I’ve always been a big fan of "letting people do stuff" … assuming that stuff doesn’t include anything that hurts other people. Of course, there will always be people who hurt other people, and we call them "mean people," and–as t-shirts have been telling us for years–mean people suck. But you don’t put the entire population in prison because some members of that population are big meanies.

One reason I think YouTube and MySpace succeed so well is because they understand this simple concept and, for the most part, they let people do stuff (and have seen amazing growth as a result). The problem with the response of too many educational institutions is that they don’t understand this simple concept. Unfortunately, this is true not only in the online world (as the recent debate about blocking access to online sites demonstrates: see Harris and Richardson) but is often the case in how districts handle "real life" complications, too. At my own school, we often see school-wide or county-wide initiatives put in place that restrict everyone because a few people did some stupid things (or worse, out of the fear that a few people might do some stupid things).

By letting people do stuff, you do run the risk that a few of those people will be mean, or lazy, or maybe just stupid … a problem that must be addressed. The alternative, though, is that if you don’t let people do stuff, nothing much really happens. And stuff like inspiration, creativity, discovery?  Not much chance of those things happening either …

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