Workshop teaches kids a lesson in cyber safety

By Mike Hoeft
mhoeft@greenbaypressgazette.com

Cyber numbers • 90 percent of people younger than 18 — about 21 million youths — surf the Internet. That’s expected to rise to 47 million youths by 2005. • 1 in 5 kids receive an unwanted sexual solicitation online. • 1 in 4 kids are exposed to pornography online. • There are 10,000 child-porn Web sites. • There are 3,000 hate-group Web sites promoting racial violence, anti-Semitism, homophobia or terrorism.

KESHENA — Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t take rides from people you don’t know.

For years, parents have instilled those messages in kids in an effort to thwart child abusers.

Now kids are learning that the same basic warnings apply when they enter cyberspace.

“The Internet gives predators a new playground,” said Keith Tourtillot, Menominee tribal police chief. “Kids must learn to be cyber civilians and recognize the danger flags.”

Tourtillot spoke Monday to 115 fifth-graders — some from the Menominee Tribal School and others from the Menominee Indian School District — as part of a new Internet safety program starting nationwide.

Menominee Tribal Chairman Lisa Waukau said that with gaming running 24 hours a day at the Menominee Bingo & Casino, many parents work staggered shifts and are not able to watch their children’s Internet use.

“Predators look for the most vulnerable people — our children,” she said.

I-Safe America is being launched in 25 states this year. Monday’s presentation in Keshena was the first such workshop in Wisconsin. Congress approved $3.5 million to implement the program nationwide K-12.

“We’ve got to arm our youths with critical decision-making skills to keep them safe,” said Suzanne Stanford of I-Safe, based in Carlsbad, Calif.

The Internet is a powerful tool in helping students on the rural reservation about 50 miles west of Green Bay.

The Menominee Tribal School, run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has about 140 computers for its 250 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“It’s best to start the kids when they’re young,” said Regina Warrington, school technology coordinator.

There’s nearly one computer for each of the 1,050 students in the Menominee Indian School District, and all computers are hooked to the Internet, said Superintendent John Rothlisberg. The district has about 350 students each in the primary, middle and high school.

The school’s computers have filters that block access to inappropriate Web sites, said senior Bill Duquain, 17.

But computers outside of school don’t necessarily come with restrictions on their use.

During the workshop, the fifth-graders were asked if they used the Internet at home. Half the kids raised their hands.

“I play games and stuff at my grandma’s house,” said Dawson Latender, 10, of Neopit.

The fifth-graders were shown video clips about a 13-year-old killed by someone she met on the Internet and a 14-year-old girl kidnapped by an online predator.

The kids were urged not to give out personal information to strangers and to tell an adult if someone tries to get them to do something or go somewhere.

Asked what she learned at the workshop, Cassandra Tucker, 11, said: “Don’t talk to people you don’t know.”

U.S. Rep. Mark Green, R-Green Bay, who helped secure funding for the I-Safe program, said the Internet holds great promise but also great peril.

“We need to raise awareness that it also can be a tool to hurt people,” said Green, who has children ages 12, 9 and 7.

“This is a giant step in the right direction,” he said.

Sources: Journal of American Medical Association, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Simon Wiesenthal Center

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