When arrogance overrides education
Sunday, October 20, 2013 at 05:21AM A commenter on my recent post Technology and Trust (that argues for keeping student devices and Internet access as unrestricted as possible) wrote:
I'm laughing as I read this post about not trusting students on the web because in my district the administration is still blocking the TEACHERS with strict internet filters!
If recent news articles are any indication, schools may be wiser to try to control adult use of technology than student use. In his link to the article, Dr. Doug Green calls the actions of this Pennsylvania superintendent and athletic director "digital stupidity." The sup and and his AD traded racist text messages use school-owned phones, and of course, were discovered. "Stupid*" works in this instance on a number of levels:
- Anyone who is racist is stupid. Period.
- Anyone who puts racist comments in writing or other recordable media is stupid.
- Anyone who uses school equipment to transmit racist comments is stupid.
- Anyone who thinks that their racist comments will not at some point be discovered is stupid. (As my dad use to say, it's not a matter of "if" but "when" you will get caught.)
There are any number of other terms one could substitute for racist above - sexist, pornographic, illegal, etc..
I have never been one to come down hard on the "personal" use of school-owned devices or bandwidth by students. You can read my reasons for this in "Did You Hear the One About?"
Nor do I worry much about personal use of devices by staff. (Do we really get bent out of shape if a teacher uses a school telephone to schedule a doctor's appointment or uses the bulletin board in the teachers' lunchroom to advertise a car for sale?) I can count on one hand, the number of times we have needed to address staff misuse of technology in our district over the past 20 years. We don't go looking for problems, but given probable cause, we sure don't ignore them either. Trust generally works.
Why am I still surprised when people who ought to know better still do really stupid things? I would assume both the sup and AD director in the story above are educated, have experience in education, and understand what racism is.
I suspect that arrogance overrides education, experience and understanding. And I don't think a training program exists that prevents hubris.
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*stupid (adjective): given to unintelligent decisions or acts m-w.com
Stupid is not my favorite word. It sounds mean and harsh and ugly. But after reading that according to Newsweek that 25% of employees visit porn sites from work, and that the adult video industry claims hits on porn sites are highest during the work day, it was truly the only term that seems to fit this sort of human behavior. I don't have any overwhelming objections to pornography per se. But perusing it at work? That's stupid.
I use stupid under fairly constrained conditions. To me, a stupid act has a degree of willfulness about it and is serious. Making an error once is ignorance; making the same mistake multiple times is stupidity. Unfortunately, I see stupid acts and beliefs related to technology in schools all the time. ...
4. Thinking online communication is ever private. Eventually everyone sends an embarrassing personal message to a listserv. I've heard of some tech directors who get their jollies reading salacious inter-staff e-mails. Your school e-mails can be requested and must be produced if germane to any federal lawsuits. Even e-mails deleted from your computer still sit on servers somewhere - often for a very loooong time. Think you wiped out your browsing history? Don't bet that that is the only set of tracks you've left that show where you've been surfing. Your Facebook page will be looked at by the school board chair and your superintendent and principal know who the author of that "anonymous" blog is. Not assuming everyone can see what you send and do online is stupid.
Reader Comments (1)
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