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Ontario Teachers' Union Calls For Health-Related Classroom Wi-Fi Ban
New submitter KJE writes "The CBC is reporting that an Ontario teachers' union is calling for an end to new Wi-Fi setups in the province's 1,400-plus Catholic schools. The Ontario English Catholic Teacher's Association (OECTA) says computers in all new schools should be hardwired instead of setting up wireless networks. The OECTA, in its paper (PDF), said the 'safety of this technology has not thoroughly been researched and therefore the precautionary principle and prudent avoidance of exposure should be practiced.'"
On your cellphone
Take the microwaves out of the teacher's lounges.
"There's no scarcity of spectrum any more than there's a scarcity of the color green.", David Reed
Do I really have to say more?
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Probably the same reason the word 'nuclear' (as in nucleus') has been dropped from 'MRI'.
So a Catholic teacher's association is complaining that something isn't fully scientifically researched, documented, and proven? A CATHOLIC association? Galileo Galilei is laughing in his grave right now.
What the fuck is happening to my country? This is the kind of fear mongering and ignorance I'd expect from the American deep south but not in my own backyard.
Am I going completely mad?
There's two stories here.
The 1st one is the exoteric "I'm scared of technology" FUD that frankly works pretty well.
The 2nd one is the esoteric and totally unpopular "I'm sick of kids playing angry birds in class" and "I'm sick of my boss (principal) and/or family and friends IMing me stupid distracting stuff while I'm trying to teach a class" and "I'm sick of the boss using this to track my every digital action and create utterly meaningless dilbertian machine generated metrics to evaluate me on instead of doing real human observation evals" and "I'm sick of square peg / round hole the silver bullet to all educational problems is just add more internet"
I send my kids to a recently wifi'd school and also have some teacher relatives and option 2 is the reason why they use option 1 as a weapon against wifi.
See, option 1 works and thats all they care about in a "ends justify the means" scenario. If blaming witchcraft or the spread of communism on wifi worked better, they'd be trying that angle instead.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
They didn't also require AC receptacle plug covers installed so electricity doesn't leak out of the wall sockets and give everyone cancer.
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Honestly, I think it's time to re-evaluate the usefullness and legitimacy of the "Precautionary Principle". Over and over it's being invoke to deprive people of a known, verifiable *benefit*, in the name of unknown, unverified "dangers" - essentially "We know WiFi/whatever provides a benefit; but *someone* has made the unfounded, not supported by the evidence claim that there might be some risk of health problems, so let's deny people the known benefits in order to avoid unknown risks.
As far as WiFi - it's not like it's brand new and untested. It's been around for over 10 years now. Wouldn't we have seen (or be starting to see) any problems by now?
This union should be ashamed of themselves. Don't they realize the threat of all these cords that they are proposing? People could trip over them, or get wrapped up and asphyxiated with them. Won't they think of the children? All it takes is one little accident, and a little kid won't be going home to their parents. Maybe it's just safer not to have any computers in the classroom at all.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I would expect this from Alberta, but Ontario?
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
Maybe I'm being paranoid, but personally I'm much more concerned about the ubiquity of old lead pipes in the school buildings around here. Lead leaching into the water supply is a huge risk, especially for children, in whom it can cause learning disabilities. That's right, drinking the water in these schools is, statistically, causing learning disabilities in at least some of the students. But that would cost a whole lot to fix, and so instead we hear unsubstantiated hocus-pocus about wi-fi signals.
It's kind of like saying "I have a rock in my pocket, that prevents lions from eating us."
Now we all know the rock isn't preventing the lions, there are none in canada, so they CAN'T eat us. Let it go.. But letting something like that just "go"
gives plausibility to the whole "lions not eating people because of the rock stuff".
So It is bad, and it makes them look like idiots.
"we don't know if it is happening..."
Sorry I think your argument is a few decades late. Care to update to the current, "We know it's happening, but doing something about it would be hard"?
Teachers.
I say we get them out of classrooms. I mean, they could be causing cancer in our children. I know this might seem like crazy talk, but I know three kids who developed cancer after going to school, and I don't know of any who developed cancer without attending school. And cancer rates have been on the increase ever since mandatory public education was introduced to society. No scientific study has proved that there is no link between teachers and cancer, despite the best efforts of the pharmaceutical-educational complex that runs the New World Order these days.
Wake up, sheeple!
With the down pricing of tablets and the move to open text books. Class rooms will have cheap tablet based text books in less than 5 years. One tablet will cost less than 3 text books. The choice will be easy. Tablets will be wifi connected, not wired.
This means any such wired policy and expense will have less than a 5 year life time. Lots of expense for little long term benefit. I doubt they can see the future.
They should ban the ingesting of the Eucharist as the science is still not settled on the effects of transubstantiation.
Why not?
Because it is pandering to a false belief (that wifi harms people), and its one that *has* been thoroughly researched, unlike what was stated in the article and summary.
It is a dangerous thing to fold and let this pass, because irrational opponents to radio waves will point to this case to further their fear-based opposition.
You cant just let them win because its "too hard" fighting irrational beliefs, you have to educate people about the facts so they are not afraid of things they don't understand properly. You have to show everyone that these people are wrong, why they are wrong, and why it is a bad thing to allow such wrongness to win.
I think it's hilarious that you refer to WASPs in an article about the Catholic school system. Talk about not thinking too hard!
My offer is $100, but if your rock fails me, you must use some of that $100 to buy a wireless router to kill the Lion that ate me.
Just because you are wrong and I called you out on it doesn't mean I am a Troll.
We've researched it with short wave radio, FM, AM, CB, and even cell phones. We've even researched the health effects of 2.4 and 5.4ghz signals. Wifi falls within this research since it's using the same spectrum and is if anything lower power.
So... not only is the complaint stupid.... it's also wrong.
Are they actually upset about this for the stated reason or are they claiming a health reason to justify opposing it for some reason?
I've dealt with too many of these political issues to take it at face value. There is often something else going on.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Sigh...potential long term effects are known. There are not any.
Their belief is irrational. It goes against the majority of evidence concerning low power radio waves effects on human tissue.
Weve had radio for what, over a hundred years now? Weve had 2GHz+ radio for how many decades?
Is that not long term enough?
Actually, not all studies are created equal, but what we *do* know is that there are more *quality* studies showing that it is harmless at the power levels in use today, than there are *quality* studies showing harmful effects.
Exactly. They have hire people to carry those data-packets around.
Very true.
Many to most teachers are very stuck in their ways and do not like trying new things or admitting that they do not know something. My personal turn on the phrase is, "One of the hardest things to do is to teach a teacher." I could go into many reasons for this, but suffice it to say, you are not far from the mark at all. Are all teachers this way? No, of course not. It's not even always a young vs. old divide. I do, however, find that some, if not all, of the "best" teachers are those that are willing to admit they are wrong, learn from their mistakes, and admit that there will always be more that they do not know.
Mess not in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and good with ketchup.
You sure missed a lot of punctuation and capitalization! Here let me help you! I'll admit, the last sentence fragment was very hard for me to parse.
I don't know about more jobs. It's total bollocks; that's what it is. Why do these so-called teachers seem like they didn't get any freaking education?
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
I think you fell into the sar-chasm.
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
I do, however, find that some, if not all, of the "best" teachers are those that are willing to admit they are wrong, learn from their mistakes, and admit that there will always be more that they do not know.
That's got nothing to do with teachers though. That is a trait that is probably shared by most of the best in any field.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
I never noticed that Catholic teachers are any dumber that the average teacher, in fact they typically do a better job than public (government) schools. When Jay Leno goes jaywalking, teachers frequently give the dumbest answers of anyone.The teaching profession in the USA draws from the worst of the college bound crowd. I'm not Catholic, never went to Catholic schools, but I know non-Catholics sending their kids to Catholic schools simply to get a better education for their kids.
Catholics hold any number of silly views, fear of EM radiation does not appear to be a particularly Catholic viewpoint.
...Catholics are advocating pulling out?
As a matter of redundancy, it's good to have diverse network infrastructure: electrically powered *and* Labatt fueled.
I have yet to meet a teacher in elementary school who can use a computer yet alone comment on the health concern and technology behind wireless networks. I don't think the teachers union is the right group to go at this, I think maybe the IEEE might just be a little more qualified to make this call. After all I had one teacher in grade 8 who didn't know it was possible to save an image from the world wide web, I had another who thought hacking was opening up a window that had only text on it and no graphics!!!!
I'm not joking about those 2 situations.
You have to show everyone that these people are wrong, why they are wrong, and why it is a bad thing to allow such wrongness to win.
Obligatory XKCD
"The most dangerous enemy of a better solution is an existing codebase that is just good enough." -- Eric S. Raymond
Seems like the local IT would rise up in opposition.
Are you kidding? All that spectrum no longer being used? We could have wireless internet at gigabit speeds on mountain tops! And thanks to the ban on EM radiation, no-one will be allowed to use the equipment needed to detect that we're doing it!
While their reasons are crazy, running wired networks is the better thing to do. Keeps the spectrum clean for devices that actually need to be wireless. A classroom full of WiFi easily saturates to the point where performance degrades, especially when you have a bunch of students all loading material on cue from the teacher. While it's technologically possible to do it right with 5GHz if you control the client hardware selection, that is not what people who try to cut corners using wireless are doing; they chintz on APs as well.
I've seen a lot of colleges abandon their wire plant in favor of wireless in the dorms and even in the classrooms. Eventually they will end up putting it all back in as PoE is starting to prolifierate, and may make it into laptops as their power envelopes converge with what PoE can offer. At that point, in addition to all the building-integration devices and IP phones, they'll have demand again for wired connections from the end user. Unfortunately by that time, they'll have spent orders of magnitudes more money than a wired plant costs these days into remodeling, during which time they will have unwittingly allowed contractors to cut wires and leave them stranded in the wallboard with no record of where they are situated.
Wired networks these days are actually pretty cheap. Once you discount the top switches which you need anyway for APs and building integration, access switches can be had for short change.
Someone had to do it.