Sunday, June 28, 2009
Editorial: Let students text at lunch
Adopt a more nuanced approach to personal technology for Floyd schools.
From the RoundTable blog
Read the latest entries
The Floyd County School Board will meet on Monday to discuss revisions to the Standards of Student Conduct and Attendance. Among the proposed changes are new, stricter rules for cellphones, MP3 players and other electronic devices. The policy needs an update, but the draft changes go too far.
Floyd would follow other school systems -- including Montgomery County, Roanoke and Roanoke County -- in effectively banning most electronic devices. The proposed policy would forbid students from using them at all times during the school day, including on school buses.
Cellphones and other devices have no place in most classrooms. They are distractions and tools for cheats. Yet students spend time outside the classroom during the school day. A more nuanced policy would better serve students.
When students are not in class, when they are riding the bus, eating lunch or just killing time during a free period, administrators should allow them to text, call or listen to music so long as they are not being disruptive. What harm is there in one student putting in his headphones to relax for a while in the cafeteria or in another updating her scheduler with plans that she's made with friends?
Personal electronics are a fundamental tool of modern life. Rather than try to pretend they do not exist during the school day, educators would better teach students that there are appropriate and inappropriate times and places to use them.
Indeed, the commonwealth recognizes the educational value of such devices. Gov. Tim Kaine in April launched Virginia on iTunes U, which offers educational material online through the commercial site as well as some state sites.
The new Floyd rule contains a second cudgel worth tweaking, too. It would forbid students from having any pictures containing nudity on their electronic devices. Caught, they could face disciplinary action and be reported to police.
Giving kids a heads up that pornography -- especially nude pictures of fellow students -- is never acceptable at school is appropriate, but the proposed rule is too broad.
Nudity and pornography are not the same. The warning would better warn that "illegal pornography" is forbidden. That would outlaw child pornography, porn in the possession of a minor and obscenity, but it would still allow legal nakedness such as artistic works and health-related material.
