The outstanding Intellectual Freedom Online issue of Knowledge Quest, guest-edited by Helen Adams, is a free download this month. I highly recommend it if you haven’t read it already. I reference articles from this issue frequently in my classes.
I went to my first Wacky Wednesday yesterday. On non-faculty-meeting Wednesdays, faculty is invited to lunch, and a few folks talk about their research and projects. Wouldn’t that be interesting in K-12? To sit and hear what your colleagues are doing behind those closed doors?
Today, much of Wacky Wednesday focused on a public policy course that will involve students going into organizations and helping them research and develop effective policies. One of the “clients” is a local bank, who wonders what they should be doing about allowing employee access to social media. Apparently, prospective employees are demanding that they be given access at work, even if it’s not necessarily for work-related activity.
But here’s what got me thinking … as bold as it is for one bank employee to stand up to the whole bank and demand access, teachers don’t even have to stand up one at a time and ask.
That’s what their UNION is for.
If a school has overly-restrictive filtering policies, and teachers feel it is impairing their ability to instruct to the best of their abilities, then why aren’t they engaging their UNION in the issue?
I’m curious … do you know of any teacher unions who have stood behind the issue of filtering as an issue of intellectual freedom and access for kids? If not, why not?
Why are the tech employees (frequently non-union employees) determining the work conditions of union employees?
I’m no Norma Rae. You won’t find me standing on any tables in any union halls, though my brother and I both admit that we pass up more fuel-efficient cars because buying American — and supporting unions — is in the family code of ethics, as the United Auto Workers of our state of Michigan had much to do with paving the way for teachers to live a solid middle-class life here.
But it seems this is a natural issue for unions to take up. It doesn’t cost the union or the district any money. If orchestra members can negotiate the temperature at which it’s too hot to play in their tux jackets (yes, there really are clauses in some union contracts about jacket removal), why not this? CIPA legislation merely says that dangerous or pornographic content must be blocked, and the overwhelming majority of socila sites don’t go there.
Just asking …
