One Big Room

The educational blogosphere is alive with concerns about measures and methods to control children's and young adults' access to the Internet. Andy Carvin has set up a RSS feed on DOPA news and Miguel Guhlin explains the limitations of a proxy filter on a home computer.

Sorry folks - anyone who thinks he or she can control kids access to online information or experiences is spitting in the wind. We are not facing a simple technical challenge. We are swimming against a cultural tide.

Neil Postman explains why in his book The Disapperance of Childhood (1982). It's been awhile since I have read this book, but as I remember, Postman's arguments go something like this. Childhood is a social construct. Before the Industrial Revolution, children were simply treated as small adults. They dressed like adults, they worked like adults, they lived where adults lived, and they saw what adults saw. Adults and children before the second half of the 19th century all lived pretty much in one big room.

The rise in industrialization gave rise to the concept of "childhood." Society started treating children differently than they did adults, separating them by dress, by activity and especially in experience. We kept kids in their own rooms with very limited access to adult rooms. For their own safety, of course.

Postman argued that with the ubiquity of mass media (pre-Internet days), society no longer has the ability to keep children away from adult venues and sights. We are all back into one big room, as it were. Kids will see and experience again what adults see and experience.

When I first started arguing against filtering back in 1994, I'd ask workshop participants if they felt these were appropriate materials for children to be seeing and reading:

• Sex After 35, Why It’s Different, Why it Can be Better
• Men & Sex - Their 7 Secret Wishes
• How Our Sex Life Was Saved
• Major New Sex Survey - What You Don’t Know...
• The Sexual Games of the American Male
• He Want’s What? Men’s 6 Biggest Sexual Fantasies
• The Sex Skill Men Adore (& How to Do It Well)
• The Hugh Grant Syndrome - Why Guys Pay for Sex
• Five Total Turn-ons Men Can’t Resist

Everyone agreed that these were not materials suitable for kids. And they should be denied access to them.

Too late, I'd say. Each of these were headlines splashed on the front cover of popular magazines easily found near any grocery store checkout lane (and last I checked things have not become less explicit.)

This cultural shift that is removing the wall between the kids' and adults' rooms is unnerving to say the least. Our natural inclination as parents and educators (and even politicians, I suppose)  is to shelter and to protect. But responsible adults also recognize that it is in their children's best interest not to shelter, but to teach children how to protect themselves in the big, bad world.

As we are all pushed further and futher into the one big room, we don't have a choice. By blocking access to blogs and chat and other Internet resources in schools and homes, we are only denying access to kids in places where any actual adult instruction may occur. So just how ironic is that?

Comments

[Marcie Hull]

Doug,
This post really hits home for me. VERY well said! I totally agree with a non-filtered network. It takes heart to confront adult issues with students as well as your own children. I think many adults are failing children by not confronting the issues that are smacking kids in the face each and every day. Children, for the most part, are ill equipped and don't have the resources or maturity to process some of the content they are exposed to, so adults and teachers need to step up and be ready with advice and examples, or at least model good citizenship online. There is an epidemic in our country of children without proper boundaries and not many people seem to be modeling safe boundaries for kids today.

At least with an open network it sets up a culture for boundaries (AUP) to be set and an emphasis put on safety. It also opens up conversations about how important the net is for educational communities and involvement.

Thanks for such a great post!

Sincerely,
Marcie Hull
Science Leadership Academy
Philadelphia, PA

[Cathy Nelson]

What a great intro to my parent workshop on Internet Safety for Students. This is still in the planning stages, but I just cannot pass on this great content! Of course you'll get all the credit. Please say it's okay.

Cathy Nelson, Library Media Specialist
Northside Elementary School
Rock Hill, SC
http://www.rock-hill.k12.sc.us/schools/elem/nses/

[Ivan Chew]

"Too late, I'd say. Each of these were headlines splashed ..." - Clever, Doug. Good one.

[Bob VanDerWege]

Doug,

Good food for thought but I go back and forth thinking that if I have an opportunity to keep someone from attempting to contact my kids with ill intentions, why wouldn't I? I'm conflicted.

[Gayne Turner]

Doug--

I agree that parents should be involved with their children; they should discuss any adult venues and sights to which their children may be exposed. Yet, especially single parents may be hard-pressed to find time for such meaningful involvement. Do such parents have time to keep up with the technology? Do public and school libraries have workshops aimed at this group?