<p>I posted this up on the homeshcooling board, but I guess posting it up here makes more sense. Here it is:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I’m not clear on what you are asking. Do you feel powerless to remove a kid from a computer if he’s looking at nudity? Or are you looking for ways to teach the boys how harmful & hurtful it is to treat women as sex objects?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>i’m just looking for a way to perhaps talk them out of it. maybe i can get a male adult to do this for me?</p>
<p>If you do not want them looking at such stuff then you should research different filters for internet. I know the public library in my town uses a filter called SonicWall (I think). It is very good and there really is no way to get around it even with google searches. I had to write a paper recently and wanted to include some STD statistics - I had a hard time accessing any page about STDs unless it was a .gov site. That is all I needed so it was ok - when the block came up it said because sexual content - I know it also blocks any gambling sites because there was a lady in the library irate because she wanted to look up the lottery numbers! </p>
<p>I think it is also a good idea to talk about it - but can’t offer any suggestions as I have no experience with this age group of boys.</p>
<p>“Talk them out of it???” I’ve never hit a child in my life, but I’d be tempted to drag these little buggers out of their chairs & ban them from your center. Shut off their terminals. Tell them why. Send them home. Absolutely call their parents & explain the reason. Why tiptoe around such egregious behavior? 1st to 4th grade? I’d worry that these kids have been oversexualized at home. Curiosity is normal, but what kid would brazenly view this stuff at a parent education center?</p>
<p>Imagine how upset the parents of the other kids would be if they knew what their kids had been exposed to.</p>
<p>Wow - somehow I missed the first to fourth grade bit! When I was responding I was thinking that these were teenagers - I still think you should install a filter. I also agree with StickerShock - no bones about it. Be upfront, kick the kids off the computer and tell the parents why. No reason to be the “parent”, just inforce the policies in place by your center - and if you don’t have any policies yet start writing them right now!</p>
<p>I’ll definitely look up SonicWall.</p>
<p>the thing is we can’t afford to kick them all out. i know that it all started from curiosity, and if we kicked them out my parents will be broke. i just want to find a way where we can just block all of them. i just feel a little uncomfortable, though. </p>
<p>i’m a teenager, and while i was in the room this 4th grader was like ‘hey look! if you finish this game this girl takes off her top!’ and this other 2nd grader was like ‘really? can i see it?’. and i was like ‘ehem, i’m here!’ and these teenage guys were ■■■■■■■■■■■ i just HATE it.</p>
<p>If your parents run this education center & allow this behavior they are opening themselves up to lawsuits. I’m not a litigious person, but at the very least I’d demand a refund & pull my child out of this center immediately. You’re asking for trouble.</p>
<p>OK - well makes more sense now. Try to get some kind of filter on. If you can’t do that maybe talk to someone at local school to see what they do. </p>
<p>I am not very computer savvy but there should be someway you can make just a few computers available for projects/searching and a few for game playing - if this was the case then maybe you would be able to monitor better. Also, I know at my D school they have one computer that the lab monitor watches and she can see everything on each computer - I don’t know how it is done but seems like it is a networking thing. </p>
<p>Another tactic may be to develop policies and have parents and kids agree to the terms. This way the rules are transparent and it will also give the parents an opportunity to discuss with their children what they deem is appropriate.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>the thing is they don’t know that this is happening at all. i try to tell them but they are only trying to just talk one or two people out of it. <em>sighs</em></p>
<p>the policy thing seems like an excellent idea.</p>
<p>I second (or third or fourth) the need for an internet filter. This is really the best way to go when dealing with kids. I teach at an elementary school and all of our computers are filtered through the district network. It looks for keywords in sites and is extremely effective. In fact some times it’s too effective because we can’t get to sites that we need…but the system administrator can unblock sites. It is way better to be safe than sorry!!!</p>
<p>Turn all the computers the same way so that you can see all the screens from one vantage point. Then keep an eye on them. Have the parents sign a contract that states that the computers are for appropriate uses only and that students who use them inappropriately will be banned (temporarily or permanently).</p>
<p>As for internet filters, they certainly work, and it may be a few years before the kids figure out how to get around them. (I’m convinced one reason my son become a CS major was because he so enjoyed figuring out how to get around the school district filters.) But they also filter appropriate content, such as “breast cancer.”</p>
<p>all right. the freeshield filter is still up and running smoothly, and i wrote a set of rules (including the not viewing mature contents and eating in the computer room) and posted it up. hopefully this will bring some results, for many of these kids are always eager to report somebody else.</p>
<p>this is the “parents education center” well, those parents needs some education into what their sweet little ones are doing</p>
<p>wait, i’m not so sure if you guys fully understood what i meant…</p>
<p>my parents own an education center where we teach those kids…and the only reason why i’m trying to solve this problem myself is because they are too busy to be monitoring the computer room. we have some other person who are supposed to handle all of these things, and we PAY her for all this, but she’s too busy doing her personal stuff when we acutally PAY her. :mad:</p>
<p>Install the Internet filter, and while you’re at it, why not address the issue headon, and issue a strong advisory to the kids. Do remember that the History function of IE/Firefox will scare the daylights out of them. 
That is, until they learn how to delete history, but that’s another matter. :)</p>
<p>so I don’t know how much money your parents are making/charging to run this education center- but if they own it- I think they are responsible for the performance of their employees.
If someone is not monitoring the computers and small children are accessing porn sites, that appears as if standards of operation are very low.
Your parents may want to turn a blind eye to what the kids are doing , but I would suggest yanking the internet to all the computers and explain to the parents why, until you can come up with a workable solution to limit access to approved sites
( it is generally pretty easy to limit access- and true it will limit access to legit sites as my daughter found out when she was trying to access equine lineage, and “stud” & “stallion” were no-no words, but compared to what 6yr olds are doing?)
In an education center- there should be an adult in the room supervising the kids- otherwise they might as well be at home by themselves for free- if the person hired to do the job isnt doing it- I really don’t understand why she is still there?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>guess what, me neither. :mad:
i put up the rules already, and we have a video camera in the room. so if i spot a porn site in a computer’s history, all i have to do is find its time and look up the camera to see who was on the computer at that time. what i’m worried about is that though the shield blocks almost all of the websites, it can’t do anything about image search engines. i guess i’ll drop in to the computers from time to time and see what they have been searching for. </p>
<p>the worst thing these kids fear is getting banned from the computer room because they don’t get to play games then. that is the punishment for getting caught viewing those “sinful” images.</p>