

“I’ve worked at schools that had sex bets. Students would see who could sleep with the most students, and share photos to prove it.”
When I asked a group of high-school teachers about their experiences with sexting, this was just one of the anecdotes that emerged.
There were further examples of inappropriate photos being circulated, cyberbullying, students recording fights and sharing footage online, photos being taken in bathrooms without consent, and teachers being filmed without their knowledge.
While high schools have always been a minefield, today’s battleground looks markedly different to what it did a decade ago.
Those responsible for educating our young people are faced not only with the challenges of what can occur in the classroom and in the playground, but also what goes on in their pockets.
Inside the fabric of their uniforms sits a portal into an entire world no single person can control. A social network that’s exponential. A cycle of communication that doesn’t end. A camera with the ability to capture a moment and make it immortal.
The new frontier for teachers and parents is navigating how the ubiquitous aspects of teenage life – sex, bullying, identity, relationships, gender dynamics – now play out using a different tool.
It’s undoubtedly changed the role of teachers, asking them to both understand the impact of bad behaviour online, and find effective ways to resolve it. So how does sexting impact schools in 2019? And how are teachers responding?
Maria*
Year 7 teacher in an independent, co-ed school
Maria teaches 11 and 12 year olds, and tells Mamamia that even at that age, “students are sending nude pictures of themselves and others”.
“We’ve had girls share photos with friends, as well as with boys,” she says. “It’s not always that the image gets shown to a large group of people – sometimes a student will come to us and tell us that they know there’s an image that’s been sent.”
When it comes to the taking and sharing of explicit photos among young people, Maria says “they need to know the seriousness of laws around sexting”.
They seem to just not be aware, she says, of the implications their actions can have.
Emily*
Year 7-12 teacher in a public, co-ed school
Emily says in her experience, sexting often goes hand in hand with “terrible statements made as forms of bullying”.
“It blows up,” she says. It rarely affects just the students involved, and she feels like she needs to navigate it on a case-by-case basis.
She adds that in the past, parents haven’t always been helpful. “We’ve had parents openly saying very inappropriate things via social media when we’re trying to sort out sensitive school issues,” she says. It means there’s an uncomfortable tension between who’s responsible – the school or the parents.
Troy*
Year 7-12 teacher in a public, co-ed school
Troy has had to deal with “non-consensual sharing of nude images resulting in police involvement”, which he says is a far cry from what he thought he’d be doing when he went into teaching.
“It’s a whole new world,” he says. “We’re learning at the same time as kids are engaging in the behaviour.”