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Special Report

This editor finds it very sad indeed that ancient, mundane fear and repression are at the heart of the controversy over iBook use in the Henrico County, Virginia schools. In all the years we have been on the planet, it seems that very little has changed in this regard.

We may all be made in the image of God, but that doesn't prevent authoritarians of all persuasions from suppressing the images, i.e.keeping human bodies under wraps. Yes, the number one reason for the trouble with the iBooks is that some of the kids are using them to download and distribute so-called pornographic images. To some this is more of a disciplinary problem than a moral one, in that students may be doing funny things with their laptops instead of paying attention to the teacher.

In our opinion, however, students will always invent their own fun instead of paying attention to what is boring and irrelevant. It takes two to tango, after all, and for the magic of learning to take place. This problem is as old as civilization itself, however exacerbated the situation may be by new technology. Interested students will pay attention, the others will not (and never have). Your editor, always a straight-A student, used to organize aphid races among his cronies in the back row in 5th grade. (We would pick aphids off the windowsill geraniums and "race" them on a grid marked off on a sheet of paper.) If we had had access to photos of nudes or heaven knows what, we probably would have looked at those instead -- unless we were hooked on the thrill of learning, something not likely to happen in that particular social studies class.

Your editor also thinks that the school board should have listened to the teachers on how best to proceed. That teachers are rarely listened to by administrators or parents is certainly an indictment of something or someone, though beyond the scope of this article. We will have more to say after the following reader comment on yesterday's piece:

"Having taught in the middle school for 28+ years, I have been reading with interest about the trials and tribulations of Henrico County, VA.

I agree with you about the freedom to make choices and to live by those choices. That was pretty much the way I ran my classroom.

Any time you present a challenge to students, they will figure a way around most anything you do. They are much smarter with these things the most of us adults. They are lightyears ahead of most of the school administrators in a school system. I was a tech in the school I taught and I was constantly fixing problems the students caused.

The person who sent you the information for your column 'InsideStory Part 1' is correct. The teachers could have come up with much better suggestions and at the same time done some positive teaching.

It all comes down to one question: 'Would there have been as much furor if the computers had been WinTel machines?' I wonder?"

We wonder too. But most of all, we wonder why so many people never seem to grasp that repression rarely works. If something is truly "bad," then informed individual choice is the only thing that will keep it to a minimum. Getting sick from eating too much candy, for example, is very instructive. As for fears of naked human bodies -- why, we wonder? -- our own experience many years ago of everyday nudity in an Ozark commune proved that nothing deadens one's sexual appetite more than constant exposure to naked bodies. We say let the kids look at anything they want: after a couple of weeks of ugly hardcore porn, they'll even look forward to algebra.

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