Beyond School

Photo: “Panic Bear T-Shirt” by Spirals on Flickr, via Everystockphoto.com

[Update 5OCT07: This post accurately captured my feelings about filtering and blocking, but didn't express my absolute respect for, seriously, the best principal I could ever hope to work with. So to be clear, this is in no way an ad hominem, and I regret my inability at the time of writing to make that clear. More here, including a happy ending.]

Please feel free to spread, print, post, and revise this on your own blogs and emails.

Background: This is the first administrative “all faculty” email to be sent after our Web 2.0 Staff Development day:

“Re: Everystockphoto.com

Just a heads up. There are nude photos on this site so be very, very cautious about using this site with students. I would hold off on using it until we see if we can filter content.”

I sent this reply, “all faculty” as well:

SUBJECT: Block Google, YouTube, and Ning: NUDITY

Everystockphoto is a SEARCH ENGINE. It only shows non-copyrighted content, which means no violation of law when students go there for images in their PowerPoints, etc.

If they go to Google SEARCH ENGINE, they steal copyrighted photos for their projects, which is intellectual dishonesty and commercial violation of law.

Hmm. Break the law with Google, or use a solution with a copyright-free version (but also see boobs, which as far as I know are legal). Decision: use Google.

But wait: If you put “boobs” in GOOGLE SEARCH, you’re going to see nudity there too. So the “block or filter sexuality from the universe” approach means NO MORE GOOGLE AT SCHOOL.

And NO MORE YOUTUBE. It has nudity too, if that’s what you’re searching for.

In fact, NO MORE SEARCH ENGINES PERIOD. No more Yahoo, MSN. Nudity there.

[My administrator's name], shut down the HS Staff Ning site you started. If you search for sex on Ning, you’ll find plenty of it. Block Ning. We can’t use it any more.

Avoiding sexuality leads to this, really: No more internet. We’ll just use the laptops for Word documents and Groupwise. You can control that.

No more bookstores either. They have Playboy in them. All kids have to do is search for it, they’ll find nudity in a bookstore.

Sorry, [our librarian's name], no more library. The library has books with sex scenes in. (Read Gilgamesh, the new version, in our library. Or look at any photographic artist’s book. The nude is a favorite of classical art. No more classical art. Let’s cover up Michelangelo’s David, or just block it.)

***

Yes, I’m passionate about this.

It’s the worst strain of American sexual weirdness and Puritanism, and it has teachers in America that I read or talk to daily pulling their hair out.

They can’t use blogs, wikis, YouTube, Flickr, Ning any of the things we’re able to use here.

Europe and Asia don’t have the same hangups America has. But because we’re Americans IN Europe and Asia, we’re carrying those hangups with us and spreading our Nothing Educational If Chance of Boobs Involved hysteria around the world.

If we stop and think, we can export America’s best products - things like the internet, Skype, del.icio.us, YouTube, etc - around the globe, WITHOUT infecting global education with the worst of America’s neuroses and hangups.

This is a VERY American thing. The rest of the world - and I lived in Europe for four years, Shanghai for 5, and studied Arabic for a two years with ten professors from all over the Arab world I came to know well - the rest of the world LAUGHS at America.

Only in America would a large percentage of the population say “Politicians who have sexual lives should not be allowed to serve.” (Examples: pick your latest congressman - Republican or Democrat - or remember Clinton. Bush was “better” because he played to the same Puritanical crowd we’re talking about playing to by BLOCKING and FILTERING. He may not lead to many “sex” links, but if you Google “Bush” and “disaster,” he’ll have far more hits than Clinton. Or “Bush” and “unconstitutional” and “illegal.” But non-nude crimes aren’t scandalous, I guess.)

We should be having discussions about Authrorized Use Policies, Responsible Use, etc - not about simply blocking everything that has images of human reproductive or mammalian organs.

And we should be INVITING parents and students to join those discussions, not trying to avoid the inconvenience with a crippling decision.

I understand the admin’s desire to avoid parent complaints. But filtering and blocking as a first response will lead the 1:1 program down the wrong road.

This is such a crucial issue.

I’m trying to make a point about the slippery slope you’re entering with this email. It threatens to paralyze the whole potential of 1:1 because a few parents (hypothetical, I might add) think avoiding sex is more important than embracing expanded educational power.

Those hypothetical parents have children, by definition. How scandalous. They must have had sex. We should block them from our school.

Clay

What a horrible email to wake up to after a week of fairly sleepless planning for staff development.

If you like this post, please spread it:

1. Post-Rant: A Happy Ending (or, "The Iron Team Lives On")
2. Open Invitation to Join the Conversation at Our AP Literature Ning
3. Refining the Message: A Re-Post and Self-Check on Fear and Irrelevance in Education

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