The principal of John XXIII Catholic School has decreed that students there shallt not keep blogs.
When students post their faces, personal diaries and gossip on Web sites like Myspace.com and Xanga.com, it is not simply harmless teen fun, according to one Sussex County Catholic school principal.
It’s an open invitation to predators and an activity that Pope John XIII Regional High School in Sparta will no longer tolerate, the Rev. Kieran McHugh told a packed assembly of 900 high school students two weeks ago.
Effective immediately, and over student complaints, the teens were told to dismantle their Myspace.com accounts or similar sites with personal profiles and blogs. Defy the order and face suspension, students were told.
Um …
Okay, even if there’s truth in the principal’s concerns (debatable), it seems to me that’s more a matter for parents/families to decide, not the school. It’s sort of like decreeing that R-rated movies are bad, and, thus, we want copies of your Pay-per-view logs …
Or … is it that the school is tired of kids blogging negatively about it, and so is latching onto the “sexual predators” excuse the way some folks latch onto the “terrorists” meme to justify whatever they want?
(via BoingBoing)
Gee, I dunno, ***Dave – maybe we should listen to them. The Catholic leadership has some expertise in sexual predation, after all…