Filter

Technology isn't the problem. The solutions are the problem.

I teach at a high school, and things are very different than they were just a decade ago.

I have always been a big user of technology in the classroom. Back then it was desktop computers and the internet.

Now we have a great many more computers, still on the good, old internet. Most of the computers are now portable, and we also have a myriad of projectors and such.

The kids themselves now haul around their own computers in their back pockets. Of course, I mean Smartphone. Some carry iPads or laptops. Some have no such devices.

So we have access to a lot more devices, but what is the difference?

Way back when, one of the big issues was kids trying to use the school's internet to find pornography. Now they don't. If they want to find such material they can do so with their own or their home's access. I haven't found a kid looking for dirty pictures or video in years.

Sadly, our school is saddled with solutions to a problem that no longer exists. Our internet is filtered through automated censorship.

I wouldn't care if the filter didn't do anything at all, or if it actually worked to keep out the things it is supposed to. In reality the software is the laziest piece of programming I've ever seen.

Some sites are blocked, which makes some kind of sense. However, some of it is just ridiculous.

For example, educational mathematics sites are routinely blocked. The reason given is "gambling". Can't have the kids learning about probability at a math site.

News sites are also usually locked down. The reason for the censorship is "language". Such sites often have user comment areas, and I guess somebody might say something rude.

Saddest of all is how the software handles web searches. This only affects Google, as I suppose the programmers assume that there is no other way to search the internet. If someone tries a Google search that the filter thinks is naughty it will be blocked. Strangely, it always gives either no reason at all, or the reason is "pornography".

Sometimes the Google blocking works fairly harmlessly, but other times it goes insane, often for weeks at a time.

Do a Google search for "cat", and it gets blocked as "pornographic". Search for "school"; "pornography". Our school district's web site; "pornography". The web site we have to log into to do student attendance; "pornography". Any word; "pornography".

For most of our kids, this means that the internet won't work. If they can't Google then they can't use the web.

For my own classes, I teach them to use Bing when the filter on Google goes nuts. The lazy censorship programmers never bothered to set up their magic on non-Google search engines.

Being a schoolteacher I wondered what this all teaches the kids. When I ask them what they think it means, the only answer they have ever given it, "the government hates us."

Quite educational.