Pornography is in the news, and the classroom, again:
The Prince George’s County school system is investigating an incident in which a fifth-grade music class at Glenn Dale Elementary School caught a glimpse of a pornographic movie instead of the planned feature, “Star Wars.”
Glitch Gives Kids a Peek at Pornography – washingtonpost.com
From the little revealed in the article, this is either the work of a a sneaky student prankster or an embarrassingly disorganized teacher. I wonder if the maelstrom is on its way.1 I also wonder, again and again, why we are so hyper-vigilant about nudity and sex but so lax about violence, student health, racism, bullying, ethnocentricity, and other influences that run un-checked through the hallways and that are most definitely more damaging than an image of the naked body doing what the naked body likes to do.
Maybe better sexual education–from schools, parents, and society–instead of Puritanical sexual fear, would help eliminate some of the rampant sex-ism that I hear every day on the radio and see every day on television … and that is echoed every day in the hallways of our schools. Whatdayathink?2
- the same maelstrom that clobbered Julie Amero [back]
- Before anyone asks: of course this stupid mistake should never have happened. And no, of course I’m not arguing that we should show porn in schools. [back]
September 15th, 2007 at 7:40 am
Interesting…never really thought about it this way…
A teacher can allow bullying to go on all year in the classroom and nothing happens….one nude image and “Oh my.” I have so many students who could use different kinds of support but don’t get it. One nude image and the system would organize a team of people to deal with it….
So why is that?
A kid is failing and nobody cares. A student accidentally puts their real name on their blog and an inquisition begins…hmmmmm…
I guess you can’t easily solve violence or failure so we sit back and don’t try, while firing a teacher for accidental porn is easy and black and white.
Sorry to fill your comments with random thoughts…
Paul
September 15th, 2007 at 11:47 am
No Paul … I appreciate the comment and agree with the sentiments. Thanks for expanding on this and offering additional examples of the backwards priorities that seem to exist in education.