RENO, Nev. (KOLO) – “In Washington, we call it a train. Frankly, I call it leveraging the best resource we have, which is our teachers,” said White House National Cyber Director Harry Coker Jr., who is evaluating efforts by Nevada’s middle and high school teachers to incorporate cybersecurity into their curriculum. “Whether it’s computer science, mathematics or life science, it shows the scope and breadth of cybersecurity.”
Teachers will participate in the annual Symposium of Research Experiences for Teachers for six weeks, focusing on social networking, hackers, AI, and protecting social identity; the tools used to transform the digital realm of the future.
“You guys are so amazing. You take the foundational courses that we’re allowed to teach and then you get to build on that knowledge with first-hand experience,” said Carolyn Hughes, a middle school and high school teacher for 12 years, a graduate of the RET program and well known for her efforts in teaching students cyber.
“In the classroom, Carolyn focused on developing students’ problem-solving skills that will benefit them no matter what career path they choose,” said Coker, who praised Hughes’ efforts to teach students about cyber.
“That’s really important and interesting when you’re dealing with students ages 13, 14 to 18. It’s really interesting to me that they don’t understand how at risk they are online and how vulnerable they are.”
Last week, the global technology outage caused by CrowdStrike halted operations at major technology companies and disrupted transportation and banking, showing just how interconnected we all are. Director Corker told me that going forward, the burden will be less borne by consumers. “We’re shifting the responsibility for securing cyberspace from those least able to do so to the users – our kids, our churches, our schools. We’re shifting it to those most able to do so – the federal government and the big technology companies.”
The director said the current media environment is complex, interconnected and competitive. A shift in responsibility may be coming soon, but now is not the time to let our guard down.
“The lifestyle, the quality of life that Americans have become accustomed to and the lifestyle that we all deserve is built on a digital ecosystem that we have to make open and secure and trustworthy for everyone. So everything from work to play and everything in between touches this digital foundation. That’s why it’s so important.”
There are a ton of cybersecurity jobs out there right now. There are nearly 500,000 open cyber jobs in the U.S. — 4,000 in Nevada and about 300 here in Reno. And Director Coker says we need to fill those jobs with qualified people.
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