-> "Greece, Fairport and Brighton schools have adopted policies
-> requiring
-> parents and student to sign forms saying they have talked about the
-> issue [darker side of Internet] and that students won't choose to
-> look at obscene material on the Internet."  Yeah, sure!  And while
-> they are in a candy store with lots of money in their possession,
-> they won't buy any candy either.
Well, it might've been helpful if they'd had some consequence
predetermined and written into the agreement, such as students losing
access to the medium and/or being required to write apologies, etc..
depending on the infraction. Knowing in advance that there are some
teeth in the agreement might help to deter some otherwise susceptible
students to behave.
Better yet, though, they should research some of the services for
schools and families that help to eliminate a large portion of the
inapporpriate materials, although nothing is full-proof.
-> At least one set of parents didn't sign it because their church
-> advised against it, Taylor said."  (Notice how the reporter couldn't
-> resist putting in something that seems to cast aspersions on
-> religious beliefs.)
Lamentable. :-(
-> You can find all of Shakespeare's metaphors for death quickly in an
-> electronic search of his works."  Hooray! And for how many high
-> school students would such information be relevant?
It might've been nice if they'd given a more pertinent example. However,
they often have only a limited amount of space for the article and can't
put in a lot of examples. Leave it to a reporter to put in something
that appeals to them and sounds snazy, rather than something more
useful. A good example why we should seek multiple sources of
information.
-> "Taylor said students only used the computer when he was in the
-> room--and
-> he recommends parents similarly be involved in Internet use at home."
-> Hope Sheila reads this.  Here she has grounds for believing that all
-> this increases distance between haves and have nots.  Internet use
-> requires fairly good computers and there is a monthly cost for such
-> access.  I personally, as a parent, resent such pressure from the
-> schools my children attend.
I'm not sure what reaction I'm supposed to have to this. While I
sometimes resent pressures put on our family from the school, I can't
really see that it is better to NOT have school Internet access (which
is really not so expensive anymore if the hardware is already on the
site). Also, from the short blurb that you post, I'm not sure that the
school is really trying to apply pressure to families to get on line at
home, or if you are just inferring it (I'm being cautious about whether
you've somehow changed the context by your editing and quote
selection...in the part that you quote I don't really see the school
advising parents to get Internet access at home. What I see is a caution
that IF there is Internet access at home, the parents see that the
children are supervised in their Internet activities. There is a
difference.)
As for the widening gap between the haves and have-nots...the school
should help to lessen this by allowing on-line access before and after
school or at other times outside of class. Or perhaps the community
could assist in access from the community public library, etc...
I'd be interested to hear comments from Ken Blystone on this, if he is
reading here still, since he has related before how his community (which
I believe has a significant lower-income population) helps enable access
for those who might otherwise not have it.
Sheila
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