Apology Accepted

At the start of the year, there was an incident where one of my students threatened me with physical harm. Our school’s zero tolerance policy kicked in and the situation was presented at a superintendent’s hearing. I never had a problem with this particular boy previous to the incident and I truly believe his words were spoken out of adolescent frustration and impulse rather than intent to harm; nonetheless, my school decided that a more restrictive environment would be in the best interest of the student. The incident quietly resolved and the student was placed in an alternative education classroom at a school down the road.

I feel like this incident has hung over me all year. I never had a chance to speak with the boy and I wasn’t involved in any of the decisions that were made afterward. Granted, he had a long line of prior offenses and this incident was what finally tipped the scales, yet I still felt somewhat accountable.

I wondered all year how he was doing at his new school. For many students, the alternative school placement is often the first step to a life of consequences to poor decisions. How many don’t graduate? How many end up incarcerated? This kid is too smart and has too much potential for either of those things to happen to him. Everyone should be accountable for their own actions and he certainly said some things that he probably shouldn’t have, but what long term price will he now have to pay?

This morning I received a call from the front office. There was a student here to see me.

I walked into the office to find the boy who had, only a few months earlier threatened to kill me, standing awkwardly with a present in his hand. He had painstakingly carved a desk placard bearing my name. It must have taken him weeks to sculpt, sand, and paint.

We spoke only briefly. His demeanor had changed; he was quiet, respectful, almost reflective. He told me he was passing all of his classes and hadn’t had a behavioral incident in months. The alternative school was a good fit for him and he had requested to stay there for next year too.

He never apologized for what he said to me at the start of the year. But after I shook his hand and left with my gift, I knew exactly what that palcard really represented.

Apology accepted.

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An Argument For and Against Censoring Huckleberry Finn

Last night, news of Huckleberry Finn’s upcoming censorship was announced by NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams (video here). This announcement has been floating around local news media for about a week, but this was the first time I saw it from a major network news source. Clearly, the decision to alter one of America’s greatest literary works had stirred enough debate to bring it to this level, so I felt the need to declare my stance as well.

The only problem is that I don’t really have one. I can see both sides – so here is my argument for and against censoring Mark Twain’s classic work of fiction.

For Censorship

Because The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is part of the public domain, uncensored editions will always be available both online and from any publisher who chooses to print it with the dasterdly “N-word” still in place. If anything, removing language that some would regard as vulgar is only making the work more accessible. As an middle school teacher I would never suggest the book to a student. While I understand the cultural and historical background of the book, the student – and his/her parent – may not. And it’s not one scene that can be skipped over – the offending word appears 214 times throughout the book. Now that a version is available with some of this content softened, the book can now be read and enjoyed by those people who would have been too myopically focused on the predominance of a word that is no longer culturally acceptable.

Celbrities also say that any publicity – even negative publicity – is good publicity. The same can be true of this censorship story. People are again talking about Huckleberry Finn, a story that was written more than 130 years ago. For example, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is currently the #2 download on Project Gutenberg, trumped only by The Karma Sutra. It is again on the minds of Americans, and no one can argue that as a bad thing. If a little controversy is the cause, then so be it.


Against Censorship

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is not the first, nor the last book to be published with inappropriate language. This language was not included by Twain as a vulgarity – it was simply part of the American lexicon in the 1800s. If Huckleberry Finn deserves scrutiny, then it is only fair that we uphold this standard for all other books – especially those we are currently publishing and embracing as a society.

Take, for example, the recent release by MTV reality star, Nicole “Snooki” Polizzi from the embarassingly crass Jersey Shore. It is a work of fiction that cronicals two girls and their exploits – one of which is a graffic retelling of a date rape scene. Here is the quote:

"This girl was putting up a fight. Most whores would just give in at this point
and accept the situation they were in. If she ate the dinner, took the gifts,
came home with you, she was obliged to put out. If she changed her mind and
didn't want to? Too bad. Things might get a little rough. She deserved what
happened."

In an interview yesterday with Ellen Degeneres, Polizzi admitted that the book is targeted toward early teenagers.

Why is it okay for a recent book – esentially young adult fiction – to condone rape, yet a book written 130 years ago cannot contain a word that was regarded as casual diction at the time it was written?

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My Online Footprint

My first efforts at consistent blogging were not here, but at a blog that preceded it called 100 Days with the Eee PC. I received an Asus Eee PC for my birthday in November of 2008, just before the term netbook became a household word. Since they were still a fledgling technology, I decided to try a little experiment – to only use the Eee PC as my primary computer. I figured it would be a pretty clear case study to show the potential of the tiny machine.

My experiment was a success, but it came with a residual effect – I realized the excitement (and importance) to blogging. The blog you’re reading right now is a direct result of my netbook experiment.

The 100 Days blog has sat dormant for almost a year now, and I haven’t had too much need to go back to it – until yesterday. I was looking some source code I used about this time last year to create a online quiz for my students. I couldn’t remember where I had downloaded it from, but I did remember that I had blogged about it. I Googled my old blog to see if I could find the link.

What I found instead was sobering.

On the first page of results was a message board posting that someone had started about my blog. In it, they explained who I was, the purpose of my writing, and what subject area and grade level I taught. He then went on to question the legality of something I had written about. All of this information was easily obtainable through my blog or in my Blogger profile, but it was vexing to see it written by a stranger.

I once wrote that blogging is an open journal, but this Google search made me realize how true that is. There's a valuable message to share about your online footprint - If it's online, someone will find it. If it's something even remotely questionable, someone will question it. And unlike a footprint in the sand, what is said online is never washed away by the inevitable rising tide.

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Internet Filtering - Restriction or Protection?

I still believe we should be teaching Internet responsibility and digital citizenship to our students instead of trying to hide all the bad things behind a big iron curtain. But the fact remains that the Internet is a complex and sometimes seedy beast. It’s easy to forget that fact when search results for well-intentioned lesson plans get blocked, or when you watch students spend a period trying to sneak their way onto a gaming website. This is when the frustrated teacher throws his/her hands in the air and declares the filter to be the work of the devil. But for every game blocked, that filtering software is also blocking potential predators, unsavory images, and God knows what else.

I was thinking about this more over the weekend while flipping through the Black Friday edition of The Buffalo News. There were two stories on the front page of the City and Region section that highlighted someone using the Internet. One was about a Michigan man using a Genealogy website to find his long-lost birthmother. The other was about a local filmmaker getting arrested for having downloaded more than 1300 child-porn images. These articles create an interesting juxtaposition.

So what’s the answer? Is it to open the floodgates and hope no one gets swept away in the current? Is it to turn off the lights and sit in darkness? Perhaps it’s a bit of both, but where to draw the line is as big (if not bigger) or a question that whether filtering is needed in the first place.

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