Technology & Innovation - Issue 11

“We can’t lecture them” I started teaching in 2017, and can still vividly remember the reaction whenmy new school at the time found out I had an active YouTube presence. Their worry was that the kids would find me and comment onmy videos, but I told them that I planned to continue posting; that my social media use had no effect onmy teaching, and was eventually able to reassure them. As it turned out, my YouTube uploads slowed down a lot once I qualified, thoughmy pupils later inspired me to make more, after finding the ones I’d posted previously (which wasn’t hard). These were kids who were hugely talented in many different areas, and would often post their own videos showcasing their respective skills at art, music and all these other practical disciplines – but they rarely seemed to encourage each other in showcasing their talents. ‘Quickfix’ scrolling When lockdown happened, I could see how hard the situation was on our pupils, especially those from backgrounds where home wasn’t necessarily a nice place to be at times. Seeing that class divide inspired the observations I write about in my book, I’mRich, You’re Poor . I was seeing these distinct patterns of behaviour and changes in kids’ personalities, which seemed to accelerate during lockdown. My students were becoming evenmore reliant getting those ‘quick fixes’ of social media scrolling and looking to influencers as role models. Those influencers weren’t just causing the kids to question howmuchmoney they had – they were now comparing nearly every aspect of their lives with what they saw on influencers’ videos. So my response was to make videos mocking influencers, and all the careful filtering, altering and curating that surrounds what they do. I wanted to avoid simply saying in the book that ‘social media is bad’ – and I’ve always avoided saying that in the themed talks and assemblies I’ve since given on the subject at my school and others in the local area. That’s partly because I can’t, in good faith, use social media myself while condemning it, but also because social media isn’t just bad. It can be good, brilliant even – but for many people, and especially older generations, it’s an easy scapegoat to point to for explaining why so much has gone wrong across wider society, instead of addressing real problems – like the ongoing austerity measures, and numerous other issues currently affecting education. Filtered and altered If we want to meaningfully talk to young people about their social media use, then we can’t lecture them. Before delivering my own assemblies on social media, I’d watch some given by colleagues – who would often go straight in with, ‘ Let’s talk about your Facebook privacy settings. ’ They’d refer to platforms by the wrong names, and even then, they’d be platforms the kids typically didn’t use anyway. Telling pupils how dangerous X or Facebook could be was never going to work. When I present on the topic of social media, I’m doing so as someone who’s personally invested in it. I open with, ‘ Social media is brilliant. I use it and I love it. ’ I’ll start with the positivity, and only then go into the issues surrounding internet safety, privacy and bullying, and show howwe can all stay safe online while helping to make social media better . Today’s kids have grown up in a world where the impacts of the internet and social media are well known. They’ve seen what online negativity looks like, and its implications for bullying – but also how social media can be used to to build positive movements and communities. To be clear, many people aren’t yet using it well enough, and there’s still progress to be made – but we’re getting there. There’s far more awareness now of just how filtered and altered influencers’ lives actually are, which is great. People my age often couldn’t see past how beautiful some personalities looked, and how perfect their lives seemed to be. There’s now a much larger, and growing number of people who know those worlds aren’t real. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Shabaz Ali is a secondary school chemistry teacher, comedian and author of the book I’m Rich, You’re Poor (Dorling Kindersley, £14.99); he continues to post on Instagram and TikTok as @Shabazsays Chemistry teacher and online comedian Shabaz Ali reflects on what students are taught about social media at school “There’s still progress tobe made – butwe’re getting there” 66 teachwire.net