Treat Others with Respect

Don’t Feed the Trolls by previous middle and high school teacher, Karen Work Richardson, is a very informative article that focuses on the use of blogs by students in order to help facilitate discussions among themselves, allow themselves to see others’ perspectives on different issues, and allow them to better understand key concepts, all while treating their peers with dignity and respect. Richardson’s area of focus is curriculum and educational technology; she believes civil discourse is a very important concept for students to learn; her philosophy is that while people do not always agree, they need to learn how to disagree, civilly. The article states that teachers should first explain the rules for civil discourse to their students, then allow them to put those rules into practice. When conversing with other students online, it is important for students to remember that they are communicating with an actual person, and therefore, they need to be careful with their words in order to not offend anybody. Because blogs are online and not face-to-face, they allow students more opportunities to reflect on what it is they posted and what it is their peers posted. Allowing students to practice appropriate civil discourse will help them learn how to better treat their peers both online and in person.

I believe this article is extremely significant because we live in a very technological time. In today’s world, young people spend a great deal of time utilizing technology, via their smart phones, their Ipads, or their laptops. Because they spend so much time online communicating with others, I feel it is very important that they know what is and isn’t appropriate behavior. I learned quite a bit from reading this article; I now realize the importance of teaching young people about civil discourse and I now know some key factors I can teach my future students about in regard to this topic. I feel like Richardson was very thorough in her description of the issue of civil discourse that is at hand.

In the future, when I have my own students, I will teach them about civil discourse as well. I believe it will be extremely important to explain to my students and demonstrate for my students' appropriate behavior when it comes to communicating with others, especially via cyberspace.   

Richardson, K. (2008). Don't feed the trolls. Learning & Leading with Technology, (May), 12-15.