Navigating the Unavoidable: Why I Created This (Free) Resource
- Today To Tomorrow
- Sep 11
- 2 min read
As an educator, I'm constantly looking for ways to connect our curriculum to the real world my students live in. Curriculums around the world have long emphasized the importance of physical activity and healthy choices. However, it's increasingly clear that
"healthy living" today has to include digital well-being. The challenge, however, is that the online world presents a new kind of "safety risk"—one that is both pervasive and often unavoidable.
The tragic assassination of Charlie Kirk was a stark reminder of this reality. Suddenly, a violent, global event was instantly accessible, unfiltered, and potentially pushed into my students’ feeds, regardless of whether they were looking for it. It's a type of exposure that previous generations never had to deal with. This made me think: How do I equip my students to handle graphic, intense, or even traumatic content that might appear next to their friends' vacation photos?
My new presentation, "Navigating the Unavoidable: Processing Intense Online Content," is my attempt to address this challenge head-on. The curriculum has a strong focus on personal skills, like self-awareness and coping, and critical thinking. My goal was to take those foundational concepts and apply them to a situation that feels out of our control.
The presentation doesn't just re-state facts; it's designed to be a conversation starter. Through a hypothetical case study, it helps students identify the emotional and mental impact of content like war violence or genocides without being gratuitously graphic. It's about empowering them with concrete strategies: not just "avoiding" certain things online, but also "processing" them in a healthy way after exposure. This includes talking to a trusted adult, taking a digital break, and using the simple but powerful action of closing the page.
Ultimately, this resource is about helping my students understand that while they may not be able to control everything they see, they can control how they react. It’s a crucial step in building a resilient, healthy generation for the digital age. I will be exporting the presentation and speaker notes to Google Docs so my students have a copy they can refer back to.
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