Journal #10

This week I meandered through some unread posts by Doug Johnson, sampling tastes of articles here and there until I arrived at one that made me stop and really concentrate. http://doug-johnson.squarespace.com/blue-skunk-blog/2013/3/20/one-big-room-redux.html

 Summary: In “One Big Room- Redux” Johnson revisits an older post on censorship in light of a new article (Pornography online is warping children's minds, teachers warn. The Telegraph, March 17, 2013). The Telegraph states that children start searching for sexual images on the net and sexting around age 12, and that it is prevalent. Johnson finds this trend alarming, but “a fool’s errand” for adults who try to shelter children from adult content completely. He argues that rather than keeping this material away from our students and children, we need to teach and reinforce values no more than ever.

Resource:
As always, The Blue Skunk Blog does not disappoint in its rich content, ease of use, and prolific hyperlinks to cited material.

Content:

At first I was slightly surprised at what appeared to be an irresponsible reaction from an educator. Of course we should try to keep adult materials away from kids! I thought. Then Johnson brought me around to his side as he usually does. I found this example particularly poignant: He relates how he asked educators if children should be kept from these titles (and more…):

· "Sex After 35: Why It's Different, Why it Can be Better"

· "Men & Sex: Their 7 Secret Wishes"

· "How Our Sex Life Was Saved"

Of course the educators (and I) said “Yes!” And Johnson said, “Too late.” I recognized this truth as he elaborated: these are just a few of the titles emblazoned on numerous magazines in the average grocery store checkout line. This made me remember how I’ve (as an adult!) been embarrassed to see these things while waiting in line with family, both older and younger than myself. An innocent trip to the store is saturated (and has been since I can remember) with sexualized images and verbage—right at a child’s eye level. Now would I or any librarian bring this in to the school? Of course not. But I see now that it’s no use pretending that our kids haven’t heard all this before. I agree that we must give kids the tools to deal with this information responsibly. My only criticism of the article is that I wish it came with a few concrete tips, or at least a link to some resources on how to do that. It’s a big task for a blog post to accomplish, but some baby steps are better than nothing.