Recently I had the privilege of visiting with my friend, Rob, and his family while I was Memphis for the Mid-South Technology Conference. It had been nearly 20 years since we had worshiped together at the Christian Serviceman’s Center at RAF Mildenhall, England. It didn’t matter where we were, I always knew Rob was the smartest man in the room. And that was no small feat at Mildenhall.
During the course of the evening our discussions turned to education and technology and Internet and…filtering. Rob’s wife is an educator. Rob is an IT guy running his own company. It was a natural progression.
Rob is also a church historian and theologian. So it was no surprise in the conversation that he divided the Internet filtering groups into two camps: John Calvin and John Knox.
Calvin believed strongly that pretty much everything was sinful except those things expressly stated in Scripture as being “acceptable.” Knox, on the other hand, believed that pretty much everything was acceptable except for those things expressly stated in Scripture as being “forbidden.”
Theologically, I was raised Calvinist to a degree. Don’t do this. Don’t do that. Don’t go here. Don’t say that. In my later years I have found myself more and more in the camp of Knox.
Educationally, I am very much in the Knox camp with regard to technology. I don’t like the fact that we have to filter sites like YouTube and Flickr and others. And yet I understand its necessity at times.
Recently, I’ve had some pretty spirited discussions with some of our IT people. They like to rag on me, and I like to rag on them. We have a lot of fun while debating our positions. I absolutely love those conversations! (Others see me as always wanting to argue a point. Their loss, huh.)
I would venture a guess to say that most IT Departments in school systems across the country are Calvinistic. They say, “We will block everything unless you can demonstrate the site is both necessary and safe.” They have to be this way, I suppose. They have thousands of computers being run by teachers and children in dozens of locations across hundreds of miles. It is a huge investment, and they have to protect it. I know how I feel when I walk into a room and find another student has taken it upon himself to update a file, but left the box checked that installs some other unwanted program that ties up memory, slows down performance, and keeps popping up asking if you want to buy something. I can only imagine how they feel when malware hits dozens or hundreds of computers across the system.
Most educators would probably fall into the Knox camp. We want access to information. The Internet is the teaching tool of our generation (not Interactive White Boards or iPads). How we get there doesn’t matter. We just want it open. Even if it is only open for us (or more open for us) and not for our students.
Like theology, technology is probably best handled somewhere in the middle. To get there requires a dialogue between Calvinists and Knoxists. A give and take. A mutual understanding of each others’ goals, aspirations, and needs.
I am indeed fortunate that I can have that discussion with the IT Department of my district.
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