Banning iPods, March 3.

Schools have taken another step in the direction of communism.
The next item on the agenda is to ban iPods from campus.

Why is this happening? Teachers and staff agree that if iPods are forbidden then it could "stave off" cheaters. Evidently iPods have become the new weapon of choice among students in the line of discreet dishonesty. Students can hide them in clothing and fool unattentive teachers, saving answers in the lyrics archive and sometimes even using recorded vocals to recite answers in their ear during exams.
Who does this affect? The honest and dishonest student alike.
Where is this occuring? It is spotting the US from California to Washington to Texas to New York. Beyond our soil, Canada and Australia have even jumped on the bandwagon.
"I think it will become a national trend," commented Shana Kemp, spokeswoman for the National Association of Secondary School Principals. "We hope that each district will have a policy in place for technology. It keeps a lot of the problems down."
When will this become visible in the majority of public schools? The trend has already begun.

As my introduction may have already implied, I strongly disagree with this movement. Schools have banned hats, cell phones, even calculators in some cases, desperately hoping that cheating in their classes will dwindle until it is a forgotten, ancient practice. Admittedly, it's a noble thought. Doubtless, their intentions are good. However, the root of the cheating problem was never a hat, a cell phone, a calculator, or even an iPod. As Kelsey Nelson, a 17-year-old Mountain View High School senior stated, "...people who are going to cheat are going to cheat, with our without them."

At Duke, incidents of cheating have declined noticeably in the past ten years. This could be because students here are held to a standard of honesty. Tim Dodd, executive director for The Center of Academic Integrity at the university stated, "Trying to fight the technology without a dialogue on values expectations is a losing battle."

What teachers and school boards must understand is that technology is not the problem. Technology is a tool. And it can be every bit as useful as it is harmful, even in the case of iPods. If teachers want cheating to decline, they must address the root of the problem, the cheater. I would think that eventually it would become evident that no matter what one tries to ban and forbid, there will always be a new, creative way to cheat if a student desires to do so. If this trend continues, the students of the future will be secluded to a solitary cell with a stone tablet and a pot shard.

A teacher at Batesville High once said, "It is alarming to me that in the past one hundred years, the only thing I can see that hasn't changed at all is the structure of the basic classroom." We can no longer run from the incorporation of technology in our daily lives; we can no longer try to suffocate it in the school system. I am not sure that cheating will ever be squelched or staved. However, I am sure that banning iPods is not the way to handle this issue.

For additional support on these thoughts check out THIS ARTICLE by Mike Elgan, a fellow protester against the iPod banning movement.