On Birdhouses and Safety
Tonight I participated in a forum organized by one of our school’s PTAs. I talked briefly, alongside two police detectives and a professor who deals with law and forensics, about Internet safety.
It was a pretty good presentation by all present, and one of the themes was:
You can’t take back what you put in, at least not with any degree of certainty.
Meaning, if your kids are posting naked pictures of themselves, it’s not easy to take them back. It means if you say something stupid, and people read it, it’s hard to rub-off the stupid.
I think, like most people, I can admit to having done stupid things. I’ve eaten something messy and soiled my shirt. I’ve reacted to e-mails before I’ve had time to breathe. I’ve written things that maybe didn’t belong in a blog.
But I think in an online environment — a community of practice among educators, especially — that fearing not saying anything at all is silly. We have to be aware of the power of our words, but we ought to also not fear risk taking. Sometimes our risks pay off.
But the police detective tonight made it clear that somethings you cannot get back, like your innocence.
I also think in 2009, despite the Internet being around for as long as it has (I usually count 1994-96 because that’s when the Web began going mainstream, not the Internet precisely), that it’s still infantile and young.
Not just educators — but parents, students, and professionals — are still kicking tires, trying new things, and finding more and more uses for the seemingly endless streams of bits available to us.
I found this story about a birdhouse and using the Internet apropos.
Nearly ten years on, an idle curiosity prompted by some fleeting serendipity instantly brings it to me, and suddenly I know something I didn’t — something I should have no way of knowing, given time and distance — and I’m mourning a man who improved my life every time I looked out the window.