Talking with Students About Online Sexual Content
We all know that the rise of the internet has created amazing opportunities for us to access information within seconds. We understand that we have access to anything we want at our fingertips. We love this access, we use it . . . and we know that without monitoring its use, it can have serious consequences. We also understand that access to anything within seconds is the reality of our children’s lives, too, and that education around how to be safe online is crucial to their health.
When you type “internet safety” into Google, hundreds of Department of Education websites pop up with their policies. It is certainly clear that we know safety online is a need for our children and that it must be prioritized in schools. When I was a health education teacher, internet safety came up in discussions about hard topics including eating disorders, drug use, and sexual health. The internet is not a safe place for kids to learn about certain topics if they haven’t had direct instruction on how to evaluate online information.
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