I’m glad to hear that emergent literacies are a priority at your community/school.

That’s frustrating when boards or schools don’t have clear policies on social media (given how long it’s been around). But this is just one of many problems produced by the lag within institutions to not only adopt but merely accept (in many cases) that this change occurred (a surprising many are still in denial).

Conversely, those of us who consider ourselves to be rah rah enthusiasts need to pay really close attention to the social understandings and behaviours already present in our schools and communities – if we have problems in Facebook with bullying, oppression, inequity and classism it’s likely because we have not dealt with these problems very well offline.

I think character education is a good step towards these issues but I think the more important work has to do with media and cultural literacies – understanding the larger ideas that influence human behaviours (rather than dealing with the end results).

It’s one thing for us to talk to students about being empathetic – to show them what it looks and feels like and have them dutifully repeat back to us that “empathy is good.” It’s quite another to have students analyze media, advertising and entertainment to identify the promotion of certain behaviours – and to ask, explicitly, who (or what) benefits from the promotion of these behaviours? (jealousy, aggression, gossiping, competition, status-seeking, popularity, etc). Combined with character education, media and other literacies are critical to genuinely preparing young people for a great future. We cannot merely teach them “good values” we need to provide them with the tools to assess the world around them – not just memorize and repeat back to us what is we need them to say.

Out of curiosity are you elementary or secondary?

“key questions … a meaningful assessment of web2.0 tools in relation to social justice, equity and diversity.” [link to post]

– Posted using Chat Catcher