Teaching crude teens good digital citizenship

Exploring the frontiers of newfound freedom, many tweens and teens quickly embrace the raunchy, rude lingo of cyberspace, casually flinging insults, obscenities, and taunts that make chat rooms sound like barrooms.

"Foul language is just what is popular," said Rachel Carrasquillo, a junior at St. Francis High School in Mountain View, Calif. "I think half of the stuff people say on Facebook they'd never say face to face."

But now, as kids head back to school, they may find more adults are paying attention. Educators increasingly are joining in to challenge the crude culture of social networks, which they fear unleashes cyberbullying and sexting, heightens the social drama of puberty, and teaches the wrong values.

Even though Facebook flaming usually originates off campus, more schools are teaching "digital citizenship," how to care for online profiles, deal with bullies, and speak up for what's right - a critical skill because teens often don't take problems to adults.

A recent check of Formspring, an anonymous opinion site, shows what the adults are up against. On the site, Palo Alto, Calif., middle schoolers chatted about the size of classmates' body parts and who was having sex. On Facebook, one boy wrote to a girl: "go away b4 u get gang raped."

How is it that kids' conversation has become so nonchalantly, and publicly, crude? Partly, they don't have impulse control and can type whatever pops into their minds, said Caroline Knorr of Common Sense Media, a nonprofit offering free curricula for schools on digital literacy. And partly, they're exploring their identity. "They say, OK, I'm not like this in real life, but I can be like this on the Internet," she said.

A large part is that no adult is paying attention.

Slowly, that's changing.

The Santa Clara County Office of Education has set up an anti-bullying task force. The Silicon Valley Interschool Council, composed of high school students, hopes to launch a campaign encouraging students to counter cyberbullying.

Newly signed legislation, sponsored by State Assembly Member Nora Campos (D., San Jose, Calif.), enables schools to suspend students who bully others on social networks. Among others, the Oakland Unified School District is considering a policy to specifically prohibit cyberbullying.

In the Santa Clara Unified School District, for example, all sixth- through 12th-grade students attend a tech literacy course, including digital citizenship and safety. And the district is piloting elementary school curriculum.

Students are taught about building their online reputation, said Kathie Kanaval, instructional technology coordinator.

Rachel, 16, does what every parent wishes her kid would: She deletes rude posts on her Facebook wall, bars offenders from seeing comments, and bans offensive or hyperactive Facebookers who update their status too often. And yes, her mother monitors her Facebook page.

In Brentwood, Calif., Lori Cook has blocked many of her daughter's classmates from the 13-year-old's Facebook page because of their foul language. "A lot of parents don't realize what their kids are putting out there," said Cook, who works from home and checks Facebook regularly.

Oddly, the younger the Facebookers, the more foul the language. "What I post on Facebook is 100 percent different from what I posted when I was a freshman," said Eddie Estrada, who just graduated from De La Salle High School in Concord, Calif. Now, he's updating people on his life, like his plans to start college at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles. "It's more of a connection as Facebook should be, rather than a place to go crazy."

The question is whether kids' online talk is more outrageous than what used to be said in person. Without tangible evidence, it may be perceived as worse because there's a digital footprint, said Keith Krueger, chief executive officer of the Washington, D.C.-based Consortium for School Networking.

But the ease and anonymity of online posting seem to invite rudeness. "On Facebook, it's not like they're a real person. They're a page on a screen," said Keren Hendel, a junior at Westmont High in Campbell, who said students should learn about online citizenship beginning in kindergarten.

While some schools still insist that what takes place online is out of their purview, Kanaval said that "when something becomes disruptive to learning, then it becomes our responsibility to deal with the issue. The whole country right now is wrestling with this."

In spring 2010, a New Jersey middle school principal advised his school's parents to install parental control software, monitor their children's text messaging, and remove them from social networking sites. Children "are simply not psychologically ready for the damage that one mean person online can cause," principal Anthony Orsini wrote.

He sparked a national tidal wave of reaction. But he cited his observations behind his edicts: more students showing signs of depression, missing class to see counselors, and wanting to hurt themselves because they thought they were friendless.

For adults, Krueger said the challenge is to help alter the online conversation and not to ban the technology.

"A lot of parents say, 'If you're getting bullied, just don't go on Facebook,' " said Tzvia Cahn, a senior at Kehillah Jewish High School in Palo Alto. But it's not that easy. As the basis for social and even academic interaction, she said, "Facebook is an important part of being in high school."