School Internet filters
Nathan Robinson, 16, was pulling together the horoscopes for the student newspaper when he ran into an eye-opening problem: The school’s Web filter blocked him from getting any information on astrology because it fell under the state’s filter for cults and nonmainstream religions.Students taking the World Religions course at Pine View School in Osprey last semester had similar problems while researching assignments on Kabbalah, the latest religion in the news for being embraced by Hollywood celebrities.
The filter system administered by state education officials is meant to protect students across the state from violent, racist or pornographic material.
But a student activist group believes the system is blurring the line between protecting students and restricting their right to know about and research all types of religion.
well, the argument against school filters has always been that they restrict too much information. schools walk a fine line and i am sure they would rather block too much than not enough. sometimes though, i worry that students are being “protected” at the expense of learning how to safely navigate the internet. if schools think students are protected because of a filter then stuff that slips through might not be fully scrutinized for accuracy and/or content.
this week, i have my students visiting a website that is clearly not appropriate for the classroom because the authors preach hate and spew lies; however, they disguise the hatred enough that some students will be fooled. this is a great learning experience, but it’s this type of lesson that should be taught in the k-12 education. students need to learn to find valid information and to understand how to avoid inappropriate content, which is hard to do if the filter won’t allow one to fail. then again, no school wants to have that failure to have to explain to angry parents. ;~). bottom line . . . filters are the law so teachers need to learn to work around them. i just wish we had better filtering for schools. the problem will just grow and grow as the internet continues to grow and grow. i am keeping my eye on this one.
January 6th, 2006 at 4:46 am
Internet filtering is a waste of time, for one simple reason, it is likely to be taken too far. Where do we draw the line? Every human dislikes one thing or the ther. So each person in a position to impose censorship may take things too far.
In addition, if Internet filtering is allowed to take shape, it’d just be a step toward yet another area of the Internet that needs to be censored.
The real solution to censorship quagmire, is never to start it.