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Home / News & Publications / Michigan Catholic News / 2007 / Cyber safety

Joe Kohn of The Michigan Catholic
Published October 19, 2007

Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic Eighth-graders (from left) Aaron Hess, Kelly Campbell and their classmates from St. Edith School in Livonia use the school’s computer lab for research papers. Catholic schools are helping educate students and parents about the dangers young people face in cyberspace.

Metro area — In simpler times, parents and teachers would warn children about talking with strangers, tell them to be nice to their peers, and teach them that stealing is simply wrong.

While such golden rules may be as clear as day in a classroom, at the mall or at a friend's house, Catholic educators are letting parents know that life on the Internet is vastly different.

"Just because you can do it on the computer, it doesn't mean you should," says Sue Linetzky, technology coordinator and computer teacher at St. Hugo of the Hills in Bloomfield Hills. "We talk about ways to stay safe (on the Internet). We talk about cyber bullying. We talk about presenting positive images of yourself online. And we talk about how nothing goes away — once it's on the Internet, it's archived somewhere."

At St. Hugo, as at many other schools in the Archdiocese of Detroit, principals and teachers are teaching not just students but also parents that the Internet is often, indeed, another world young people live in.

And in cyberspace — though it can be a powerful research tool and help cultivate any number of passions — it's easier than in real life to bully, to be bullied, to steal, to encounter pornographic and violent images, or even to meet a dangerous stranger.

Though the Archdiocese of Detroit doesn't commit itself to any single solution when it comes to teaching school and parish communities about safety on the Internet, there are several ways Catholic leaders in the Detroit area have addressed the issue.

A handful of schools have signed on to a new program set forth by Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox. The program, which teaches students and parents Internet safety through seminars, was started in response to a growing number of criminals who use the Internet to lure children, most commonly for sex crimes.

"We are never going to arrest our way out of this problem because, unfortunately, there are just so many people out there using the Internet to hurt children," said Rusty Hill, spokesman for the attorney general's office.

Hill says that child predators online are skilled at befriending children through chat rooms and instant messages.

"They play off some normal human emotions," he says, "such as 'Your parents don't understand you, but I do.' Slowly, they begin to draw a child into their confidence."

The problem of Internet predators is especially prevalent when it comes to sex crimes — of which the Church is increasingly vigilant in recent years. Michigan Court of Appeals Judge Michael Talbot, chairman of the archdiocesan board that reviews cases of sexual abuse of minors, says the Church takes a special interest in Internet safety as a way to protect children from abuse.

"We are committed in terms of sexual abuse of young people to its prevention… so we are committed to doing anything we can to prevent that from happening," said Judge Talbot, who added that material on the Internet can lead to "terrible victimization" that many parents aren't aware of.

Joe Kohn | The Michigan Catholic St. Edith teacher Dorothy Korzym says students need to be on the lookout for Internet dangers, ranging from plagiarism to music piracy to bullies and even child predators.

Talbot and other representatives of the Archdiocese of Detroit recently attended a seminar on Internet safety hosted by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. Many government agencies, from the Federal Bureau of Investigations to local county sheriff's offices, also provide training and tips for keeping young people safe on the Internet.

Although the nightmare Internet scenario involves a child sexual predator, there are many less serious, more common dangers on the Internet, too:

• identity theft, in which someone's personal identity or even credit cards are used by another,
• bullying, when children find it easier to insult peers while hiding behind an e-mail address or Internet screen name,
• and stealing — such as plagiarism and illegal music downloads, which can lead to costly lawsuits and, more importantly, violates the Seventh Commandment ("Thou shall not steal").

Dorothy Korzym, who teaches eighth graders at St. Edith School in Livonia, says bullying is probably the most popular problem encountered by students on the Internet.

"Over the years, I have had students who have had their feelings hurt," said Korzym. "I've had students who have been upset and have done poorly in school because of different interactions that have happened on the computer the night before."

Korzym says St. Edith takes special care in letting the students know that they have somewhere to go when things get out-of-hand on a computer screen.

"So many times, they don't know where to go," she says. "We need to get out there so they have someone to go to if they get in a situation that they can't deal with, and I think we need education more in that certain area."

St. Edith eighth-grader Kelly Campbell said she's seen arguments on the Internet first-hand. It's much easier to fling insults over the Web, she says.

"It's definitely easier," Kelly said. "When you're talking to someone face-to-face, you're not going to say some of the mean things you might say over the Internet."

For schools, an entire industry has been developed to provide software and educational programs to keep students safe and civil on the Internet. Many schools have software that prevents students from logging onto obscene or inappropriate Web sites. Other software exists to track what sites students visit.

iSAFE Inc., a nonprofit organization based in Carlsbad, Calif., has sold its educational programs in all 50 states and a number of foreign countries. Jeff Godlis, communications director for the company, says iSAFE teaches students from kindergarten to high school that the Internet is just like any other public forum.

"Cyberspace is actually another community," Godlis says. "There are ways to be a good cyber citizen, and there are appropriate behaviors. There are ways to e-mail. There are appropriate and inappropriate things to say."

One of the biggest issues in the Internet safety industry, he adds, is bridging the gap between what children understand about using the Internet and what parents must know to keep them safe.

"(Young people) are comfortable with the technology," Godlis says. "So in all of this, no one's given them a user's manual. You wouldn't put a young person in a car and say, 'Just go, but be careful' — but that's what we do with the Internet."

And since most parents are better versed at driving than surfing the Web, parents often have catching up to do.

Still, even the most prepared parents and alert students acknowledge that online, where everyone's veiled with a pseudonym of some kind, the safe path can be tricky to follow.

St. Edith eighth-grader Megan Rieghmiller knows this. With tech-savvy parents and an uncle who's a police officer, she's heard all kinds of stories about what could go wrong while chatting on the Internet. And although she's cautious enough to not talk to strangers through a computer screen, she says there's always guesswork involved.

"It's a little bit scary, because sometimes I don't really know if I'm talking to my friends," Megan says. "I hope I'm talking to my friends — but I guess you never really know."

Related Link:

• Internet Child Safety Resources