One of our Cub Scout students gleefully showed me his brand-new compass. A compass is a fantastic contraption – almost magical. It points north because of something we cannot see:
Earth’s magnetic field. It is a consistent, unfailing mechanism, a quiet gift of creation that helps us navigate this wondrous planet.
For the faithful, it’s difficult not to see in it a reflection of God’s providence – an ordered system placed in the world to guide us.
I often think of this when I consider our students’ internal compasses. With increasing frequency, I find myself talking with them about what they believe is funny, normal or harmless behavior: a viral challenge to eat something dangerously spicy or destroy the property of another, a joke that mocks another culture or race. Not funny. Not harmless.
But they don’t see it that way at first. Why? Because we have placed prematurely in their hands a powerful tool – the internet – and it has scrambled their internal compasses.
Is the laughter joyful or unkind?
Some adults are able to measure what they encounter online against a well-formed moral sense, grounded in a strong foundation of faith and reason. Many of us learned, without today’s constant noise, to distinguish what is right from what is wrong, what is kind from what is cruel, what is worth saying and what should never be repeated.
But we cannot simply pass that discernment to our children through osmosis. We cannot assume they will “pick it up.” The phone and the internet are tools that many adults struggle to navigate wisely; for children and teenagers, the challenge is even greater.
Sometimes I sit with a student and watch a video they’ve quoted. Together, we look not just at the clip, but at what follows – the stream of suggested content filling the right column of the YouTube feed. We ask: Is that laughter genuine, born of joy, or is it masking something dark and unkind?
Again and again, I see that young students cannot tell the difference without guidance. An adult is laughing, so it must be funny. The video received many “thumbs up likes,” so it must be good. A girl who weighs zero pounds is presented as beautiful, so it must be desirable. A boy sits with scantily clad girls draped about him, so he must be successful. And slowly, imperceptibly, our children’s sense of “true north” begins to shift.
Are our own compasses tilted?
Many of us, if we’re honest, walk around with compasses that are slightly off – tilted this way or that by the influences we’ve absorbed. An internal compass, like the physical one aligned to Earth’s magnetic field, is a gift from God. It deserves protection, attention and care.
The world has a powerful ability to disrupt that alignment. When it comes to children, we carry a responsibility to clear away what interferes, to guide them patiently by dedicating time to the realignment of our own compasses to true north – the place where faith, virtue and a clear understanding of right and wrong can take root and grow.
Dr. Antonette Aguilera is principal of St. Pius X School in Greensboro.