The SurRural Librarian

This month I’ve been working with my 5th - 8th graders on their online research skills. Two misconceptions they have (and I’m sure they got these ideas from adults) is that every page ending in .edu is legitimate, and every .org is a non-profit.

After years of working in colleges where every undergraduate & staff member gets web space, I’ve seen plenty of ridiculous information on urls ending in .edu like this and this.

So imagine my horror to see this story:

Filter-Savvy Students Barred from Most of Web
As of October 20, students of the Matanuska-Susitna Borough School District headquartered in Palmer, Alaska, are no longer able to retrieve websites on classroom or media-center computers unless the site ends in a .gov or .edu domain name, the site is a database whose content is licensed by the district, or the district has approved an educator’s request that the site be unblocked.

Not only is it patently ridiculous to assume that every .edu site is educational, but it’s an insult to our students to filter the internet this way (or any way, frankly). It reminds me of the day I accidentally shut down internet access in a high school in China by typing in the url of a site I wanted to show the students, instead of using their pre-approved bookmarks. Hmm, now what’s the difference between the Chinese form of government and our own? I’ve forgotten.