Social bookmarking is nothing new; itLists.com started the concept of shared bookmarks way back in 1996.  Of the myriad tools developed since that time (remember Backflip, Simpy, and Furl?), a handful have withstood the fickle nature of the Web 2.0 world, including Digg, Delicious (recently acquired by AVOS), and Diigo.  While each has its strengths, we are in the process of migrating students from Delicious to Diigo because it offers free education accounts that teachers can manage and monitor.  For those unfamiliar with Diigo, this short clip provides a nice overview of its many features and benefits:

Diigo for Education

As noted on the Diigo for Education website, educator accounts are special accounts provided specifically to K-12 and  higher-ed faculty. Once your Diigo Educator application is approved, your account will be upgraded to have these additional features:

• You can create student accounts for an entire class with just a few clicks (and student email addresses are optional for account creation)
• Students of the same class are automatically set up as a Diigo group so they can start using all the benefits that a Diigo group provides, such as group bookmarks and annotations, and group forums.
• Privacy settings of student accounts are pre-set so that only teachers and classmates can communicate with them.

Student accounts have the following special settings to protect their privacy and safety:

• Classmates in the same class are automatically added as friends with one another to facilitate communication, but students cannot add anyone else as friends except through email.
• Students can only communicate with their friends and teachers.  No one except their friends can send message, group invite, or write on their profile wall.
• Student profiles will not be indexed for People Search, nor made available to public search engines.

Accounts can be created quickly and without the need for student email addresses by uploading a simple CSV file.  Once the data has been imported into Diigo, groups and users can be managed via the Teacher Console.

Diigolet or Diigo Toolbar

After accounts are created, students will still need to add either the Diigo Toolbar or Diigolet to their browser before they can annotate and save websites.  The Diigo Toolbar includes a wide suite of tools, is available for Firefox, IE, and Flock, and is recommended for experienced users:

Although Diigolet is not as feature-rich, it can be set up with a simple drag-and-drop, works for all major browsers, and is well suited to middle school:

Bookmarking

Saving bookmarks in Diigo is simple but to be effective requires an understanding of how tags work.  Students, and especially younger children, have been conditioned to organize their physical and digital materials into folders.  This time-honored system, while appealing to many adults, is severely limiting; content must be pigeonholed into a specific container.  With tags, a site can be saved and retreived in numerous ways using whatever tags (keywords) that best describe it.  The Social Bookmarking in Plain English video from CommonCraft, though focused on Delicious, can also be applied to Diigo and used as an introduction to the concepts of tagging and folksonomy.

In addition to choosing tags, users can also opt to share a bookmark to a group.  By default, our students are organized into groups by graduation year (e.g. Class of 2017).   With one click, teachers can share a website to the entire grade or set up groups for their specific courses.  Similarly, students can create Diigo groups for tasks such as research projects and easily share materials with other classmates.

The Social Side of Diigo

At the risk of restating the obvious, Diigo is a social tool; students can create groups, develop networks, send messages, and establish an online profile within the confines of their school account.  Although these features may not be as appealing as those found in Facebook or Twitter, they do provide a safe, secure environment for introducing concepts related to social networking and netiquette.  Whether you choose to address the issue or not, students will find and use these social connectors; I would encourage you to embrace the opportunity and make the most of the learning experience.

For more information, please visit the Getting Started Guide and FAQ area of the Diigo for Education site.

1. How does your passion affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?
2. How does technology affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?

The Digital Literacy curriculum, which I’ve written about extensively in the past (see links below), has served our students well but has not been without its challenges; nine lessons spread over three months can make for a compacted, disjointed learning experience.

• Session 1: Passion-Based Learning
• Session 2: Social Networking
• Session 3: Social Bookmarking
• Session 4: Effective Search Strategies
• Session 5: Website Evaluation
• Session 6: Copyright and Fair Use
• Session 7: Networked Learning
• Session 8: Differentiating via Student Expression Styles
• Session 9: Final Projects

This year, in an effort to relax the pace and increase cohesion, I have extended the course by one month and reworked some of the topics to more directly support the essential questions.  The first major revision to the curriculum was the inclusion of a learning styles inventory.

C.I.T.E Learning Styles Inventory

Unlike expression styles, which focus on how students demonstrate understanding, learning styles address how students acquire understanding and are frequently divided into three main types: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic.  The C.I.T.E Instrument (Babich, Burdine, Albright, and Randol, 1976)  organizes and refines these styles into nine major categories as they relate to information gathering, work conditions, and expressiveness:

Auditory Language  These students learn from hearing words spoken. They may vocalize or move their lips or throat while reading, particularly when striving to understand new material. They will be more capable of understanding and remembering words or facts that could only have been learned by hearing.

Visual Language  These students learn well from seeing words in books, on the board, charts or workbooks. They may even write down words that are given orally, in order to learn by seeing them on paper. These students remember and use information better if they have read it.

Auditory Numerical  These students learn from hearing numbers and oral explanations. Remembering telephone and locker numbers is easy, and they may be successful with oral number games and puzzles. They may do just as well without their math book, for written materials are not  important. They can probably work problems in their heads, and may say numbers out loud when reading.

Visual Numerical  These students must see numbers on the board, in a book, or on a paper in order to work with them. They are more likely to remember and understand math facts when they are presented visually, but don’t seem to need as much oral explanation.

Auditory-Visual-Kinesthetic Combination  The A-V-K students learn best by experience, doing, and self-involvement. They profit from a combination of stimuli. The manipulation of materials, along with accompanying sight and sounds (words and numbers seen and heard) will aid their learning. They may not seem to understand or be able to concentrate or work unless totally involved. They seek to handle, touch and work with what they are learning.

Individual Learner  These students get more work done alone. They think best and remember more when the learning has been done alone. They care more for their own opinions than for the ideas of others. Teachers do not have much difficulty keeping them from over-socializing during class.

Group Learner  These students prefer to study with at least one other student, and will not get as much done alone. They value others’ opinions and preferences. Group interaction increases their learning and later recognition of facts. Class observation will quickly reveal how important socializing is to them.

Oral Expressive  These students prefer to tell what they know. They talk fluently, comfortably, and clearly. Teachers may find that they know more than written tests show. They are probably less shy than others about giving reports or talking to the teacher or classmates. The muscular coordination involved in writing may be difficult for them. Organizing and putting thoughts on paper may be too slow and tedious a task for them.

Written Expressive  These learners can write fluent essays and good answers on tests to show what they know. They feel less comfortable, perhaps even stupid, when oral answers or reports are required. Their thoughts are better organized on paper than when they are given orally.
Descriptor Source: http://bit.ly/neY1gb

The C.I.T.E Instrument, which is freely available online in PDF form, consists of 45 forced-choice Likert items which, when scored, indicate whether a particular style will have a major, minor, or negligible affect on the respondent’s learning.

Going Digital: Google Forms

Administering the C.I.T.E Instrument via pencil and paper to ~140 students is neither convenient nor efficient.  Consequently, I requested and received permission to convert the survey into a Google Form that could capture student data on a Google spreadsheet.  The first sheet in the document contained the student responses for each question which then flowed into a second sheet that automatically tallied the scores for each learning style.  This information was then passed to a third sheet that indicated whether each style was major, minor, or negligible for each student.

Explaining the details of how this document was created is beyond the scope of my intent here, but for those wishing to learn more, here are working models of both the form and spreadsheet:

• Link to a formatted copy of the C.I.T.E Google Form (includes formulas)
• Link to a formatted copy of the Google Spreadsheet  (includes sample data)

Although Google spreadsheets are relatively easy to create, they are not a suitable format for sharing individual student results.  Thankfully, a simple download from Google Docs into Excel and then a mail merge into Word can create customized, professional looking reports in minutes.  Below is an example with the student’s identifying information removed.

Sample CITE Learning Styles Report

Implications for Teaching and Learning

Student data, no matter how carefully gathered and presented, will not affect the teaching-learning process unless understood and acted upon by all.  Our Learning Specialist, Mead Ploszay, and I discussed the students’ results with them, explaining each of the nine learning styles and stressing the importance of becoming self-advocates.  With a common vocabulary and shared understanding, our teachers and students can collaborate and begin identifying the most effective strategies for acquiring knowledge and skills as vested partners in learning.

Although our results only represent a limited population, they do reveal a few trends worth noting.  Consider the graph below which represents the average scores on the inventory for each learning style (click the image for a larger view):

Auditory-Language, or learning from hearing words spoken, was the lowest-scoring style followed closely by Expressiveness-Oral.  While lectures, discussions, and oral presentations are an everyday experience for most students, they may not be the most effective method for many learners, particularly females:

This simple exercise was but the first step toward developing “Digitally Literate” students.  Over the course of the next three months we will actively leverage these findings and discover how technology (and our passions) affect and reflect us.  In the mean time, I would invite you to explore the aforementioned resources and consider how you might apply these ideas to your classroom; teaching students how they learn may be the most importance lesson of all.

1. How does your passion affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?
2. How does technology affect and reflect who you are as a person and learner?

To begin answering these questions, students must come to understand that learning can be informal, social, and networked.  Social networking, the topic of our second lesson, binds these ideas together and is of vital important to Generation Y:

According to Pew Internet, 65% of teens 12-17 use online social networks as of February 2008, up from 58% in 2007 and 55% in 2006, and this upward trend is likely to continue.  Consider these recent findings:

“The Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project and the Imagining the Internet Center at Elon University recently interviewed 895 technology leaders as part of a series of surveys on the evolution and social impact of online technologies. Participants previously opined on the social impact of the Internet by 2020 and the future of cloud computing.

Sixty-seven percent of respondents believed that information sharing will prove to be more than a passing fad for Generation Y as the habit has grown to become an integral part of how burgeoning and young adults find information, seek help, sustain and nurture friendships and remain engaged with their communities.”

While the relevance of online socialization to Millennials is clear, the role and presence of social media in the classroom is imprecise at best.  Students frequently venture into virtual spaces with little or no sense of what constitutes proper behavior, the consequences of their naivety can be severe, and as educators, we need to assume a degree of responsibility.  Just as classroom expectations are introduced, reinforced, and ingrained from an early age, so too should the principles of digital etiquette and responsible use.  And just as classroom rules and procedures are best learned in the classroom, the intricacies of online behavior that can facilitate informal, social, and networked learning are best acquired in a secure yet authentic online environment.

Digital Literacy Learning Network

Every student in my course is a member of the Digital Literacy Learning Network (DLLN).  Powered by Schoology, the DLLN  is a private community that provides (1) a space for student resources and learning activities and (2) an interface for exploring social networking.  As I explained to the students, it is a safe environment–a virtual walled garden–where we can learn together without the pressures of the outside world.  As such, parents, teachers, and administrators are not yet part of the process.  Our first steps (and missteps) will be ours alone to experience; we are a newly-formed team and holding closed practices.  Although some may question that decision, social networking is built on relationships and trust.  Students need to get to know and trust me, and each other, before moving to a wider sphere of influence and interaction.

In social networks, user profiles are essential for establishing  relationships.  As a first activity and introduction to the DLLN, students completed their online profile.  As the students began detailing their interests, hobbies, and extracurricular activities, the question of what types of information should/should not be shared invoked lively conversation.  While everyone was quite familiar with the expression TMI, many were unaware that divulging identifying information (e.g. school, age, address, etc.) is unwise and potentially dangerous.  Although there is nothing in the Schoology profile that would be considered questionable, establishing the “TMI mindset” now will hopefully prevent problems later when such safeguards are not in place.

The students and I still have a long way to go in developing our DLLN; learning to make “friends”, post status updates, send messages, form and join groups, and other networking activities will all come in good time and foster the teaching-learning experience.  For the moment, though, we have taken the first step toward establishing an online space that is engaging and instructional rather than simply didactic and prescriptive.  Social networking IS more than a passing fad; hopefully our efforts will help ensure that responsible online sharing becomes the rule, not the exception.

A Comparison of Major Frameworks

There are numerous Digital Citizenship models readily available that span a variety of topics and ages. None should be considered “turn key” solutions, however, as each school must consider the specific needs of its population. The document below compares the major themes of five popular models: ISTE’s NETS for Students, Ribble and Bailey’s Digital Citizenship in Schools, the iKeepSafe Digital Citizenship C3 Matrix, Microsoft’s Digital Citizenship and Creative Content program, and Protecting Students in the 21st Century from SimpleK12.

DC Programs

Perhaps the most comprehensive view of Digital Citizenship comes from Gerald Bailey and Mike Ribble. In their book Digital Citizenship in Schools they identify nine citizenship themes that can be organized into three categories:

Student Learning and Academic Performance
1. Digital Access: full electronic participation in society
2. Digital Literacy: the process of teaching and learning about technology and the use of technology
3. Digital Communication: electronic exchange of information

School Environment and Student Behavior
4. Digital Security and Safety: electronic precautions to guarantee safety/physical well-being in a digital technology world
5. Digital Etiquette: electronic standards of conduct or procedure
6. Digital Rights and Responsibilities: those freedoms extended to everyone in a digital world

Student Life Outside the School Environment
7. Digital Commerce: electronic buying and selling of goods
8. Digital Health and Wellness: physical and psychological well-being
9. Digital Law: rights and restrictions

These broad themes can serve as a guide or framework, but their implementation requires a more specific curriculum and set of resources. The Protecting Students in the 21st Century program from SimpleK12 addresses the major facets of a comprehensive digital citizenship program:

Protecting Students in the 21st Century from InfoSource Learning on Vimeo.

Our Middle School Framework

Our middle school program is based on eight themes/topics derived from the major frameworks we explored and are adapted to meet the needs of our school community:

• Acceptable Use Policy: policies and procedures governing use of school resources
• Ethics: ethical, courteous, and productive behavior while using digital media
• Cyber Safety: keeping users safe online
• Cyber Security: protecting one’s data and computer
• Cyber-bullying: being tormented, threatened, harassed, humiliated, embarrassed or otherwise targeted
• Copyright and Fair Use: laws and guidelines for the proper use of content
• Electronic Communication: email, texting, chat rooms, and other forms of communication
• Social Networking and Online Reputation Management: projecting and protecting a proper online identity

Each of these themes is addressed at each grade level using a variety of strategies/resources as outlined in the matrix below:
MICDS Digital Citizenship Program

Many of the activities come from resources outside of  the five major frameworks we explored. Our program draws from several curricular resources, including:

• iSafe
• Cybersmart
• Digital Citizenship Education
• CyberNetrix
• Digizen
• Common Sense Media

New materials are constantly emerging, and two that show great promise include Smokescreen and TextEd.ca. Smokescreen is “a cutting-edge game about life online that sends students on 13 missions to explore the fictional social network, White Smoke.  TextEd.ca, set to fully launch in the fall of 2010,  provides teachers and students the “411 on texting and relationships, including healthy vs. unhealthy relationships, how to deal with harassment, and how to cope with stress.”  As our program expands and evolves, these and other resources may be needed to address the changing needs of our students; a digital citizenship program should never be static.

Implementation

No program, no matter how thoughtfully crafted, will be successful without proper implementation, and it is vital to consider the venue for engagement.  Some digital citizenship topics, such as copyright and fair use, can be addressed in the classroom as they fit with existing curriculum.  Others, like cyber-bullying, may benefit from a more intimate environment such as advisory or homeroom.  Grade level meetings can be effective settings for reviewing acceptable use policies.  Regardless of the venue, those responsible for leading the activity must be well versed in the topic.  Our teachers meet, review, and discuss each lesson well in advance, and the PS21 program has a teacher (and parent) education component that helps adults better understand the issues.

We have already utilized several elements of our program, and will implement the complete matrix over the course of the 2010-2011 academic year.  It will take time to make digital citizenship integral to our school’s culture, but we’ve started down the path of teaching and modeling the proper use of technology.  It’s a long and often difficult journey, but one we must take.

State of Ethics, Safety, and Security

The National Cyber Security Alliance (NCSA) recently published the results of the 2010 State of K-12 Cyberethics, Cybersafety and Cybersecurity Curriculum in the U.S. Survey.  The survey,  an extension of the 2008 National Cyberethics, Cybersafety, and Cybersecurity Baseline Study, is an effort to understand current online safety and security education attitudes and practices of U.S. teachers, administrators, and technology coordinators.   In general, America’s young people aren’t receiving adequate instruction to use digital technology and navigate cyberspace in a safe, secure and responsible manner and are ill-prepared to address these subjects.

The results, while disappointing, are certainly not surprising.  Across all constituencies, appropriate use of technology and the Internet is typically addressed via web filters, blocking social networking sites, and requiring students to sign an acceptable use policy.  Students and educators are informed about specific laws, policies and guidelines related to the ethical use of resources through student and staff handbooks, presentations at faculty meetings, and student information sessions.  Schools clearly need to adopt a more engaging and effective approach to teaching ethics, safety, and security; I’ll share strategies for that in an upcoming post.

Web 2.0 Projects Book

The The Amazing Web 2.0 Projects Book, edited by Terry Freedman, contains 87 projects for incorporating technology into the curriculum.  The projects range from art to zoology, span all grade levels, and utilize more than 50 different web tools.  Each project includes a detailed description, suggested age range/grade level, list of Web 2.0 applications used, a synopsis of the challenges to be overcome, recommendations for implementing the project, and student responses and outcomes.

This truly amazing (and totally free) book is available from Terry’s website or can be downloaded directly from here.

Happy reading!

The most insightful response I received came not from an educator but rather an old friend from high school:

He’s right, of course, but his answer is only partially correct; our profession’s lack of knowledge regarding digital citizenship is due in large part to our near-blind faith in web filtering.  We put Chuck on the job and assume all is well; who’s going to mess with a Texas Ranger?

Image Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/markarian/2557075525/sizes/m/

If “protection” could truly be bought instead of taught, we could substitute health class with a trip to the sexual wellness aisle at the local pharmacy, and reduce drivers education to a single lesson on how to fasten a seat belt.  I wonder how many school districts would endorse that approach?

Lest my somewhat risqué comparisons seem flippant, recent articles from the Washington Post (Better Strategies Needed for School Internet Access) and Australian IT (Net Filtering a $33m Waste) call the use of web filters seriously into question.  As the Post noted, “Web site filters in schools have had tremendous success in keeping one group of people from freely searching online. Unfortunately, that group is teachers.”

Any educator who works in a filtered environment knows this all too well; students can easily skip over the knee-high protection a filter provides while adults are continually frustrated by their inability to utilize “objectionable” sites such as YouTube, Flickr, and Ning.  These restrictions, by the way, are not limited in space or time; an attendee at my presentation was unable to access the session resources because Wikispaces was blocked on her laptop.  I can’t decide if it’s ironic, iconic, or idiotic that someone in authority from that teacher’s district decided that my content was inappropriate because of where it was hosted, but something about that logic seems flawed.

Not surprisingly, education isn’t the only arena beholden to filtering.  A TechRepublic poll conducted this month indicates that  71% of  companies surveyed are blocking social networking sites because of concerns that employees share too much personal information via their social networking profiles, putting their corporate infrastructure at risk.  The Department of Homeland Security has a Facebook page, but employees aren’t allowed to look at Facebook in the office due to fears of misuse and time-wasting.  Viewing it at home, however, is fine; we’re not quite as uptight as the Chinese government. Yet.

To be clear, I am not opposed to using filters to help shield children from reprehensible websites, and fully appreciate that privacy and productivity are vital in the business world.  However, the Ronco “set it and forget it” mantra is not a viable approach to filtering.  We’re not preparing rotisserie chicken; we’re trying to prepare students to lead lives of service and purpose as they grow into adults capable of behaving ethically and responsibly online.

The Post article offers sage advice for helping our students achieve this goal:

The best strategy for protecting students online is educating them about Internet citizenship and safety. Young people need to learn about safeguarding their personal information, handling cyber-bullying, reporting and ignoring advances from strangers, avoiding online scams, and being courteous in online communication. They must understand the dangers and consequences of making details of their private lives available to the public. This education needs to happen at home as well as in homerooms, health classes, school assemblies, technology classes and guidance counseling.

To that end, I would assert that any and every school (or business for that matter) that uses a web filter should establish a program for fostering digital citizenship, and the “man behind the curtain” mentality of filter settings be abolished.  Students need to be educated, not merely obstructed, and classroom teachers must have a voice in determining what is and is not appropriate.  Quality resources abound, and I have no doubt that teachers, students, and parents would embrace the opportunity to engage on such an important issue.

Of course, the odds of all that happening are about the same as the failure rate of web filters, which apparently is good enough for most schools.  At least we’ll always have sex ed….

As I noted during my session, there is no one “right way” to approach citizenship, but there are several keys points to consider:

• Understand Today’s Student: students today learn and socialize differently than previous generations
• Maintain Perspective: generational fears/concerns regarding change are nothing new
• Embrace Social Media: if we are to educate, we must engage and understand
• Establish a Framework: citizenship is more than internet safety and cyber-bullying
• Reflect and Revise: the program and participants must evolve and adapt

Additional resources that accompany the presentation are available here and I would encourage you to use/reuse them to your benefit.  Next week I will be expanding this topic  for a full-day workshop on social media and digital citizenship at the MICDS Summer Teacher Institute.  If you’d like to join us in person or via UStream, drop me a line and add your thoughts to the conversation.

While all forms of media are subject to copyright infringement, music piracy is especially problematic for teens. A study last year by the University of Hertfordshire found that the average teenager’s iPod contains over 800 illegal music tracks. Under United States law, violators can be sued for up to $150,000 in damages for each copyrighted work, face Federal prosecution, and be fined up to $250,000 and sentenced to jail for up to five years. Teens (and their parents) have been sued for illegal file sharing, and while the fines are typically well below the maximum amount allowed, information, not ignorance of the law, is one’s best defense.

The legal and technical jargon surrounding digital law issues can be difficult to understand, but resources like Young People, Music, and the Internet from Childnet International can help students, parents, and teachers become better educated.  And while file sharing may be tempting, there are scores of online resources for music, video, and software that are legal and affordable:

• In addition to the iTunes store and Amazon MP3, Pro-Music includes links to over 500 retailers of online music.
• BirdTrax at Illinois State University is a collection of music, movies, TV shows, and other media that can be legally downloaded.
• SourceForge.net offers fast, secure and free downloads from the largest Open Source applications and software directory.

The “I won’t get caught” mentality that many students and adults embrace is not a solution to the issues surrounding Digital Law.  Conversation, education, and modeling responsible use will go a long way toward ensuring that our students behave ethically and legally online.

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Information about a person can be considered either personal or private.  Personal information, such as age, gender, and favorite activities, is general in nature and can’t be used to identify someone.  Private information, however, is much more specific and includes details such as one’s full name, physical address, and contact information.  This simple activity from CyberSmart! can help students distinguish between personal and private information and recognize the importance of thinking before sharing.

Students and parents need to be aware of their online footprint, and in an effort to foster some at-home conversations, we asked families to read this article from McAfee and then Google themselves.  The results caught many by surprise; most had no idea that a telephone number could lead to a Google Map of their home,  or that a social networking profile can produce a lengthy list of one’s friends which in turn can uncover more personal and private information.  With patience and good research skills, it’s not difficult to piece together quite a bit about someone, whether they consent or not.

Information, especially private information, should not be shared indiscriminately.  In an online environment, however, we often tend to be overly trusting and this can lead to a false sense of security.  For adolescents, the concepst of friendship and trust are paramount, and social sites like Facebook are redefining what it means to be “friends”.  The story of Kimberly Elliott, a mother from Oakville, MO, clearly illustrates how some teens suspend good judgement when socializing online.

Kimberly bet her 14 year old daughter that she could become friends with her daughter’s buddies on Facebook.  Using a ficticious profile (it should be noted that this is a violation of Facebook’s TOS), she amassed 300 friends within 24 hours.  As the Post-Dispatch columnist who interviewed Kimberly noted, “In one day, her mom was able to get cell phone numbers, accounts for instant messages and e-mail addresses. She had pictures and videos. The only thing she didn’t have was an address, but she could do a reverse search of the phone number and possibly get that.”

The Internet is often characterized as a dangerous environment, but common sense, self-awareness, and a few simple precautions can go a long way toward ensuring one’s digital security.  Students need to think twice before sharing private information, and a periodic Google search can help keep track of digital footprints.  Parental involvement is crucial, and while the intricacies on cyberspace may seem daunting, the addage “don’t talk to strangers” has never been more important.

• Digital Access
• Digital Literacy
• Digital Communication
• Digital Etiquette

In January, we were fortunate to have noted author and educator Rosalind Wiseman spend two days on campus.  Because she is a knowledgeable on a number of digital issues, including cyberbullying, we utilized her expertise to address various aspects of Digital Rights and Responsibilities.  The following segment is from a presentation she made to our 7th and 8th grade students and teachers:

As she discussed the use of electronic communication and interaction, she repeatedly stressed the concept of dignity.  In her words, “dignity is non-negotiable” and each of us has a right to be treated appropriately and a responsibility to act properly.  Admittedly, this isn’t always easy for teens and preteens; adolescence is a difficult time.  As adults, we must help our students deal with these issues and think less in terms of teaching “subjects” and more about the need for teaching the whole child.

When conflicts arise and students’ rights are compromised, Wiseman suggests using the SEAL approach:

• Stop and assess what has happened. Breathe, evaluate, observe your allies, aggressors and the bystanders.
• Explain your point of view or your feelings. Explain what specifically happened in the situation, focusing on the other person’s actions and their effect on you. Request a suggested outcome.
• Affirm your own feelings and/or the other person’s. Sometimes you have to agree to disagree.
• Lock a friendship in or lock it out. Not everyone has to be a friend, but you must treat everyone with respect.

While not every child (or adult for that matter) may feel comfortable addressing issues of bullying and harrassment, it’s important that we take a stand and foster a climate of trust and support.  All of us–parents, teachers, coaches, counselors–can make school and home a safe,  positive environment where dignity truly is non-negotiable.