AnnaKate Potter, co-president of the SDHS student council, sits with several area middle school students to discuss the potential dangers of social media and what actions they can take to stay safe.Teaching is as much about informing as it is about listening, or so seven Soddy-Daisy High School students discovered on Nov. 22 when they taught workshops at the annual STARS Conference at the Chattanooga Choo Choo.
The seven students were members of the SDHS Leadership program headed up by teacher David Sneed. While SDHS students had attended the conference before, they had never been invited to organize and teach a workshop.
STARS invites students from across Hamilton County schools to come together to discuss how they can improve the atmosphere of the school system. Topics this year included bullying, making students feel safe and able to focus in the classroom, and social media and its impact on the student body.
The seven SDHS representatives prepared a workshop on social media, which they presented to a group of area middle-schoolers. Each representative led a group of around five to eight younger students and had an open discussion about the potential dangers and risks involved in participating in social media.
“We had them try to determine what platforms were more safe and which ones were less safe,” said AnnaKate Potter, a senior at SDHS who is part of the Leadership program and co-president of the student government. “We had an interesting discussion; they brought up things I hadn’t even thought about.”