Educate. Don't Legislate Or Block
Yesterday I had the privilege to speak at the national Boys & Girls Clubs conference here in San Francisco. I gave my Totally Wired talk twice -- once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I had one hour for each session and quickly realized my talk ended up filling the entire hour -- it's like every time I give it there is more to talk about. One bit of information that surprised me and saddened me a bit was that many of the clubs block access to sites like MySpace and Facebook. In reality it shouldn't have surprised me. The fears and concerns were the same fears and concerns I've heard from parents and teachers across the country. I was told the challenge is that they are not staffed well enough to monitor each teen's computer use.
What bums me out about this is that these clubs often serve low income youth who may not have a laptop or PC at home. So it's essentially one less place they can go to experience the social media their middle class peers are using all the time. It's also a missed opportunity to offer these teens real guidance on using these sites. I was also told the Boys & Girls Clubs have an amazing internet safety program -- and I'm sure it is very comprehensive....in its coverage of safety. My guess is that it doesn't really cover ethics or information literacy. The other concern they have is that if something happens from one of their computers, they'll have angry parents to answer to.
I understand the need to limit access to these sites at school when teens are supposed to be focused on learning. Though I would argue that this, too, can happen without actually blocking. But Boys & Girls Clubs are spaces to hang out in, just as MySpace and Facebook are virtual spaces to hang out and connect in.
Hopefully, I was able to persuade at least some of the people listening (ok, not the guy who told me I talked too much, that he dozed off a few times and wished I would have taught them all how to create MySpace profiles), but some of the people there to think about unblocking these sites.
I don't think it's enough for me to just say, "unblock." So here is what I would propose after school programs like the Boys & Girls Clubs should do. Invite parents to a talk similar to what I do -- emphasizing the positives along with the challenges, and the reality that these kids need to have access to these sites to be competitive in the future. The idea is to get them more comfortable and less afraid. Develop a mandatory workshop for any Boys & Girls Club teens who want to log on from the Club -- BUT have it taught by teens aka their peers. The workshop should be fun, engaging and cover privacy, ethics and some information literacy. Youth workers can identify the teens who are really into the computers and train them to be peer educators. Then create a contract/agreement between the teens and the Club around using the internet. If they mess up, they lose access for a period of time. If this is all done in a way that treats these teens as if they won't mess up, they probably won't.
We have to educate, not legislate (the latest attempt) and block -- and not deny access to teens who will otherwise be left behind.
Posted by anastasia
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