Student gets busted with porn on his blog-Part II

May 21, 2007

In a Murphian twist of fate, it turns out the student was not *exactly* the culprit. The photograph which he had linked to belonged to a (financial) site, which was hacked into. I contacted them to clarify the matter and indeed, they had no idea some smutty pics were on their server. It remains unclear exactly when all this happened, thus exonorating the boy from even knowing he had it on his blog–reasonable doubt. Unfortunately for the lad, a whole bunch of porn was discovered in his email box by the parents. Oops! Here is an excerpt of my report.

Although the chances are good that the student knew about it before we brought it to his attention, there is “reasonable doubt” about this. Therefore no punitive measures will be taken against the student.
Teacher XXX and I met with the parents this morning at 10. I told them that I believed their son was not originally responsible, but that there was a doubt in my mind in regards to when he knew about the change in his blog. I also told them that we would work hard to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.
Here are the steps I will take to achieve my promise to the parents.

1. Students will no longer link to images outside their control. From now on,
images will be first uploaded to a designated space that the students control.
2. I will prohibit access to email accounts.
3. Online storage space will be made available for the purpose of saving work

In addition, I will speak to all the grade 8 students to explain to them that their blogs are sometimes read by outsiders. I will use the present case as an example. Hopefully this will lead students to be more responsible. It is my belief that something like this will only empower them further, making them feel like their voice, even in English, is heard outside of the walls of their school or their home. Although unfortunate for the student and parents who had to defend themselves, this is a great opportunity for both students and teachers to learn and adapt.
As a final note, I would like to add that this is the first time in 4 years that something like this has happened. Frankly, I am surprised it took this long. That in itself is proof that overall, this is not a serious problem for our students, the CALL Department and Shin Min Junior High.

I asked myself the question did I jump the gun, or did I act improperly in the face of the latest developments in this mini-saga, and the answer I came up with was a resounding “no”. It all ended well and no one is snickering at me, at least, to my face. My boss also told me he didn’t think I acted rashly. I believe him.