I made the mistake of joining the committee regarding the Acceptable Use policy of the district.
"We need kids to know about Pencil Predators."
"Oh, I heard about that. They send notes to kids and then lure them in."
"Nice, what else?" our leader scribbles away at her tablet.
"Teach kids not to tear the goddam paper," a man says.
"Please, these are Victorian times," a woman says.
"This is a the U.S.A. I'll use whatever goddam language I choose. Just add the part about tearing paper."
"What if the goal isn't acceptable?" I ask.
They stare at me blankly.
"Yeah, what if it's about being ethical instead?"
"Okay, well anymore ideas?" the woman says.
"I'm not done. Why are we even here?" I ask.
"To craft an Acceptable Use policy."
"Yes, but numbers are used to marginalize people and we don't have an Acceptable Use policy for math. And kids get hurt in P.E. Where's the policy for that? Then, there's language art. If we're really serious about the art of language and the power words possess, why don't we have an Acceptable Use policy for that? Come to think of it, people have been abusing science to justify Social Darwinism and history is often used to justify injustice. So, why don't we create Acceptable Use policies for those subjects?"
The leader misses my point and says, "I think that's a brilliant idea. I'll bring that back to my supervisor. We should have Acceptable Use policies for all subjects."
Or we could teach students to be ethical critical thinkers.
