Teaching Privacy Ethics
With younger children, the best approach is to have a clear and consistent set of rules, both at home and at school, about sharing other people’s content.

With younger children, the best approach is to have a clear and consistent set of rules, both at home and at school, about sharing other people’s content.

Questions about media violence have populated the headlines for almost as long as mass media has existed. Every few years, there’s a new line up of suspects: music, social media platforms, video games, television shows and movies.

Body image concerns have been documented in children as young as three,[2] but it’s adolescents who appear to be most at risk for developing unhealthy attitudes towards their bodies based on this perception.

The Nova Scotia English arts education curriculum includes expectations that incorporate media education themes. The curriculum document Foundation for the Atlantic Canada English Language Arts Curriculum: Arts Education (2001) includes a section that demonstrates the complementary relationship between media literacy and arts education:

Media education in the British Columbia Social Studies curriculum is addressed in the currilum organizer Skills and Processes of Social Studies. Media analysis is also identified as a consideration for program delivery.

“Advertising has always sold anxiety, and it certainly sells anxiety to the young. It’s always telling them they’re losers unless they’re cool.” (Mark Crispin Miller, The Merchants of Cool, 2000)

In the 19th century, Métis leader Louis Riel reportedly predicted: “My people will sleep for one hundred years. When they awaken, it will be the artists who give them back their spirit.” Most Indigenous groups in Canada have relied on the oral tradition to convey an idea, message or value.

Studies about the gendered aspects of sexting consistently show that while little criticism is attached to boys who send sexts, girls who do so are perceived as being sexually immoral: girls who sext are seen as using their sexuality to get public attention, while boys – even if their sexts become public – are assumed to be doing it only to get the attention of one prospective partner. [1]

The 7-9 English Language Arts (ELA) curriculum integrates the six strands of language arts: reading, writing, listening, speaking, viewing and representing. The program encourages the study and creation of a wide variety of text types and forms, including oral, print, visual and multimedia formats.

The Northwest Territories Department of Education, Culture and Employment adheres to the WNCP's Framework for English Language Arts which contains a strong media education component. At present, the department is in the process of implementing the WNCP framework at the Kindergarten to Grade 9 levels. For Grades 10-12, the department follows the Alberta curriculum for English Language Arts.