St. Louis Riverfront Times is the latest publication
to focus attention on Sen. Jane Cunningham's Amy Hestir Student Protection Act, which includes as one of its provisions a prohibition against teachers and students communicating through Facebook:
The bill was sent to Governor Nixon on May 26. He told the News-Leader he hadn't read it yet. (And what with flooding in one part of the state and the ongoing crisis in Joplin, it's kind of hard to blame him on that one.)
Incidentally, the bill's primary sponsor was state Senator Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield -- who, while declaring her love for the children in this instance, hasn't been nearly so interested in their welfare in the past.
Earlier this year, Cunningham drew near-universal scorn (and national headlines) for introducing a bizarre bill that would allow child labor in Missouri.
As Daily RFT's Chad Garrison reported at the time, the bill would remove restrictions on children under fourteen joining the workforce. Garrison writes, "They'd also be able to work all hours of the day, no longer need a work permit from their school and be able to work at motels and resorts so long as they're given a place to lay their weary heads each night. Moreover, businesses that employ children would no longer be subject to inspections from the Division of Labor Standards."
Yep, this lady is definitely into protecting children. Thank God she's here to save the pupils of Missouri from schoolteachers -- certainly, the plutocrats and corporate mavens of this state are much more likely to have the kiddos' best interests at heart than their own teachers.
What a joke.
2 comments:
Aren't middle school kids too young for Facebook? Isn't there an age limit in the signup terms? 13? What if parents don't feel comfortable having their children on Facebook? If my daughter's teacher is using that to communicate with students, doesn't that sort of pressure me to let her have a Facebook profile? In middle school? She wouldn't be able to read the teacher's "wall" unless she had her own profile and could sign in, right? Wouldn't it be just as easy to have an official teacher blog or something that parents could read too? You don't like the idea of limiting it to an official school Facebook profile either? Parents could read that too. If you want to have students as Facebook "friends," doesn't that mean that parents would also need to be the teacher's "friend" in order to read the postings?
My Facebook is available for anyone to read and many of my students' parents are Facebook friends.
My students are generally 13 and 14 years old.
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