working to establish new habits and traditions at Olympus that focus on kindness and empathy for peers struggling through life’s challenges, which sociologist James Davison Hunter points out in his book “The Tragedy of Moral Education” is critical for prompting people to take action.

“What empathy we feel may help us understand someone else’s needs, and even feel the desire to help that person,” Hunter wrote. “But without embedded habits and moral traditions, empathy does not tell us what to do, nor when, nor how.”

At Olympus, one of the major avenues for action is the SafeUT app, which “is a statewide service that provides real-time crisis intervention to youth through texting and a confidential tip program – right from your smartphone,” according to the website, which is run through the University of Utah.

“Licensed clinicians in our 24/7 CrisisLine call center respond to all incoming chats, texts, and calls by providing supportive or crisis counseling, suicide prevention, and referral services,” according to the site. “We can help anyone with emotional crises, bullying, relationship problems, mental health, or suicide related issues.”

Schools install laundry facilities on campus to combat student absenteeism

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Schools across the country are realizing one of the main reasons students are absent from class is because of a lack of clean clothes, so administrators are teaming with Whirlpool and the education group Teach for America to do something about it.

Principal Akbar Cook told WCBS about 85 percent of students at West Side High School in Newark, New Jersey are absent between three and five days a month, and a big reason is they’re embarrassed by their dirty clothes.

“They were being bullied and it wasn’t just in the building, it was on Snapchat – I’m sitting behind you and take a picture of your collar ‘look at this dirty guy,’” Cook said. “So you go home and you couldn’t even escape it if you were on social media.”

Student Nasirr Cameron said the harassment isn’t uncommon.

“I’ve seen kids in the back of the class talk about kids in the front of the class and how they smell and how their clothes look dirty,” he said.

The news site points to data from the nonprofit Feed America that shows nearly 75 percent of poor families skip doing laundry or washing dishes because they can’t afford it. Cook decided to change the situation in Newark and secured a $20,000 grant through the utility company PSEG to build a laundromat for students in the school’s former football locker room. He’s also worked to solicit donations from the community to stock the facility with soap and other essentials.

The idea is modeled after a partnership between Whirlpool and Teach for America called “Care Counts” that has installed laundry machines in 10 school districts in recent years. And the results speak for themselves.

“In the first year, the program provided approximately 2,000 loads of clean clothes to students across two districts. After examining the correlation between student attendence and the loads of laundry washed and dried, over 90% of tracked students in the program improved their attendance, averaging 6.1 more days in school than the previous year,” according to the Care Counts website.

Teachers surveyed through the pilot program reported increased motivation in class, more participation in extracurricular activities, more interaction with peers and school, and better grades.

“Every single day of school matters. When students miss school, they are missing an opportunity to learn,” said Martha Lacy, principal at David Weir K-8 Academy, one of the participating schools. “Absenteeism strongly impacts a student’s academic performance. In fact, students with excessive absence rates are more likely to fall behind, graduate late and even drop out.”

“It’s incredible to see how the simple act of laundry can have such a profound impact on students’ lives and we are excited to bring this resource to even more schools across the country,” Whirlpool brand manager Chelsey Lindstrom said.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, notes in his book “The Death of Character,” that the most successful strategies for getting students to class often involve collaboration – between schools and parents, administrators and local leaders, and others – in the problem-solving process.

“Moral education can work where the community, and schools and other institutions within it, share a moral culture that is integrated and mutually reinforcing; where the social networks of adult authority are strong, united, and consistent in articulating moral ideals and their attending virtues; and where adults maintain a ‘caring watchfulness’ over all aspects of a young person’s maturation,” Hunter wrote.

The education site Education Week highlights several studies examining various factors impacting student absenteeism, offering insight into things like how the way students get to school can make a difference, as well as ways to identify and address issues.

IL school examines JROTC’s positive impacts on student character, community

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Illinois’ Elgin Area School District U-46 is weighing the benefits and drawbacks of launching a Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps program, something local veterans strongly support.

“The primary goal of the program is to motivate young people to be better citizens,” Craig Essick, Elgin American Legion commander and former police officer, told the Daily Herald. “We cannot think of a better goal for U-46 students as they pursue an education and learn the true meaning of citizenship and service to our communities.”

U-46 could join several other suburban Chicago school districts that already have Air Force, Army, or Navy JROTC programs. Those programs are overseen by certified instructors and military officers who guide students to develop life skills, discipline, organization, confidence, and leadership abilities. JROTC students also learn about the military, history, international law, current events, aerodynamics and physical sciences through a variety of activities, from flying with local flying clubs to academic, marksmanship and robotics teams, according to the news site.

“There are some kids who just may not be athletes, or science club doesn’t spark them,” said Jeff Morse, a Desert Shield veteran who has taught the Navy JROTC program at Northwest Suburban High School for 24 years. “But they get into ROTC and they find something they can be good at, and it just changes them. It’s got something to offer to just about anyone with any background.”

Much of the program centers on character and service, West Aurora High School Air Force JROTC Lt. Col. Erik Pettyjohn said.

“We do have high expectations of behavior,” said Pettyjohn, who teaches aerospace science. “It offers a lot of structure. We basically use Air Force customs and traditions to instill good character, honesty, integrity, service and excellence. …

“A lot of time students won’t get that type of instruction, mentorship in other areas,” he told the Daily Herald.

Carter Bell, the retired Army major who runs Waukegan High School’s 100-year-old Army JROTC program, stressed the program’s benefit to the community. Waukegan’s 600 student cadets – the second-largest program in the nation – help with park clean ups, guide 5K races, serve at pancake breakfasts, and volunteer at parent-teacher conferences, among many other things, he said.

“The purpose of a leader is to serve others,” Bell said. “Last year, we contributed over 5,000 hours of community service to Waukegan. High school (Army) ROTC cadets contributed more than 7 million hours of community service to the nation.”

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture point to the importance of a “thick” and “dense” moral culture like the JROTC in “The Content of Their Character,” a summary of research into character education in a wide variety of schools.

Through numerous interviews and observations, researchers noted “the source and setting for moral and civic education matter – that the ‘thickness’ of cultural endowments and the ‘density’ of moral community within which those endowments find expression are significant in the formation of personal and public virtue in children.”

The U.S. Army website provides more details about the benefits of the ROTC program, and military service in general, including ways students can secure financial assistance to pursue a college degree while still in high school.

Back-to-school rally draws community together for backpack give-away, lessons on school safety

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Alachua County Public Schools’ annual backpack give-away has a new theme this year: “See Something, Say Something, Do Something.”

The Florida school district’s 19th annual Stop the Violence/Back to School Rally at Santa Fe College centered on a new program for area schools this year that officials hope will help students respond to emergency situations, and active school shooters, in particular, The Gainesville Sun reports.

The event – sponsored by People Against Violence Enterprises, Alachua County Public Schools, Meridian Behavioral Healthcare, as well as other area businesses and community groups – introduced students to the ALICE (Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, Evade) method to keep them safe, with the promise of additional training for students and staff during the first week of school.

“We are going to teach your kids to fight back as a last resort,” Andrew Davis, a school resource deputy with the Alachua County Sheriff’s Office told those who attended.

Officials doled out 2,500 backpacks filled with school supplies, and shared information about school calendars, supply lists, free- and reduced-price lunches, and after-school opportunities. But Gainesville Police Department Chief Tony Jones said a major goal was to compel students to do the right thing, and inform police if they’re aware of threats to their school or classmates.

“I want you to be safe this school year,” he said. “If you see something, say something.”

“This lets us set the stage for stopping violence in schools,” school board chairman Gunnar Paulson told the news site. “What could be more appropriate than talking about this right now?”

Parents who attended seemed to agree, with some recalling how the event made an impact on them as youngsters in the school system.

“I’m here because it’s important to teach our children about how to stop the violence in our schools and neighborhoods,” said 29-year-old Julianne Williams, whose two children will attend Lawton Chiles Elementary School in 2018. “I probably came here every year when I was in school to get backpacks, and now I’m bringing my children.”

The August rally drew many students and parents, as well as a wide variety of local leaders, from elected officials or those running for office to school leaders, parent-teacher groups, school vendors and others.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, pointed to the importance of school practices and connections to the community in “The Content of Their Character,” an analysis of character education in a variety of different schools.

“How a school is organized, the course structure and classroom practices, the relationship between school and outside civic institutions – all these matter in the moral and civic formation of the child,” he wrote.

The ALICE Training Institute website offers additional details on the methods this organizations uses in K-12 schools to prepare students and staff for the worst.

“Families and communities expect schools to keep their children safe from all threats including human-caused emergencies such as crimes of violence,” according to the site. “In collaboration with local government and community stakeholders, schools can take steps to plan and prepare to mitigate these threats. Every school Emergency Operating Procedure should include courses of action that will describe how students and staff can most effectively respond to an active shooter situation to minimize the loss of life, and teach and train on these practices.”

 

CA high school inducts alumni into ‘Hall of Fame’ to highlight work helping others

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A California high school is honoring alumni who are making a positive impact in their communities by inducting them into a Hall of Fame as role models students can look up to.

The Poway High School Alumni Association is hosting a Fame Recognition Dinner in August to induct three former students into its Titan Hall of Fame, a recognition for those who “exemplify the mission, goals and values of school and who have made significant contributions and achievements in academics, business, the arts, community service, public service, science or athletics,” the San Diego Union Tribune reports.

Janice Grimes, class of 1985; Jacqui Marty, class of 1986; and Justin Woodruff, class of 1996, were selected for the Titan Hall of Fame in 2018.

“To receive an honor of this magnitude from your high school, in your hometown, is profoundly humbling,” said Grimes, who now lives in Ohio. “When I received the call from (PHS Alumni Association President) Larry Ott, I was so overwhelmed I cried tears of sincere gratitude. I am deeply proud of my hometown roots and being a part of the Poway High School alumni, class of 1985.”

Grimes founded Quilts of Compassion in 1999 after receiving a quilt from a hospital pastor during a long recovery from a serious car accident, and the nonprofit has since delivered more than 90,000 hand-made quilts to folks suffering in hospitals, nursing homes, homeless shelters and disaster zones in the U.S., Guatemala, Haiti and India, according to the news site.

Grimes said “It was a daily fight to conquer the feelings of hopelessness, fear and loneliness that tried to overwhelm (me)” during the recovery from the car crash, and it was the pastor’s kindness that inspired her to spread home and encouragement to others.

“Since our first deployment, over 5,000 quilters, 60 quilt guilds and 22 quilt shops across the USA, Canada, Sweden, Germany, The Netherlands and Australia have generously donated quilts for our disaster response team efforts in communities that have been destroyed by tornadoes, flooding, hurricanes or impacted by an act of domestic terrorism,” said Grimes.

The Titan Hall of Fame is part of the moral ecosystem – schools, parents, youth groups, popular culture, peers, athletics and numerous other influences – that shape students’ character, for better or for worse. By highlighting graduates who have looked beyond themselves to help others in need, the PHSAA is sending a clear message about the values and virtues that exemplify good character.

James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, wrote in “The Death of Character”:

Implicit in the word ‘character is a story. It is a story about living for a purpose that is greater than the self.

The Jesuit Schools Network is another organization that clearly outlines the type of student the school system hopes to create. The “Profile of the Graduate” encourages educators to focus on developing young adults who are open to growth, intellectually competent, religious, loving and committed to justice – themes that focus on others.

The ideal Jesuit graduate “sees leadership as an opportunity for service to others and the community” as they continue “moving beyond self-interest or self-centeredness,” according to the document.

Local police, educators come together to tackle gangs, drugs, and other problems plaguing schools

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Educators and law enforcement are coming together in Carroll County, Maryland to tackle big issues in schools, from family traumas that spill into the classroom to gang activity, drug use, and sex abuse.

The Carroll County State’s Attorney’s Office recently hosted a Safe Schools Training day in late July to bring together teachers, administrators, local sheriff’s officials and the Westminster Police Department to work together on tackling the community’s most pressing issues, the Carroll County Times reports.

Carroll County State’s Attorney Brian DeLeonardo and district superintendent of school counseling Judy Klinger presented a new program called “Handle with Care,” which allows first responders to contact school officials about students who have experienced traumatic events, such as a drug overdose in their home, or domestic violence.

The communication allows school officials to keep a closer eye on those students, and to better understand why they may act out or struggle with academics and and then to intervene to provide support and service.

“I know it’s another thing for law enforcement to do, but its a pretty simple thing and it helps all of us help kids and families,” Klinger said.

“It gives us another level to intervene with the children. … If we know that child is getting some services and help, it helps prevent a future problem,” DeLeonardo added.

Local police also educated teachers about gang activity they may see in the classroom, including gang graffiti, signs of recruitment, and other behavior that may signal a student is steeped in that lifestyle.

Senior Assistant State’s Attorney Courtney Colonese asked educators to contact law enforcement when they come across red flags, and offered insight into how it might impact students at school.

“You may not see (gang activity) in terms of the way law enforcement may see some of this, but you may find out people living in the children’s home are members,” DeLeonardo said. “And you may see that influence in that child.”

The Safe Schools Training also featured updates about in new kinds of drug use, the potential impact of marijuana legalization, and ways to spot and report sexually, physically, and emotionally abused students, the Times reports.

“What you see, what you know, what you learn is huge for us, so don’t take it for granted,” Sgt. Glenn Day told educators.

The collaboration between police and school officials is a critical component of what James Davison Hunter, founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, describes as the ideal environment for character education to flourish.

In “The Tragedy of Moral Education in American,” Hunter wrote:

Moral education can work where the community, and schools and other institutions within it, share a moral culture that is integrated and mutually reinforcing; where the social networks of adult authority are strong, unified, and consistent in articulating moral ideals and their attending virtues; and where adults maintain a ‘careful watchfulness’ over all aspects of a young person’s maturation.

More information about the Handle with Care behavior management system is available on the organization’s website, which offers trainings, webinars, a blog, and other resources for a wide variety of folks who work with youngsters.

“As national experts in the fields of verbal intervention and passive restraint, facilitating training for more than 1000 facilities Handle With Care has trained well over 100,000 practitioners working with adults and children in some of the most challenging environments in the United States, Puerto Rico, Canada and Europe,” according to the site.

 

Individualized learning, goal setting helps DC students become independent learners

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Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science Principal Kathryn Procope acknowledges the personalized learning system put in place at that Washington D.C. school this year is “not a silver bullet,” but it’s helping students set goals and develop self-discipline to become independent learners.

The school is in its first year using a new Summit Learning platform that encourages students to set daily goals and track their progress through online lessons, with constant feedback and guidance from teachers in the classroom. The individualized learning approach “is not a new concept,” Procope said, but the new Summit program developed by Facebook engineers is taking it to another level, EdSurge reports.

Summit Public Schools – a charter school chain operating in Washington and northern California – developed the software for its schools in partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative over the last several years, and it’s now used by about 56,000 students in 40 states and 330 campuses, including Howard and the Truesdell Education Campus in Washington, D.C.

“What Summit has done is take a concept that already existed and put a framework around it so that it assists every student,” Procope said.

Dianne Tavenner, founder and CEO of Summit Public Schools, contends the Summit system is primarily focused on changing school culture to foster independent learning, with online lessons to support that goal.

“This is really about a whole belief, a way of educating, thinking and learning,” Tavenner said. “This (platform) is just a tool.”

The program centers on several core tenets schools must adopt to implement the approach successfully, including 1:1 mentorship, project-based learning activities in all curricula, a change from A through F grades to “a competency-based system where students only progress when they demonstrate mastery of a topic or subject,” and ongoing professional development for staff, EdSurge reports.

Summit requires students to select daily goals from a list provided by teachers, and to analyze feedback on assignments using a grading rubric. Summit collects data on each student’s progress, which is relayed to students and teachers through a data dashboard and allows students to work at their own pace.

Educators also practice “aggressive monitoring” to keep students focused.

“Sixth-grade students can barely put their pants on. They lose their stuff all the time,” Procope said. “It takes a lot to help them start setting their own goals. It’s a lot of repetitive processes.”

While the impact of the new approach at Howard is unclear, results are promising at Truesdell, where the 364 mostly low-income students in grades 3 to 8 have used the program since 2015.

“The school has made gains over the years, not big leaps and bounds, but nice, consistent gains,” principal MaryAnn Stinson said. “Last year we had the highest [district] growth in English Language Arts for a Title 1 school.”

The personal education paradigm is an increasingly “thick” educational model.

James Davison Hunter and Ryan S. Olson define thickness in The Content of Their Character, a summary of character education programs in a variety of schools.

Hunter and Olson write “‘thick’ moral reasoning and discourse is not abstract, but concrete; bounded by the history, tradition, and the practices of lived experience in particular communities.”

Researchers who conducting field research for the book found that “the thicker the moral culture of the school, the more coherent it was and the more cohesive an environment it provided for the young.”

Summit Learning offers the video “Habits of Success at Summit” for those interested in more details on how the personalized approach inspires students to take control of their own learning.

Montessori schools promote intrinsic reward of learning to develop creative, self-directed learners

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Principal Meredith Wallace of the Murray-LaSaine Elementary School in Charleston, South Carolina has no use for sticker charts or special recognition for perfect attendance. She’s also not a big fan of letter grades.

“There’s no need for us to put a letter grade on what they can do,” she told the Post and Courier. “We just want them to keep learning.”

The public school on James Island is among dozens of Montessori schools that have emerged in the Palmetto State since it adopted the self-directed approach to early education more than two decades ago.

Unlike most other places where the majority of Montessori schools are private, 7,402 South Carolina students at 45 public schools in 24 districts participated in Montessori programming in 2016, including large percentages of minorities and low-income students. And it’s exactly the type of situation Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori crafted this educational approach for when she developed the program for low-income families in the early 1900s.

“South Carolina is a wonderful hub for Montessori,” said Timothy Purnell, executive director of the American Montessori Society. “Low-income students are now afforded an opportunity for an education that is self-directed. It’s vastly different than most education systems we see today.”

The Post and Courier reports:

Montessori classrooms often combine children from a broad age range: Age 3 through kindergarten in primary classrooms; grades 1 through 3 in lower elementary; and grades 4 through 6 in upper elementary. Each school day includes about three hours of self-directed activities, with children choosing their own tasks involving a set of classroom materials.

The unique situation in South Carolina allowed researchers at The Riley Institute to examine the effectiveness of the Montessori approach in public schools, and the results are encouraging.

A three year study that ended in 2015-16 showed that “when comparted to non-Montessori public school students across the state, Montessori students were more likely to have met or exceeded state standards in each of the four subjects” – English, math, science and social studies, according to the findings. “Subgroup analysis indicated that low-income Montessori students scored significantly higher than low-income non-Montessori students.”

Montessori students also “exhibited significantly higher levels of creativity than non-Montessori students,” “demonstrated higher school attendance,” and “were significantly less likely than similar non-Montessori students to have had a disciplinary incident or have served a suspension during the school year,” the Riley Institute reports.

Researchers at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture noted the distinctive approach of Montessori schools that drives its success both with academics and developing self-motivated, responsible, curious and persistent learners.

“The Montessori model views ‘the child as one who is naturally eager for knowledge’ and ‘values the human spirit and the development of the whole child – physical, social, emotional, cognitive,’” sociologist David Sikkink wrote in “The Content of Their Character,” an analysis of character education in a variety of U.S. schools.

“Key characteristics of the program ‘include multiage groupings that foster peer learning, uninterrupted blocks of work time, and guided choice of work activity,’” he wrote.

The blog, Children of the Redwoods offers a short summary of the Montessori approach to education with “Montessori 101, The Basics.”

The primer explains the background and methods involved, and why the biggest reward comes from learning itself, rather than stars or stickers.

 

Student filmmakers educate classmates about substance abuse

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A group of students at Scotland’s Harlow Academy recently partnered with local police and community organizations to send a powerful message about the danger of illegal drugs, and they debuted their work in July at the Belmont Filmhouse in Aberdeen.

The teens spent weeks with police officials, the Aberdeen FC Community Trust, the Alcohol and Drugs Action charity and Station House Media Unit to create a seven minute fictional movie about the dangers and consequences of substance abuse, The Press and Journal reports.

The project was designed to educate students about the risks involved with illegal drugs, while also developing practical skills in video editing and film making. Officials hope to use the film in schools across the city to steer students toward positive life choices and offer ways they can avoid illegal drugs.

Thirteen-year-old Reece Main, who plays a drug dealer in the film, told the Press and Journal “it was a really fun project to do and we learned a lot about what can happen to you if you take drugs.”

“It was a lot of hard work but we all worked really hard on it together,” he said. “I hope it can help others find out about the dangers.”

Community policing team Inspector David Cowie told the news site he’s “hugely proud” of the Harlow students who participated.

“The work they’re doing is so important,” Cowie said. “The police and the schools are always putting out the message to steer clear of drug use, but when it’s a message delivered by your peers, I think there’s a much greater chance of pupils listening to what’s being said and learning important lessons.”

The police inspector also commended the proactive approach.

“If we can get a strong preventative message out to young people at this important point in their lives and help them to understand what can happen if you misuse substances like alcohol, drugs and tobacco, it can really make a big difference for the kids, local police teams and the local community.”

James Davison Hunter, sociologist and founder of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture, highlighted the importance of educating students about both the dangers risky behavior, and the bigger picture of why they should avoid it.

“For parents and other adults, the task of ‘saving our children’ means, in large part, telling children what they are being saved for,” Hunter wrote in “The Content of Their Character,” a summary of character formation in a wide variety of schools. The task of educating children means teaching them the larger designs that could give form and focus to their individual aspirations, so they can come to understand not only how to be good but why.”

Understanding the “why” involves a focus on what’s most important, and educators looking to help guide students towards “the good life” can find resources and lessons from the UK’s Jubilee Center for Character and Virtues.

One such lesson – “Beginning at the End” – encourages students to imagine looking back on their lives 70 to 80 years from now, and prompts them to ponder what they want to guide the journey, considering motivators like the pursuit of pleasure, wealth, status, power, knowledge and ethical living outlined in Aristotle’s “The Nicomachean Ethics.”

 

 

IT director highlights importance developing of digital citizenship in students

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Manhattan-Ogden Public Schools technology director Mike Ribble wants students to “become their best selves online” through an intentional focus on digital citizenship in schools that teaches them “to be appropriate and use technology responsibly.”

Ribble, director of technology for Manhattan-Ogden Public Schools, recently outlined for EdTech, “The Top 3 Elements of Student Digital Citizenship” that he believes students and schools can use to harness the benefits of technology and avoid potential pitfalls.

Ribble boils it down to “three simple maxims: Be safe, be savvy and be social.”

Being safe centers on educating students about the power of digital tools, how to identify threats like strangers trying to steal personal information, and the importance of alerting adults when issues arise. Schools can also highlight data privacy settings on social media, software and apps, while protecting students with a network management system and other measures that ensure a secure network.

Being savvy deals with developing deeper understanding of digital communication, including the nuances of the wide variety of digital education tools, such as Google’s G Suite for Education, cloud storage and other options, and how best to utilize the technology. Ribble wrote it’s also important to help students understand “what is true versus what may not be accurate” information online, as well as the details of making secure purchases online.

Being social involves embracing new technologies like telepresence solutions to include challenged students, “from those learning a second language to those with physical or behavioral disabilities,” according to Ribble.

“Treating others with respect and empathy are key elements of digital citizenship,” Ribble wrote. “Remember, the internet never forgets. It’s our job to teach today’s students how to manage their digital footprint. It is our responsibility to help all technology users become the best digital citizens they can be.”

Research from the Institute of Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia shows many parents are struggling to control technology use at home, and they’re worried about the negative influence it’s having on their kids.

“Many parents feel their attempts to control the home environment and to keep external influences at bay are nearly futile in the face of new communication and entertainment technologies,” according to the Institute’s “Culture of American Families” report.

“These technologies introduce a host of unknown and often unwelcomed influences into the private space of the home. The overriding concern is the negative influence that parents are unable to keep out,” the report continues. “Many feel helpless in the face of these technologies and uncertain about how, or if, to limit them.”

Fortunately, the UK’s The Jubilee Centre and other groups offer lessons to help parents, teachers and principals on how  to guide students to develop appropriate and healthy relationships with technology.

The Jubilee Centre lesson “Using Technology More Wisely” for example, encourages students to reflect on whether social media and mobile technology are good or bad for them personally, for their relationships and society.

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