Ethics in the Digital Age
March 2011
Let me begin with a confession; my family is probably one of only a few families in Greensboro that does not have cable television. In fact, when television transmissions switched from analog to digital about a year ago, I had to go to Sears to buy a converter box. According to the salesman, I was the only person to purchase this device, and he had to suppress his laughter as he completed my $45 purchase.
Up to that point we had relied on rabbit ears for reception. (For those who might not know or remember, rabbit ears are the dual antenna that you probably last observed perched precariously atop your grandparent’s television.) Thus, while I am an advocate for technological innovation, I must confess that I often feel impossibly behind the times.
This feeling reaches its apogee when I see how adept our students are in their use of technology. Their aptitude reinforces the somewhat overwhelming feeling that no matter how feverishly I work, I will never be able to catch up.
I suspect that I am not the only adult who feels this way. While I don’t mean to impugn the technological sophistication of all adults- we have, after all, developed the high art of texting while driving- I know, too, that our level of sophistication falls impossibly behind that of our children. (If you feel differently, take a look at the video on YouTube of the two-year old manipulating an iPad for the first time. It is absolutely astonishing.) The label of “technological immigrant” holds true for most of us who were born in an age of Atari, the Commodore 64, and rotary phones. The internet is something that was created during our lifetime; our children have never known a world without it.
This disparity can leave us perpetually frustrated, especially when it comes to monitoring our children’s use of technology. Data indicate that most of our children have Facebook pages and that most parents have never viewed their child’s page. Perhaps this ignorance is a result of our inability to manipulate the technology. Perhaps it is an act of self-preservation; we avoid oversight because we are worried about what we will discover.
Lest we run the risk of feeling that all is lost and that technology is rendering obsolete our influence as parents, I encountered some words of wisdom recently that should give us hope. This past winter, I had the chance to hear the Rev. Daniel Heischman, the President of the National Association of Episcopal Schools, speak at a conference for Episcopal school educators. One of the things that Rev. Heischman acknowledged was the helplessness that adults often feel when trying to set boundaries within a technology realm that we often do not understand.
Rev. Heischman went on, however, to argue that we are not without influence because the values that adults have are more applicable now than they have ever been and that these values should operate as thoroughly within the technological realm as they do outside this realm. I might take this one step further to argue that if we fail to impose values within this realm then we also fail in our responsibility to our children.
For this reason, we are developing a new technology class that all of our middle school students will take next year that will not only teach the skills that they need to navigate our emerging curriculum and to function as productive high school students, but also the values that we expect as parents and as a school. While this step will not guarantee that technological usage will be devoid of any missteps, it will reinforce that the values we hope all of our students will possess do not vanish while they are online.
Rev. Heischman concluded his remarks by commenting that there is no better place than Episcopal schools for us to teach values. I believe this fully. In the face of our school’s progress with Smart Boards, desktops, laptops, iPods, iPads, GPS, and the myriad of other devices that our students now use on campus, it is reassuring to remember that adults still have a voice. We are fortunate to offer an education that reinforces the values that are so fundamental to the growth of complete children and to the development of an ethical world.