Internet filtering system broken

John Travers has put his two bobs worth out there regarding internet filtering in response to some of the discussion that happened at the Jimmy Wales seminar in Adelaide. Sure administrators can upblock a site ATM, and they do, but the current filtering model starts from a negative position and that is not good. It is a deficit model that is not built around trust.

I want a better filtering system for schools that

• respects the different needs of children as they grow and develop
• promotes values of respect and trust
• facilitates unencumbered learning
• is respectful of the work of teachers
  

So what if we had a filtering system that

• a teacher could turn on and off for a student for periods of time (ATM it is only administrators that can do this)
• had various levels of filtering from very strong to none
• where students could be assigned a level for filtered access that was consistent with their percieved trustworthiness and maturity
• where this level was reviewed on an annual basis involving teachers, parents and students
• displayed all access logs for all members of the school community to all members of that community
• where community action was taken where people breached our expectations for appropriate conduct

I am not totally happy with this as a model but I have to start somewhere and it certainly better than the one size fits all model that we have. I also expect that the needs for filtering models will change with time just as the need for a person to walk in front of the early motor cars with a red flag disappeared with time.