This will be vastly different in a third grade health class than in an eighth grade social studies class. Schools are at a crucial crossroads. We cannot allow the public to believe that site-filtering products will make the Internet a safe place for children to be unsupervised. We must keep in mind the power of the Internet as a research tool while educating our students to the dangers that may lurk on line. A teacher sending her students to New York City may warn them to be aware of crime and drugs while encouraging them to explore the museums and Broadway.
Curiosity is a natural, healthy instinct.
We should not stifle it, but at the same time we must help our children to make mature, moral decisions about what to, and what not to, access on the Internet. For those who don't believe a child would purposely visit an inappropriate site, I suggest that he who has never looked up a dirty word in a dictionary be the first to cast a stone. Carol Caruso spent several years as a teacher and technology coordinator before becoming a very technology-literate guidance counselor. She served as vice president of the Monmouth Technology in Education Council for two years and is a member of the New Jersey Association of Educational Technology and the International Society for Technology in Education.