Found via Weblog-ed and The Blog Herald, a Vermont High School's strange idea of blocking students from blogging spaces because they are "not an educational use of computers."

Officials at Proctor Jr.-Sr. High School have banned access from school computers to an Internet site that students have been using to post to weblogs, or blogs.

Principal Chris Sousa said the decision to block the site from school was made because blogging is not an educational use of school computers.

But he's also urging parents to keep tabs on their children's blogging, with a particularly close eye to what personal information the student may be posting on sites like Myspace.com.

"It's not so much a school concern as it is an issue for students and parents," he said. "This site particularly was getting a lot of hits. It's a blog site but they also post pictures and biographical information and then send each other notes."

He added, "My concern is less as a principal and more as a dad."

Sousa said he found the prospect of students putting information on the Internet, potentially available to predators, was a serious concern.

There is so much wrong with this idea that it's hard to know where to start. First blogging can be very educational, witness the number of educators, from grade school on up, who are using them as tools in their classrooms. Second, do you really want the principle making decisions for all children based on his decisions for his own kids? I remember my principles and their relationships with their own children...and would not hold that up as a model for anyone. Third, what concerns can't be at least partially alleviated through education...use this as a teaching moment.

I understand schools have the right and responsibility monitor the students in their care as well as utilizing their equipment and resources to the students best advantage. But come on this is writing we are talking about, and reading. Two skills teachers have bemoaned their students decline in utilizing their abilities to at any level, let alone utilization to the fullest. Is the glass half empty or half full?

Posted by prolurkr at March 30, 2005 10:06 AM

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