So last week we had a good point come up in class.
Are our teachers and school board becoming too involved in our after school activities and hang outs? By this I mean having meetings during x-block and such and showing to the rest of the teachers students MySpace and Face-Book pages at our school. From here they show some of the somewhat innapropriate pictures or links kids may have on there website. From here they contact the student and he or she must pay certain concequences. What do others think about this?
Should teachers be spying on kids to see what information they choose to display? I mean what there basically doing is just searching to get kids into trouble. This also relates with Bush and his recent wiretaps and the invasion of our privacy of the people. The Fourth Amendment declares that the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures shall not be violated and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." I believe that even in a time when terrorists are at bay, Bush has no right to invade our privacy and tap phone lines, read your messages, or doing anything without a warrant or evidence to search threw your belongings. What do others feel about this and is our school doing somewhat the same?
~ Q
Editorial Reply: After consulting with administration, I wanted to make sure this post got put on the website to clear up some misconceptions about MySpace and Face-Book and the staff's alleged involvement. No one at Groves High School or in the district is searching these or any other similar kinds of websites to entrap kids using their own words and pictures. Some of the teachers and administrators were made aware of issues concerning MySpace and Face-Book when we read a few articles about some of the privacy issues and ramifications of posting private material in public spaces.
Here's one from USA Today, March 8, 2006.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/internetprivacy/2006-03-08-facebook-myspace_x.htm?POE=click-refer
Here's another one from the Free Press:
http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060306/NEWS05/603060326&template=printart
Teachers were made aware of these sites; they were not shown Groves' students sites, to the best of my knowledge. This is a raising awareness issue, not just for teachers, but for parents as well. Truthfully, we've got too much to do to be wasting our time trying to catch students online doing things they shouldn't be doing. It's my sincere hope that my students aren't doing anything they shouldn't. But it's their parents' job to keep an eye on them outside of school, not mine.
"After a hard day's work diggin' up the sod, we're ready for chow."
Welcome to our class's blog. We are discussing the latest topics we're studying in American history and literature. This website has been active since December 2005. Selected Excel 10 students will take turns posting their thoughts, and other Excel 10 students will comment on these posts. Parents, staff, and other interested persons are invited to add their comments on our musings. Any inappropriate comments will be deleted.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
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- Invasion of Privacy? Not Really.
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3 comments:
I really like that you brought this up Matt. Even though I don't have a MySpace or Face-Book, I still disagree with what teh administration is doing. I feel that if a student does something wrong during school or at a school related function then they should be punished, but if something happens during their own private time then the school should be involved. The administration is being idealistic thinking that they will solve the drug and alchohol problem by getting kids in trouble who are suspected of doing these things. They think they are going to save the world, but it is absurd to think that you can make a school, especially one this big, a 100% clean, drug and alchohol free environment. There will always be kids who want to break the rules and there is no way to stop that. On the subject of Bush, you know as well as the rest of the class that I pretty much disagree with whatever Bush does. I feel if he wants to catch terrorists then he should spend more time ending this stupid war and stopping it at it's source than taking out all the different branches. Plus, if a terrorist is able to smuggle a bomb into somewhere where the security is probubly pretty high, then I don't think they will be stupid and talk about it on the phone. I'm really glad you brought this up Matt. Knowledge is Power!!!
Personally I think it's stupid to put up your pictures, names, adresses, etc. on the internet in the first place, but I don't think that the problem here is the students, I think it's the parents. My knowledge of how the GSC president was "impeached" is that some parent went onto myspace and found a picture of him MIA/MIP with whatever proof of alcohol in the picture that was needed. Now I disagree that parents and administration should be looking at myspaces and other teen websites, but there's a lot of other things they shouldn't be doing either. The main thing in this situation that blows me away is that this parent reported this to the school. The president was obviously already going to get into much trouble with his parents in the first place, but he's only what like 18? People make mistakes, you'd think this parent would know that. Reporting this to the school lead the school, for whatever insanely "alleged" reason, to kick him off of GSC and, i believe, suspend him. Now this goes onto his records and when this student, who i always have thought of as a driven and intellegent guy, has to explain to colleges why he was kicked off of a position that he was more than highly qualified for. Instead the parent who found these pictures could've simply told his parents and let them discipline how they felt appropriate, they are his parents after all.
And with the whole Bush thing i agree that Bush has no right to wire tap, it says it flat out in the constitution for anyone who (supposedly) has the IQ to be a president. I most definitely agree that our school is doing the same thing. They say that they're looking for cases of columbine where really they just use that as an excuse to bust kids for being kids and doing something stupid where the Bush administration says they're looking for terrorists and then use their own anglo-saxon ways to bust the "bad guys" for whatever they feel appropriate. And Mr. Wickersham, since you mentioned that you were looking for us to disagree with eachother on the blog, I disagree with your editor's post. "No one at Groves High School or in the district is searching these or any other similar kinds of websites to entrap kids using their own words and pictures." We're all aware of the e-mail that Mr. Proctor sent out to allow parents to set up their own myspace accounts for whatever reason. Where they may not entrap kids using their OWN words and pictures they do it using some other kid's words and pictures, no different than with our GSC president. If Mr. Proctor knew how to set up an account he obviously searched the websites, and if they're blocked on our school computers, the technological staff must have also searched them. Also, parents are part of the district as well, numerous students in our class have said that their parents have set up accounts. I'm aware that these sites are public, but it's also absurd for our parents and administration to think it's a smart thing to get kids in major trouble for such minor things when they could be handled so much more responsibly and intelegently.
ok madi. woah im not writting a novel here but i think the administration is over thinking this situation. Parents and administrators should not be searching through peoples myspaces and facebooks just to look for like terrorism and violence. they have no specific right to do so unless that person has done something bad before. The whole bush wiretapping thing is way over rated and i think the way our administration is taking this situation is way over rated.
-emily
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