Cybersecurity Education in Kindergarten

When I was a child, there was no need for cybersecurity because it was the early 1980s and there was no such thing as the Internet as we know it today. In the last twenty years the situation has turned around completely around — it is oftentimes difficult to determine who or what is real online and every day people come up with new scams to try to rip off people and steal everything from their identity to the contents of their bank accounts.

Many of the problems lay with many people who were of a certain age range when the Internet began becoming more and more popular. I was in my synagogue early the other day and someone, probably in his late seventies, asked someone else how exactly it was that Amazon worked and was it any good? After he said this I realized that I have been a customer of Amazon for seventeen years! People like this are extremely vulnerable to cyber scams and generally getting ripped off online.

In what seems to be an extremely clever offering from the Department of Homeland Security (They who have brought us shoe removal and long security lines at the airport is suggesting that students in the United States should receive formal education in Cybersecurity beginning from kindergarten and going all the way through graduation.

Now let us think about how this could possibly go wrong. Since it is the Department of Homeland Security that is making this suggestion, I can’t help but think that there may be more to this than just educating children on the importance of Cybersecurity and to prepare them for possibly working in that field.

What else could be taught in these classes? As it is, the Department of Homeland Security has plenty of people believing that by having liquids under three ounces in our bags is somehow protecting us from a terrorist attacks, ensuring that we cannot bring a good amount of quality shampoo, conditioner, or toothpaste. I am concerned that these classes might be conduits for more misinformation.

I suppose having a bit more education for our children about the importance of cybersecurity won’t be a bad thing in the long run — as long as it doesn’t have too much paranoid ranting with the good education.