Hooked on Facebook

Hooked on Facebook

Josh Gunderson challenged Grand Isle County students in grades 5-8 to behave more safely this past week during a humorous and relevant presentation at Grand Isle School.  With over six years experience in educational theatre, Josh has a completely different way of delivering an educational message. It is his firm belief that learning doesn't have to be
boring. Combining humor and sincerity, Josh gives real-life examples of the positives and negatives of the online world.  His abilities as a storyteller help create a presentation that
relates to all students.

The school assembly highlighted the importance of respectful Internet behavior and identified some of the potential risks associated with revealing personal information such as names, addresses, and phone numbers. Josh also instructed students to go home and to make sure that they personally know all of their friends on Facebook.  Josh asserted that adolescent students had an average of 200 friends and that 20-30% were people they had never met in person.  He also urged the students to consider the long-term implications of their online posts.

The presentation was infused with personal anecdotes that grabbed the students’ attention.  He stressed the importance and possible life-long consequences of risky behaviors like sexting, cyber bullying, and hate pages. Josh reminded students how to respond to bullying by not responding or retaliating against a bully. He said students should tell adults and stand-up for their friends. Finally, he persuaded students to save the evidence of bullying and present it to the principal with a, "Ka Pow--evidence!".

While this event had been planned well in advance of recent Vermont tragedies, the increase in teen suicides punctuate the importance of working with children to manage their feelings and concerns and to help them monitor their use of their technology. Josh cited the case of Phoebe Prince, who committed suicide a year ago, due to bullying and cyber bullying.

This presentation followed a series of efforts throughout Grand Isle County to protect children, which started with the Olweus anti-bullying program in 2003 and has included presentations by anti-bullying professionals and anti-bullying advocates, like John Halligan in 2009.  More information about Josh Gunderson is available at this website,

www.joshgunderson.com.