When my son was in high school and got in trouble I gave him two choices: Give me your cell phone or give me your car keys. He didn’t even hesitate: ‘Here’s my car keys, dad; I can live without my car, I can’t live without my cell phone.’
— Kent Mollberg
TAHS student body gets an important crash course in cyber safety
By Per Peterson
Tracy Area High School is in the first year of a policy that bans cell phones from the classroom. The school’s efforts might have gotten a shot of support thanks to a retired teacher who lives four hours north of Tracy.
TAHS students — many slaves to ever-changing social technology — filled the gymnasium bleachers Friday morning for an earful on cybersafety and digital citizenship.
“Kids are making some tough choices — some bad choices — with technology,” said Kent Mollberg, a retired teacher and coach from Detroit Lakes, whose family has been affected by negative social influences in the past. “You’re making a lot of bad choices.”
Mollberg used a number of videos to convey myriad points about the crushing personal side-effects of things like phishing, cyberbullying, textual harassment, sexting, Internet identity theft, online predators and Internet shaming.
For more on this article, see this week’s Headlight-Herald.