Teach42

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This article by the Rutland Herald has set off quite a few responses in the EduBlogoSphere. I’ve had the article open in my browser for about a week now as I’ve been trying to figure out exactly how I feel about it. I’m hoping that Brendan McKenna got some information wrong, and based on one of the quotes, it’s entirely possible.

First of all, the site that was specifically banned was MySpace.com. Yes, this site does provide a person with a blog engine of sorts, I would hardly call it a blogging site. It’s more of Friendster meets Yahoo 360. I’ve signed up for the site. I’ve explored it. I agree, it’s no place for middle school students. There are no structures in place to keep students away from lewd or sexual photos or profiles. There are groups there specifically for adults to discuss adult behavior (you can use your imagination) and no way to keep students out of them. In my opinion, it is definitely not appropriate for children. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of banning any site outright. I believe in teaching our students to surf intelligently and to use their best judgment regarding which sites to frequent. However, I completely understand why a school would ban this site and respect their right to do so. Odds are, I would probably react in exactly the same way if I were principal.

However, my support for this school’s action has nothing to do with blogging. After reading the article several times, I question whether the principal’s action had anything to do with blogging either.

Principal Sousa is quoted several times stating his concerns about student safety, something that I think everyone can agree about.

“It’s not so much a school concern as it is an issue for students and parents,” he said. “This site particularly was getting a lot of hits. It’s a blog site but they also post pictures and biographical information and then send each other notes.”

“As soon as someone has a name and a general geographic location, it can take an Internet predator 20 minutes to find their address and directions to their house,” he said. “Any time a teen puts their own photo or biographical information on a Web site, it’s something that parents at least need to know about.”

He mentions that it’s a blog site, but he doesn’t say that he has any issue with the blog portion of it. He focuses on the fact that students are putting their personal information on the site where any stranger can get access to it. I agree with him, that’s an extraordinarily bad idea.

So why does the reporter say that the school is banning blogging? Let’s take a look at the first few lines of the article:

Officials at Proctor Jr.-Sr. High School have banned access from school computers to an Internet site that students have been using to post to weblogs, or blogs.

Principal Chris Sousa said the decision to block the site from school was made because blogging is not an educational use of school computers.

What if Sousa said that MySpace.com is not an educational use of school computers and he also said that MySpace.com is a blog site among other things. Think the reporter might have connected his own dots there? I’ve read the short article several times now and I really don’t see anything that says the principal is against blogging itself in any of the direct quotes. In fact, it sounds like he’s deliberately not saying that. It sounds like he’s concerned for student safety and taking appropriate action. I know I’m speculating here, but it seems to me like the reporter is putting words in Sousa’s mouth.

So how do we know the truth? Considering that this is the information age, it took me 1.5 minutes to find the princiapl’s email address. I have since sent him an email asking him his thoughts about the article and pointing him to this post. Hopefully he’ll respond to me. I take everything I read on a blog with a grain of salt, always keeping in mind that it is being spun by the opinions of the author. Articles like this one remind me that we need to be just as skeptical with ‘mainstream’ media as well.