This is the con argument for whether the administration should have blocked Twitter. To read the pro argument, click here.
The administration has attempted another round of Whack-a-Mole by blocking Twitter. While the behavior that caused the block cannot be condoned, the block has only made it a little bit more inconvenient for some students to be off-task during class.
It will in no way stop students from finding another place to do the same thing.
This situation is reminiscent of the decision to block Facebook. As soon as students could no longer post on peer’s walls during the school day, they simply found an alternative. Thus, Tumblr became the next best thing. Later, when the administration caught on and blocked Tumblr, suddenly everybody had a Twitter account.
There are so many social networking sites that try as they might, the administration will never be able to block every site that will distract kids during class.
Another major aspect that the administration overlooked is the fact that proxies exist and are available for download at any time, allowing students the ability to sign in to Twitter, Facebook, or any other site, regardless of if they are blocked or not.
The adults in this school are severely underestimating the approximately 700 teenagers enrolled at JC if they think students can’t figure out alternative ways to log in to blocked sites.
Even if they figured out a way to block these sites effectively, the students who aren’t paying attention in class aren’t going to start because Twitter is blocked. They simply will resort to playing games or doing anything else that is equally distracting.
Obviously, there has been inappropriate things said over Twitter, especially about teachers, that shouldn’t have ever been posted. However, instead of blocking the website, make an example of the kids saying these things.
The students who are worried about their tweets which state “this class is boring” shouldn’t be the ones that are targeted.
The people who were describing various sexual acts with teachers should be made into examples for the rest of the student body. If students were disciplined for saying the things that they did, having to block Twitter would be irrelevant because people would realize that they couldn’t get away with it.
Although what students were saying during class is completely unacceptable, blocking Twitter isn’t solving the bigger problem. Instead of blaming Twitter for what these people said, hold the students accountable, and keep websites unblocked for those who don’t abuse them.
Martha Schick is a Managing Editor for The Patriot and jcpatriot.com.