Kids and Web Filters
How ironic that the day after I turned in my paper on internet filters in public libraries then I read this article entitled, Kids outsmart Web filters. It burns me and cracks me up. It only burns me because I'm completely against web filtering and when I see quotes such as this:
"It's going to be the constant battle. No matter what you put up, kids are going to work around it," said Lynn Beebe, a school counselor in Scotts Valley, Calif. Her school, for example, uses filters to block all sites with the word or subject "blog," in addition to other sites.
They're purposely blocking out blogs...that angers me. In addition, the fact that this counselor considers filtering "a constant battle" means that she's in favor of censoring information for their students. Yes, kids will always know more than you when it comes to technology. I expect that when I have kids they'll know more than me too, only I won't be embarrassed by it, I'll encourage it.
On the other hand it cracks me up because I love that the kids are doing it. No seriously...kudos to them. Maybe I inherited a little bit of my dad's rebellious spirit but this is the kind of stuff that I enjoy hearing about. Kids are not idiots and we shouldn't treat them like they are. I know I complain a lot about the ones that visit my library but on certain days they can be a real pain in the ass...when they're not driving me crazy they're also not bad kids and when they need my assistance I'm usually happy to help. I'm also happy we don't filter in our library system, especially after all the research I've been doing all week on it.
Which by the way, I am completely amazed with myself. I had roughly two weeks to finish my paper, although it felt more like one since we had so much to read the previous week...and this will amaze anybody I went to college with but I finished my paper!!! Yes, this may be the first time in history I actually finished a paper on time or even at all. I am bundle of oxymorons, one being that I love school but hate school work. What amazes me even more is that I finished it in a week. The infamous music history papers we had to do at Carthage, we usually had a month or two to get them done, and even then she usually let us finish them up by the end of the semester if we hadn't yet...me finishing a paper in a week would have been unheard of then. And I don't even want to admit how long it actually took me to write my music thesis. I hope it's not too early to say that maybe graduate school will treat me better :)
On the other hand I've been quite busy. Evey free moment I had last week was devoted to my paper (except for the evening we went to the movies...a much needed break). This upcoming week we have an online class so I don't have to go in to school, but we have an online assignment to do on banned and challenged books. Friday I will be leaving for Indiana again, this time it's really just to visit a friend of mine who lives in Tennessee but will be visiting her family in Ft. Wayne this weekend. My mom mentioned being at the lake this weekend so I may see her and maybe my brother too. Since it's Memorial Day weekend there will be a lot of people at the lake so I'm sure I won't get much school work done. We found out that the Detroit Electronic Music Festival is this weekend (Alex's favorite music). If Alex is interested in going then we might leave Indiana on Sunday and go to that on Monday...assuming we have the money. I suppose that's it for updates, I don't have much of an opportunity to read things online these days so I try to keep up the best I can.
technorati tags: filters, web_filters, internet_filters, kids, children, blocking, internet_blocking, blogs