Texting education is coming to Canadian schools as part of a new curriculum that will inform teens of the dangers of sexually explicit messages, harassment, and other forms of wireless communication that can be harmful to others.
The pilot course, textED.ca, will be introduced to 100 7th grade classrooms this month with the launch of a full program in the fall as recently announced by the Canadian Centre for Child Protection and the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association. This initiative will be aimed at addressing what police have stated is an “education gap” that has caused youth to become vulnerable to text-related abuse.
Signy Aranson, who works with the Centre for Child Protection notes, “It doesn’t even have to pertain to an adult offender; we’re seeing so much harm come to adolescents within their own peer circle, whereby they’re sending nude images or inappropriate messages (by phone), and those are being transferred to a larger group of individuals.” The goal is to provide students with important information to prevent these acts from happening.
The Pew Research Center in a recent report found that 15% of teens aged 12 to 17 received nude photos or videos on their cell phones and a similar survey done by LG electronics suggested that number could be as high as 22%.
It is Canada’s hope that the textED.ca curriculum will address the risks and outcomes of this behavior along with other concerns like harassment, privacy issues, and “text-luring.”
Bernard Lord, president of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, wants teenagers to know that they can notify a trusted adult at any time if they are feeling threatened in any way.
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