Chipped sheep... Preschoolers

When I read the article about the preschoolers having computer chips imbedded in jerseys to keep them "safe" My first initial reaction was to picture a preschooler with an x-ray jacket on. I don't know if you've ever seen one of these, but their heavy aprons meant to protect the wearer. But, after a little further reading, I realized how wrong I was. The chips are tiny things velcro-ed into jerseys that are attached to the kids, but the idea is the same. Put a piece of clothing on a person to protect them from a perceived evil. In this case, the escape of preschoolers. However, before this program becomes a widely used phenomenon, there are several issues to be addressed:

1. Can't the kids take off the jersey? It seems to me that taking off a jersey can't be as complicated as getting out of child safe doors, avoiding the teacher's ( and assistants) watchful gaze, and managing to get all the way out of the building.

2. Is it the parent's right to choose? If this becomes a nationalized program, people must realize that their right to make choices regarding their child's safety is jeopardized. The information being stored in public schools can be seen as a violation of privacy, and at what benefit?

3. Does it diminish the work of the teacher? There has been a lot of publicity about the quality of teaching in the United States. I think most would agree that there has been a decline in the education the teachers are providing. Offense range from major to minor, teachers not showing up to work, to teachers not engaging in their students. However, there is a point to be made that maybe the teachers don't have any decision making power anymore. If I were a teacher, I would wonder what my purpose was if I wasn't even to be trusted to keep a child in the room I presided over. The teacher's job is to educate, and teach the child academics and life skills. Not to hover over a computer screen making sure everyone is in their proper place.

4. What about bathrooms? This is really a minor point, but still one to be considered. Not all schools have restrooms inside each room. Will we have security guards and teachers chasing dots that have "escaped" only to find the child is using the restroom? Or on the way to the Principals office? The Nurse? Or simply is going home early?

5. Will the child want to learn? Or be forced to? Many children love school, or hate it. Some of the most successful schools are the ones where kids want to stay in class, and learn from their teacher. The idea of pinning them in the classroom like sheep gives me the chills. When school becomes a pen, the grass on the other side will seem much more attractive. Kids will always find a way to skip class, whether chipped or not.

Most of this is just my uninformed opinion, but they are points that need to be considered when thinking of the logistics and ethics of this plan. Maybe we should focus on improving the schools, not securing them. Maybe we should try to make the kids want to stay in class and learn, not force them too. Maybe we should give our teachers the chance to do their job, instead of slowly making them powerless adults in a classroom of kids. Maybe we should make our children want to learn, and think its worthwhile, instead of giving them a sense imprisonment.

Instead, we should try to make the grass in the pen sweet, instead of trying to enclose the pen with electrical wire, surveillance systems, and tall fences.

Kids, like sheep, will want the sweet grass on the outside more and more, the tighter and more restrictive their grazing ground, and school become.

Co-op News Article

This is my first post for the blog, and I will be responding to a news article I read from the Kansas City Star. This article shares a new electronic registering system to help monitor children in the Head Start program. Preschool children.

Basically, the system installs computers with the technology to track small locator devices that the children keep in a zip up pocket on their jacket. The children then appear on the screen as moving dots. The dots will change to orange or red, depending on how far they are from where they should be.

This sounds safe enough, especially when we are assured that no personal information is saved other than the child's name. The locators are also cleared every night at midnight. After a bit more extensive research, however; my opinions of this technology became a bit more adversarial.

The first major problem we see arise is the range these locators possess. They are capable of being detected from distances of up to 100 yards away. This fact is made only more threatening by the fact that anyone with the right motives could build, for something around $250, their own monitor to detect the locators. This offers a dangerous potential tool for those seeking to harm children. There is also no way of knowing who's looking at those moving dots, or where from. The notion that criminals could use this technology against itself from anywhere in a 100 yard radius is a bit unnerving, to say the least.

The second problem is with the devices themselves. They are expected to remain in the pocket of curious, naive preschoolers for the entire educational day. I don't know about you, but when I was that age, a strange, flashy device in my pocket would have been the most interesting thing to take out of my pocket. And as a small child with rapidly changing interests, this device would quickly end up on the floor or on some shelf. To the observing monitors, it would appear that children are safe, but this could easily lead the staff in charge of the screen into a false sense of security.

This technology was originally used to maintain packages in large shipping companies, or other jobs similar to that. While it is a good idea at first glance, perhaps it should remain in use with inanimate objects, rather than in the pocket of a small child. With taxes already on an unhealthy rise and an economy on an unhealthy decline, the $50,000 federal grant could be much better spent where it's not putting preschoolers at risks for safety.

What Are Teachers For?

In response to the article on RFID chips for pre-schoolers in Head Start programs, the first concern that came to mind was, how is this not a privacy concern to these children's parents? We feel the need for security every day; locks on our doors, caller ID, security systems in our houses. Just like the computers for the RFID chips does this not start flashing red in the parents minds? Send warning flares to their protective instincts? Apparently not! These systems seem to be safe. The article states that no child-specific data is kept on these chips and that each night the data is erased. So safety is not a concern.

Even if the chips themselves are safe why do we need them? The article does not specifically identify the safety concerns that would cause the need for these tracking devices or if there were any safety concerns in the first place. We would hope that the teachers at Head Start are trained well enough to not need extra technological assistance in keeping track of their charges. If this was indeed a problem why not hire more teachers? According to the article, at George Miller III Center in Richmond, two hundred students use RFID chips. For these two hundred pre-schoolers the school received a $50,000 federal technology grant to perchase the chips, plus $1.50 a month for each student for the upkeep of the chips.

In my opinion the RFID chips are perfectly fine in and of themselves but are not useful enough to justify the amount of money being spent on them. If the teachers are having a hard time keeping track of their children then I recommend smaller classrooms where the teachers ultimately will be able to give the children better care than a tracking computer.

Why?

The U.S. is never lacking on ways to pointlessly waste money on things that are unnecessary but cool. I have a few questions on the ability of these RFID's (Radio frequency identification device). I cannot help asking why? I would first like to know who is watching these screens full of Orange and red dots all over them? You would think that if the teachers were watching the kids closely, (which is what their job is) that they would not need to have kids carrying high tech chips around all day. It limits the teachers rather then "Free our teachers up from some of these administrative tasks, so they can teach" said Karen Mitchoff, spokeswoman for Contra Costa County Employment and Human Services Department. At first it was very interesting to me that they were testing these on Pre-Schoolers. But after looking into to it further I realized that they wanted to test it on less knowledgeable "youngsters" who would not know that they are being tracked everyday at school. So the question is if they were to use this on anyone in high-school that it is extremely likely that most of them would find a way to get the chip off of them in no time. So that the only school kids we could use these devices on is pre-schoolers which, in my opinion, is rather a wast of money. Beside the fact that it is really creepy and unnecessary, and pointless. There our many other things we could be using our money for then tracking chips, in little kids jumpers.

Safer Preschools?

Head Start program in California is now using RFID tags in jerseys to track preschoolers. The children are monitored by a computer which uses dots to show the exact location of them in the school. The room will change to red on the screen if a child gets to close to leaving a room there not supposed to. Sounds like a good idea right? Well i see a couple flaws with the RFIDs.

First, what if the student decides to take the tag out of his jersey and leave the room? The staff at the computer wouldn't be able to tell if he/she did that and the tracking device would be useless. What if someone who isn't authorizes to use the program does? The system has no way to tell if non-staff uses it to access a child personal information. Really what is the problem to begin with. Is supervision too much of a problem? Is the number of incidents in which kids wonder off great enough to justify the use of RFID tags?

What about the future? Is this going to desensitize citizens to the integration of RFIDs?

Articles Used:

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/09/09/2209827/electronic-system-being-tested.html#ixzz1060z9kxQ

http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/9/9/concerns_raised_over_use_of_computer

Yet Again?

I have to say, kids are very hard to keep track of. Having lots of experiance with lots of lost children now and then, this is something that technology has tried to fix many times before. Ever since those tracking devices that looked like teddy bears that parents strapped onto their kid's shoes to know where they are, to the device that you can put into a cell phone to keep track of where your teen is going and even the speed they are driving. Yes, there are such things. There is now a new type of electronics called RFID, or Radio Frequency Identification Device, is being tested on preschoolers of Head Start to help to keep track of the youngsters. Here are some quotes from the news story by Kansas City Star:

"Two hundred preschool students in 10 classes at the site have been outfitted with jerseys carrying small electronic locator tags, which help staff keep track of where the children are and what they've eaten that day."

"The locator devices, paid for with a $50,000 federal technology grant, were implemented not only to reduce the time teachers spend on paperwork, but as a safety-enhancement tool."

"When dropping off a child, the parent or guardian scans a blank tag, associating the tag number to their child's name on a computer in the classroom, and signs the child in on the computer's touch screen. The tag goes into the jersey's zipped pocket, allowing staff to track where students are and automating data entry for meals.
On their computer screens, staff members can see children as moving dots. The room's color will change to orange on the screen if the student-to-teacher ratio doesn't meet requirements, or if a student is nearing the exit. The color will turn red if the child leaves the room.
When a parent or guardian picks up a child, the tag is removed, and the child is signed out on a computer touch screen, automatically clearing the student's name from the device.
The tags also are automatically reset at midnight each evening, ready and blank for the next morning.
Collected data is stored in an encrypted system, accessible only to staff."

So basically, they put chips into these kid's jerseys' pockets. Then the kid shows up the screen that is somewhere in the school. The screen turns colors if the kid is getting away from the room. So here are some of the ups and downs to this idea, and also some interesting thoughts and ideas I had.

So to start with the good things:

• It helps keep track of the kid, so the kid is less likely to get lost.
• The teachers like it, and so do some parents.
• It helps keep track of the kid's food intake.

These can be good things, especially if you fear you child's safty.
Here are some of the bad things I saw in this.

• This technology is quite expencive.
• The idea they have the kid's information and what they are eating strkes me as creepy. Very creepy.
• The idea seems a bit pointless when we have so little information.

These, to me, seem to be something to take into concideration when putting kids in the care to computers....
And last, somethings I thought interesting.

• The parents like the idea. Okay, so you just give your kids away with chips in their clothes and you have to "check them in" so to say to get into the preschool. I must admit that we have something like this in our church, but at least it is more safe and personal, where only the parents have the information and the ability to have the kid's information. There is also the point that there are less kids in the classes at my church, so they are better looked after, and they don't keep track of the kid's food intake.
• It is unclear who watches the screen. If it is the teachers, then are the teachers really doing their job? If you ahve to watch a screen, wouldn't that distract you from teaching to kids? This technology was sopposed to help the teachers teach easier, so if it is not them, then is it the principle? Is it a security guard, or someone else? I can't see why we could entrust our child's information to someone who we don't even know personally.
• They use this kind of technology on cattle. This kind of explains for itself.
• They test this technology on Preschoolers. Think about it. They start with children who cannot understand the idea that this invades their privacy. They don't understand that they could complain, and that they are always being watched. I mean, they are just 3 to 4 year olds!
• Head Start is for the children who are, frankly, poor, so would they have the right to complain?
• What would happen if the kid had to take a bathroom brake or such? What about recess? Can you imagine what would happen to the screen?

These are some of my ideas about this technology. I personally do not believe that this technology works and it is very pointless. The idea seems nice, but when you look deeply into it, it doesn't seem very helpful. You can look into this article yourself at this website:
http://www.kansascity.com/2010/09/09/2209827/electronic-system-being-tested.html

Follow the child

Trying to keep track of children has always been troublesome. They always seem to be going somewhere that you're not. The most recent tool to change this is by using an electronic tracker at schools to keep track of the students. The Kansas City Star wrote an article about the tracker's use in a preschool in California. The experiment is government funded by a program called Head Start. Privacy groups have shown concern for the children's personal security, but the school officials are not worried.

"Mitchoff stressed that tags store no child-specific data, other than names, for each day only and is erased each night.

"We recognize that there are concerns," she said. "This really is focused on safety and the ability of teachers to utilize their skills to teach."

Read more: http://www.kansascity.com/2010/09/09/2209827/electronic-system-being-tested.html#ixzz1060z9kxQ

This subject brings up many questions about the funtionality of these devices.

• Are they really going to improve the safety of the children?
• will the children find ways to overcome the technology?
• can it be used in other situations like, factories, public schools or for everyone?
• what will this do to the computer chip business?

Please respond with your opinion and write what you think. :)

Articles used:

http://www.kansascity.com/2010/09/09/2209827/electronic-system-being-tested.html

http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/9/9/concerns_raised_over_use_of_computer