The Failure of K-12 Internets

A decade ago, when my kids were very young and K-12 education was just ramping up Internet access, I felt great.

Internet access would not go obsolete the way generations of "multimedia" had. This was something schools could not possibly screw-up.

Well, they did.

It wasn't just the damned "Gore Tax" (which forced schools to tie themselves to the Bells and the Bells' trips). It wasn't just the lack of WiFi, the dreaded "computer labs."

It wasn't even just the "censorware" per se. It was the attitude of right-wing parents toward the whole deal.

They were, and are, scared of anything smacking of kids growing up, which includes education. (Hey, we got an idiot right here in Georgia trying to ban Harry Potter.) The infantalization of young people, up to and beyond age 18, continues apace,

As a result, teachers are not trained to use the Internet to educate. (They're too busy teaching to the tests.) Every PC in every school in the nation has censorware on it, controlled by corporations rather than parents or schools, and every year we get another idiot trying to add to that burden. (The latest is the idea from our Republican Congress of banning MySpace and IM.)

The real problem here is not the Internet. The real problem is parents who don't want their children, or your children, to learn anything they disagree with.

That's what is killing education in America. And all the technology in the world won't change it.

A personal note. I've had an open network for my kids here since 2000. We had some problems with one kid accidentally downloading spyware. We had one incident of the other kid going to a porn site. We dealt with it. We talked, we updated our spyware, and we're fine. The kids are fine.

So are yours. Listen to them. Talk to them. Treat them as what they are, future adults.