[HPFGU-OTChatter] Ginnie Weasly/COS and Internet Safety for Children

[Sarah Gipp]

On 6/23/05, Mhochberg at aol.com <Mhochberg at aol.com> wrote:
> 
>  I've been teaching students in grades 1-8 about Internet Safety for 
> several 
> years now and often compare Ginnie's "pouring her heart out to a stranger" 
> 
> in Riddle's diary to chatting with an online stranger. 
> 
> Recently, I included this idea in a weblog for teachers and school 
> technology reps.
> 
> _http://4jtilt.typepad.com/weblog/07_lesson_plan_ideas/index.html_ 
> (http://4jtilt.typepad.com/weblog/07_lesson_plan_ideas/index.html)<http://4jtilt.typepad.com/weblog/07_lesson_plan_ideas/index.html%29> 
> 
> Does anyone else see this connection? Or have more ideas that I could 
> integrate?
> 
> 
> Riddle even talks about listening to her "boring" thoughts just so she 
> will 
> trust him more. In safety-speak, this is called "grooming"--listening and 
> agreeing just so someone will trust you more. 

Yes, someone else definitely sees what you're talking about here - namely, 
JK Rowling herself:

<<<Rowling said she diary that villain Tom Riddle uses in book two to lure 
Harry into the Chamber of Secrets is like an internet chatroom.

JK said: "When I wrote that, I had never been in an internet chat room. It 
is very similar - typing your deepest thoughts into the ether and getting 
answers back.

"You don't know who is answering you."

The idea came from a childhood diary her younger sister, Dianne, confided 
in.>>>
 
http://www.quick-quote-quill.org/articles/2003/0303-sundaymail-staff.htm
 
Before I'd read that, though, I'd thought it might have been a reference to 
the act of writing a story. I started out writing original fiction, and 
later discovered fanfiction. When I write (at least, the way I write) I put 
a lot of myself - my faults, my beliefs, arguments with myself - into 
stories, and so, while it's not really intentional, I can't help but feel 
sometimes that there's more of me in the stories than there is of me in 
*me.*
 
On the topic of internet safety, I'm glad it's being taught to younger kids. 
I babysit two girls who are in third and fifth grade (I think) and sometimes 
they tell me about all the stuff they do online and I start to worry, 
because while I know not to give out certain information, these girls are 
not me. I'm naturally paranoid, and they're, well, not. And sure, I've never 
encountered a pedophile (that I know) or gotten into any trouble online, but 
it's better to be safe than sorry, to be cliched. And people on the internet 
can be far, far creepier than one would think *possible.*
 
~Kaesa


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