1. Students will listen, speak, read, write, view and represent to explore thoughts, ideas, feelings and experiences.
1.1 Discover possibilities
1.1.2 Experiment with language, image and structure
1.2 Extend awareness
1.2.1 Consider new perspectives
1.2.2 Express preferences, and expand interests
Overall Expectations: Related Issue 4: To what extent should my actions as a citizen be shaped by an ideology?
Specific Expectations:
Overall Expectations:
General Outcome B: Benefits Health
Specific Expectations:
Body Image
4) interpret and evaluate the impact of the media and peer influences on body image
Overall Expectations: Related Issue 4: To what extent should my actions as a citizen be shaped by an ideology?
Specific Expectations:
Level: Grades 9 to 10
About the Author: Matthew Johnson, Director of Education, MediaSmarts
Duration: 1 to 1 ½ hours
This lesson is part of the My Voice is Louder Than Hate program. This program was possible with financial contributions from Public Safety Canada’s Community Resilience Fund.
In this lesson, students explore how interacting through digital media can make it easier to hurt someone’s feelings and can make hurtful or prejudiced behaviour seem normal in online spaces. They learn how Canadian youth feel about and respond to casual prejudice online and then use the My Voice is Louder Than Hate tool to create a digital story that will help people understand that online hate hurts everyone who witnesses it.
Youth are often reluctant to “call out” their friends or peers who say or do prejudiced things online because they’re afraid that others might get mad at them or because they’re not sure if the person intended to be prejudiced. Putting someone on the spot for something they’ve said or done is more likely to make them feel guilty or angry and not likely to change their mind around the impact of their actions, and it can also make the situation about the person who’s “calling out” instead of what the other person said or did.
This lesson introduces students to the idea of “calling in” – reaching out to someone privately with the assumption that they didn’t mean to do any harm – and explores how this idea can be applied both to casual prejudice online and when responding to stereotyping and other negative representations in media. Finally, students explore the different benefits of “calling out” and “calling in”, and consider when the two strategies would be most appropriate.
My Voice is Louder Than Hate is a multimedia lesson resource designed to empower students in Grades 9 to 12 to push back against hate and prejudice in their online communities.
Recently our youngest, who is 14, decided she wanted to watch Keeping Up with The Kardashians.