An English head teacher has said that Facebook is the root of all evil in the universe. Actually, he hasn't said that, but he has said that when he discovers any of the 270 in his school have a Facebook account, he contacts the site for the removal of that account and may well contact child services to do an investigation on the parent.
As part of the Daily Mail's "block online porn" campaign, Mr Woodward, the head teacher at a school in the Forest of Dean, spoke out against the networking site saying that it gives children access to things they shouldn't see, as well as gives others access to the kids. "The real concern," he said "is children being able to have Facebook accounts when they are not old enough, and parents condoning it. If my school is representative, it’s 60 per cent at least have got access."
He felt he needed to step in and talk to the parents: "It’s illegal for you to do this, you shouldn’t be doing it for your child. You need to close down that account or I might have to tell the safeguarding people that you are exposing your child to stuff that’s not suitable."
Other headteachers felt similarly strongly against video games and smart phones. One teacher said that, from a smart phone, you can access "pornography, anything," and another head said that video games were having a negative effect on kid's behaviour. "Four-year-olds don’t understand if you hit someone over the head with a brick they’re not going to jump up immediately as they do on the screen."
Now, let me just remind you that these people have been to university, they have degrees and they themselves were at some point children. And somehow, collectively, they've not hit on the point that there have always been violent children who don't understand the consequences of their actions, kids have always found ways of looking at bare breasts. Somehow the human race has survived. It is the jobs of the parents and, to a certain extent, the teachers to put these actions into context and, basically, most of these kids will turn out OK.
But let's blame Facebook, smart phones, video games and porn for our failing educational institutions and increasingly worrying parental problems. That seems the way to handle this situation.
