Answers from a Utah County social media assignment are going viral
Mar 12, 2018, 6:33 AM | Updated: Mar 13, 2018, 12:35 am
PLEASANT VIEW – “Something I’ve tried to do all year is get to know the kids better,” Alpine School District teacher Skipper Coates said. “I try to spend that time getting to know the whole person.”
In Coates’ ninth grade science classroom, she uses index cards as a tool to learn about her students on a more personal level.
“(I’ve) gotten answers from them, sometimes anonymous, sometimes not.”
The latest question she posed to her pupils has people outside the classroom taking notice. She passed out a card to each student and asked them to finish the sentence: “what my parents don’t know about social media is _____”
Coates said the majority of the replies were concerning and showed her the “gravity” of the matter.
Most of the answers centered around two things: bullying and nudes.
Coates said these things are happening at school and are happening every day.
“Girls getting asked for nudes in the middle of the school day, get a hall pass, run to the bathroom, send a nude. And it’s happening all day long.”
Out of 120 ninth graders, she got 85 revealing responses, including admissions of selling drugs, catfishing, bullying and more.
Coates said she felt obligated to bring these responses to light. She wanted to make parents aware of what is going on in their kids’ online world and spark a conversation towards a solution. She posted some of the cards on her Facebook page.
“The adults of the community we need to band together we need to use every resource we have and we need to help this generation navigate something that we’re total strangers to.”
