... people still think that way.
From an item that recently arrived via the Faye
Hurvitz Clipping Service:
Censors and Sensibility - from the Los Angeles Time,
March 30, 1998, (page D1)
I won't go into the details, but it was an article on how and why schools
using software for blocking access to various sites. Blocking out sites
that are considered pornographic has become SOP, though I'd argue with
the logic of doing this. But for some schools that isn't enough. Central
High School in Santa Ana, California took things a number of steps further:
In addition to obvious profanity, words such as "sports",
"finance" and "entertainment" are banned. That means no immediate results
during the recent Winter Olympics. No early reports about Asia's financial
fiasco. And no financial aid information.
Santa Ana Unified School District Superintendant Al Mijares is quoted as
saying (brace yourselves):
Kids should be focused on their task. That task is to
be educated - not entertained.
Want another quote?:
Kids should not be using the computer for fun.
I guess that it doesn't matter that mathematics teachers explain that they
use sites on Wall Street to teach the computing of percentages, or that
sports coaches complain that they can no longer access physical fitness
sites that were highly useful to them. School and life are separate entities,
and shouldn't mix, or get confused.
It took some looking, but I found an online version of the article in
the Denver Post Online:
Are some
schools going too far in protecting kids?
By P.J. Huffstutter
LA Times
(That last Mijares quote doesn't show up in the online version, probably
because in the print version it appears underneath a photograph of Mijares,
and the online version doesn't have a photograph.)
Go to: Make Learning ... Fun?, or
Go to: that semi-permanent update page,
or
Go to: Boidem Contents Page