Iowa schools join blog ban
Iowa schoools are joining their colleagues in Vermont in moving to ban access to blogs in schools.
Not content to play the “blogs attract paedophiles” card, the moves from schools in the Cedar Rapids district of Iowa are also being justified due to the actions of a few students who have allegedly made harassing statements about students and teachers on their blogs.
Strangely though, their ban only applies teen blogging service Xanga.com
KWWL reports school technology facilitator Janet Erbe saying of blogging: “it’s frightening. It’s frightening. That’s why it is filtered here at school…kids use it to vent. And sometimes they say good things, sometimes they say inappropriate things.”
Reports were not clear as to whether Erbe was also considering banning all speaking at the school due to the possibility that a student may say something offensive.
This is the problem with our education system. Simple minds teaching our kids. This makes me very proud of our education system!
Banning blogs is like burning books…it’s pointless. People are going to do what they do, and simply putting up a hurdle is avoiding the problem. Now, should there be consequences to certain actions? Possibly. But Free speech also comes into play here, and we already seem to have problems with that.