In an assembly held Aug. 24, students were informed YouTube was blocked and would remain blocked. They were also told that everything they search for on the Internet would be closely monitored to ensure that they are properly educated and attempts to bypass the blocks via proxies would result in consequences. Students were also told that this was for their own benefit.

It is most certainly not.

Many teachers illustrate points and provide tutorials on YouTube. It is an easy to use video source that covers a wide array of topics. Complex science demonstrations, Photoshop tutorials and documentaries are all provided on YouTube and can serve as powerful tools for teachers. Even if teachers do have access to YouTube, giving students the ability to view them on their own would be beneficial to both.

As well, an important part of many classes is to give a demonstration. In the same way YouTube helps teachers, it can help students. Without YouTube in the school, finding videos is an impossibility for some students.

Many students also learn best while listening to music. YouTube provides a variety of music artists for free who cannot be viewed anywhere else. The streaming nature of YouTube also prevents students who listen to music on it from filling up their data storage devices, saving them money and hassle.

The reason given when one attempts to access YouTube is that  it contains “Mature Content.” This is a complete lie.

YouTube is one of the few websites that has managed to properly deal with “mature content.” Pornography is almost instantly deleted from YouTube. If something on YouTube is even the least bit suggestive or contains even a single vulgarity It is set to only be viewed by users over the age of 18, which is more puritanical than the school even.

While “mature content” is the reason given for the block, it is quite clear that there is an ulterior motive. They really want to keep students from spending time on YouTube. This seems like a good reason at first, students should not watch videos while their teachers are lecturing. However, this problem is only a problem with YouTube by proxy.  If students are watching videos when they are not supposed to, the teacher is to blame, not YouTube. Teachers should be able to see when a student is watching a video instead of doing class-work and discipline as necessary. Because blocking YouTube does not address the problem it does nothing to stop it. The students who view YouTube videos in class will just watch videos on their phones.

Effectively, blocking YouTube does nothing but hurt students. There are no good reasons for it to be blocked. It is insulting that the school claims to be educating students for the ever changing world yet block websites that are vital to said ever changing world. It would be idiotic for the district to not allow students access to such a meaningful tool for education, crippling educators and students both.