6 Ways to Engage Students About Workplace Safety

Try "Shock Therapy" to Drive Home Safety Lessons to Students

Let’s face it – safety is a difficult subject to teach. It’s not glamorous; indeed, the curriculum is usually technical and cumbersome.

And although workplace safety is one of the most important things students will learn in high school, it’s probably one of the least memorable.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

After talking to hundreds of teachers across North America about their best safety teaching practices, the MySafeWork team has come up with six tips that will help engage your students in this discussion and that will ultimately help keep them safe on the job:

Tip #1. Use shock value. Every day, students are bombarded with an inordinate amount of knowledge. Sometimes the only way to have them engage with the material being presented is to shock them into listening. Using resources like those horrific "there are no accidents" PSAs put out by Prevent-It/WSIB can help promote interesting dialogue and may even engage those who otherwise would have zoned out (such as students who love horror movies J )

Tip #2. Tell real stories to engage students emotionally. Most teachers know that unless learning is tied to experience of one’s own or others – in the real world – the information doesn’t stay in students’ brains longer than the final exam. Investigating true stories of students injured or killed on the job will help connect and drive home the tragedy, and make learning prevention a little more urgent to youth.

Tip #3. Use relevant statistics to bring credibility to the topic. Because the media rarely reports on workplace safety, most students don’t have the subject on their radar. While statistics about workplace safety can be informative, many of the numbers are so staggering that they are irrelevant. You can use specific and the most up-to-date safety stats to move the discussion out of the realm of abstraction.

For example, when telling how one out of every seven students will be injured at their workplace, ask every 7th student in the class to stand up.

Tip #4. Appeal to students’ self-absorption. Respect is an issue that resonates with most young people, so talk to them about workplace safety from that perspective. (For example, “Your employer is not respecting you when he/she asks you to do unsafe work or expects you to start a job without orientation and training).

Tip #5. Appeal to their sense of social responsibility. In the 21st century, it has become fashionable to care, and carry on about, social issues. Celebrities have become environmentalists, AIDS research advocates and Third World supporters, showing young people that it’s OK to stand up for a cause you believe in. By teaching about safety as a social issue and encouraging students to advocate for change – you’ll get your students to interact on a deeper level and you’ll empower them to care passionately about the “new green” cause: workplace safety.

Tip #6. Reward good questions. Because you obviously cannot talk about every possible hazard, you need to help students practice asking the right questions before they begin employment and continue while they work. Set up mock job interviews and on-the-job scenarios where students must ask employers about safety standards. Reward students who ask good questions – gift cards work well, as does verbal praise. Note to the class that these are the students most likely to survive and keep their good health.