Mike DiMauro: It's time for a social media curriculum in our schools

Apr. 25—Questions to ponder:

How many social media platforms are you familiar with?

Do you understand which platforms your kids use regularly? What they're posting? To whom?

If the answer to those questions is no — as I suspect it is for most parents — how is it fair to the kids that adults use the punitive as a crutch before using the educational as an illuminative light?

I ask this in the wake of the Stonington Board of Education's recent decision to approve a new policy that would separate students from their cell phones next year at the middle school. It stands to reason that cell phones are a distraction hindering the learning process.

Ah, yes. The learning process. Lest we forget that it's the entire function of school. I'm intrigued that Stonington schools, through a research study by the University of Connecticut, will eventually provide the kids (and teachers, no doubt) education on topics such as digital footprint and identity, relationships and communication, cyberbullying, hate speech and news/media literacy.

This appears to be in proper proportion. If we are going to take away, we should provide as well. This is a fundamental part of the educational process.

One thing I've learned: Adults need to err on the side of education before regulation. We need to listen to the kids and teach them before judging them, lecturing them and punishing them. We cannot assume they know. They're kids. We are required to teach first and then assign rules and expectations. Middle school seems an appropriate place to begin the educational process about how cell phones — and social media by reasonable extension — fit into their lives.

Until we exhaust all methods to educate kids — and ourselves — about the layered vagaries of social media, we must be careful not to hide behind punitive measures whose rhetorical usefulness outweigh their bona fides. I'm fully aware that educating kids about their phones and social media ought to begin at home. We're also learning that abdication of parental obligation has replaced baseball as our national pastime.

Hence, it's past idealistic and a straight dive into Utopia to think that most parents are going to truly educate themselves about social media. That's why I'm hopeful that Stonington can be a beacon to champion a new social media curriculum for all our schools. Social media's influence on all of us — especially the kids — will keep growing. Teaching the kids how to use social media responsibly begins at home. But plans in place to augment our teachings with school instruction is a necessity, given social media's prevalence.

I'm sensitive to this because 1) I have a middle school-aged child; and 2) I've seen sports used frequently as a vessel for social media abuse. There's almost an example per day.

This past winter, an athletic director at a local school sent me copies of Instagram postings after two rival teams played a basketball game. Admittedly, some of it was clever. And some of it crossed the line. There was no author of the posts, other than to say it was the official Instagram site of a particular student section.

I thought about addressing it here. But it didn't feel right because the school whose players were being ridiculed hasn't exactly acted like the Waltons in the past either. The message would have been lost amid the finger pointing.

The larger point is that we need to get the kids thinking critically about a concept sociologist and author Brene Brown raised in one of her books: "Social media is like fire. You can use it to keep yourself warm and nourished or you can burn down the barn. It all depends on your intentions, expectations and reality-checking skills."

Aside from our educational basics, there's nothing more important today to teach kids than how to use social media properly. Or at least getting them to think about it. Acting punitively without offering any solutions betrays kids at their core.

I admit to deep disappointment with many of our local boards and their recent apocalyptic howls for more money. The guilty parties who spent COVID money on any programs other than one-time endeavors (as COVID money was basically a one-time endeavor) practiced dizzying levels of irresponsibility.

Here's one way to redeem yourselves: a deep dive into an educational model that teaches social media use. The kids need it. And so do the adults.

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro