Sex and pornography are topics many school districts consider off-limits. Sex education is rarely even discussed in the curriculum, much less offered to students. The Internet, on the other hand, is praised. With our current “technological society,” teachers and administrators are touting the vitality of the Internet as a source of information and are pushing for students to learn about how the computer can help them. Schools without computers and Internet put their students at a disadvantage - peer counterparts in other parts of Baltimore City are effectively learning and using the Internet to their advantage. So when sex and the Internet collide, staff and schools are at a stand still.
In an article the New York Times published Monday, one school in Missouri is feeling the heat because Internet filters are shielding students from pro-gay websites but not anti-gay ones. In conjunction with the Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000, school and district Web masters block certain sites and leave others unfiltered. Simple solution to be in compliance with the act – block the inappropriate sites; give access to the rest – right? Wrong! In Missouri, the problem arose when anti-gay sites were left unfiltered and pro-gay sites were blocked. While some may argue this is censorship, others argue that Web masters are simply protecting our children. So who is right? No one knows. Who decides which content is appropriate and which is not? No one knows. Just like the Internet itself, so many questions and answers are ambiguous and highly controversial.
This NY Times article sparked immediate interest because my school, a school in Baltimore City, uses website filters. While I can’t get on to YouTube to show short, educational videos, I can post pins on Pinterest and read a plethora of blogs. The filters most certainly block out pornography, but they also block out important news articles and sites that could help my students learn to research. Are Baltimore City web filters engaging in censorship, or are they just trying to protect our youth? And what about the kids who know how to override the blockers? Are website filters even effective? My students, mere fifth graders, know how to access all the content they desire – violent computer games, pornographic music and who knows what else in the school’s computer lab.
Perhaps if we stopped filtering our websites at school (with the exception of true pornography), we could begin a conversation with our students about sex and other controversial content that is in Cyberland and life beyond the walls of the classroom. At home, our students live without filters, unless parents impose them. We need to gear our kids for the real world in a safe and healthy manner without making uncomfortable topics taboo – only then can we ensure that our schools are doing justice to our youth, turning them into citizens of the world with a keen understanding that the Internet is a platform for free speech and free surfing.
3 comments:
Katie,
I have ran into a similar problem with essential cites being blocked by the city. About a month ago I was writing papers with my students and I also wanted to teach my students how to use a word processor as a tool to make their writing more professional. One problem that I ran into was how do I get my students to save their work because the papers required research first, and several drafts which was of course impossible to complete in just a day. I had tried and failed to get students to save their work directly on the computers. Students from other classes would sometimes open, alter or delete the work. In addition to this I wasn't guaranteed that I would have access to the same computers from day to the next. The solution I saw was for my students to learn how to save their work on the internet. This way they could access it from anywhere. The summer prior I had been introduced to a website called edmodo which allowed students to create individual accounts under the teachers account and here students could save, alter and even turn in electronic assignments to the teacher. Edmodo even allowed me to communicate and even send to them documents. Only problem was... you guessed it edmodo was blocked. I petitioned to get it unblocked and even had my principal send the IT department a message requesting for us to gain access to edmodo. All these efforts however failed. My principal ended up providing his login and password to temporarily unblock the site for my students to use it. This was a logistical nightmare, before each class I had to unblock 20 something computers because the temporary access only lasted for 180 minutes. I wish there was a better system. I really like your solution unblock everything but actually pornography and offer courses to teach our students how responsibly use the internet.
Katie,
I agree that there is something fishy going on with the IT wizard behind the curtain. In Baltimore County, ESPN.com and shopping websites are not blocked, however, educational research based websites (even one linked in the curriculum) often are. When I tried to request permission to the website, I encountered the same tumbleweed or cyber red tape. At the very least, I think that parents need to be brought into the discussion instead of some hidden committee playing IT God.
If families were included in some sort of technological conversation at the beginning of the year, I think that it could also open the floor to the topics of censoring at home, accessing research databases from libraries, and what parents would allow their children to look at without the medium of schools. I think that this could be a very fruitful conversation for our entire school community.
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