Pedagogic Porn

The Internet has brought us--or those of us who have learned to surf it--a new universe of knowledge and all the things, good and bad, that come with it. Ask almost any kid or teacher in the Pasadena Unified School District.

Time was when dirty pictures in the classroom meant a hard rap on the head with a ruler and a trip to the principal’s office. Today, in Pasadena, it’s some teachers and other district staffers who have been caught peeking, and as a result they’re losing their Internet access.

More than 100 district employees given Internet access from their home computers had logged onto pornographic Web sites, district officials disclosed, though the officials couldn’t detect who the offenders were.

These perambulations through the world of smut have cost offender and non-offender alike their access to the Net until the range of use can be limited to e-mail exchanges and Web sites appropriate to their duties. Student use of the Net in the classroom should be similarly restricted by software blockers.

These measures are appropriate, but they are not a perfect solution because the available blocking software usually prevents access to a lot more than just porn. The Los Angeles Public Library, for instance, does not block any sites. Notes librarian Susan Kent: “I can understand that some people might be upset, but to make the Internet unavailable because some might abuse it shuts off an entire universe of information for everyone else.”

She makes a sound point. Pornography adorned the walls of ancient temples and came through the mail in plain brown paper not long ago. That it now resides in cyberspace should not surprise us. But schools and other employers have every right to demand that public or company resources not be used to view it.