Ontario Teachers' Union Calls For Health-Related Classroom Wi-Fi Ban 365
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.'"
Call your union rep (Score:5, Funny)
On your cellphone
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
>Yeah, same frequency as WiFi, dude
No it isn't.
WiFI 2.4GHz
DECT 1.9GHz
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Informative)
>Yeah, same frequency as WiFi, dude
No it isn't.
WiFI 2.4GHz
DECT 1.9GHz
Even if the frequency ranges aren't the same, in the context of safety concerns, both of the above frequency ranges are in the same ballpark. Interestingly if you read the IEEE C95.1 report (which is difficult to get a copy of) you'll find that the most concervative levels of concern are somewhere around 5 to 10 W/m^2, and that includes a 10:1 safety margin of the actual power density levels of concern for controled invironments. [If you find the report, see Figures 3 and 4.] However if you want to understand RF exposure, a good place to start that is readily accessible is right at the FCC: http://transition.fcc.gov/oet/rfsafety/rf-faqs.html [fcc.gov]
Also for the Original Article to say that Electromagnetic Radiation hasn't been studied enough is dubious and at best a truism, because it's been studied for 60 years. America, Canada, Japan, and the EU all have their own studies and conconclusions about safe electromagnetic levels broken down by frequency ranges. The only known concern is RF heating, and WiFi can't put out enough power for that to be a concern. Cell base stations put out only a small amount of power per sector antenna (typically about 20 Watts) and these antennas have a "pancake" pattern that focuses at the horizon, so even standing right under the base station isn't unsafe. You have to be three feet in front of the base station antenna before it would be unsafe -- and for that to happen you'd have to be right in front of it on the tower. The cell phone right against the head is a lot stronger amount of RF exposure than a cell phone base station right across the street is.
There's a LOT of general misunderstanding of "RF exposure", which usually comes out as "we don't understand it enough" in some form. To an extent that may always be true, because it's something you can only measure with equipment and is otherwise invisible to a human being. So for some it's hard to understand that low levels of RF exposure is safe.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Insightful)
What's next? Banning windows and outdoor recess? Both of those activities subject students to far greater EMF Radiation from the fusion reaction commonly referred to as "the sun" Further more "Cover up" campaigns in Australia aimed at lowering skin cancer rates showed an increase in vitamin D related conditions that far outweighed any health benefits from the campaign.
This is all over the fact that the cancer rates around high voltage power lines in Colorado in the late 60s and early 70s were far above what would be expected. The moral of that was that maybe you should check if the power company is using agent orange for weed control (they were) before you look like an ass, and create a bunch of junk science about the dangers of EMF radiation.
There have been hundreds of studies about EMF and none of the studies without major flaws have shown any correlation between EMF radiation and cancer, or any other disease.
In the 70s and 80s your comments made sense, now it just makes you look stupid and causes people to be dismissive of your overall agenda, which would be good, if you were not chasing something that people instinctively know is wrong.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Funny)
What's next? Banning [...] outdoor recess?
Yes. [wordpress.com] Recess is dangerous. [nwsource.com]
Re: (Score:3)
The artificial loads are indoors.
People evolved largely outdoors.
Modern man gets far less sitting in a room full of wifi routers than bush man got tending his flock or hunting/gathering.
Sorry, the hysteria simply won't add up for you.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Informative)
Whilst there may be a potential transmitter every 1.5m2, they are not all transmitting at the same time. In fact each transmitter spends a majority of it's time sleeping, with the receiver listing for a break so that it can implement collision avoidance.
You are deeply misinformed on this issue and your post is just scaremongering. The overall spectrum use is limited no matter how many people you have, and even then we're talking about an average power of 30mW on a maximum of 3 channels. No-one is getting cooked.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Informative)
I'm not sorry, chump... the whiners tried that in our district school board (in Ontario) and got put in their place. The same thing will happen here at the provincial level too. It is just not credible. WiFi is not the significant factor here.
Every kid gets to use a computer now, because they wheel in cartloads of laptops. They can't run ethernet cabling for all of them, everywhere they are to be used on the school grounds. It figures these anal teachers wouldn't be happy until they are back to the stone age. Teachers here are so unrealistic it's not funny... some of the pettiest people I know are teachers.
The fact that this is a Catholic teacher's union whining on behalf of catholic schools is even more infuriating... because now they suckle the public teat just like the public school system. They still think they get to make their own rules.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all about the Catholic perspective:
1. Radio waves that pass harmlessly through your body = dangerous
2. Omniscient deity that can read your mind and plant thoughts in your brain = safe (good, even!)
Makes sense.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Insightful)
Firstly, I totally agree with your sentiment, and it is a shame the folks that modded you today forgot to turn on their sarcasm filter.
Having said that, look at it from the other side. When I hear utterly asinine stories like this, I agree that it makes me angry and frustrated with the state of the world - but at the same time, I look at the bright side. When I have kids, I will bring them up with good education, critical thinking skills and a solid understanding of science and reasoning - then I happily think about how little competition they will have in the real world when their peers are sitting under desks scared of the "eViL WiFI!".
While it makes me a little sad to see in this day and age these sort of shenanigans still going on, I can't help but think that my offspring will be like wolves amoung the sheep.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Funny)
I've never seen a Catholic wearing a tinfoil hat. Can you provide evidence for this claim?
Whoa! Really? Never seen the pope? Why do you think that friggin' hat is so big, anyway? Yep, totally lined with tin-foil [businessinsider.com].
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Funny)
Aluminum isnt harmless either. You think its safe to drink from that coke can, but what if it was 5*10^32 kg and exerted a sufficient gravity field to crush your body?
Re: (Score:3)
A standard 12oz 4 1/2" coke can would only have to mass 6E+27kg in order to be within its Schwartzchild radius.
Of course, this sort of coke can can only exist in Soviet Russia.
(yes, I did assume the horse was a sphere)
Re: (Score:3)
It's rather amusing that the teachers aren't more educated on this topic.
There's so many things emitting RF. They're probably like a couple people where I work - they seem to think that if a device isn't on there aren't any radio signals about. I've tried to explain that even if your radio/cell/whatever is off the signals are still in the air and passing through their body. I don't understand why people can't grasp that simple concept...
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Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.qsl.net/n9zia/gbtrunk.html [qsl.net]
http://w8msp.com/Oakland.html [w8msp.com]
You are probably being hit with plenty of UHF/microwave radiation when you walk near a police station. Not only that, but your body will absorb more energy at 800MHz than 2.4GHz (the specific absorption rate at 800MHz is higher than at 2.4GHz), so you should be more concerned about your exposure to radiation from public safety systems than from wifi.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Interesting)
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It's called willful blindness, in the case of the teacher's union.
There's been a lot of research into wifi - not into cellphones, but into wifi? absolutely.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Interesting)
When I was in year three (That's when I was about eight, not sure what third grade means outside of Australia) I had an amusing argument with my teacher about "geometry". She claimed that if you stood right at the right spot at ground level, you could see all base four corner stones of a square pyramid. The argument ended up with me being sent to the headmasters office because I called her ignorant and facetious, but I did have my sweet moment when the headmaster informed her that she was wrong and that I was right.
Teachers do think they know it all. I guess that teaching little kids all day every day makes them think they are some sort of fountain of knowledge and information.
Having said that, I also know a few teachers who are very well informed, intelligent and I would consider all round great people.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:4, Interesting)
This came to mind: http://www.wtfeck.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/mile-vs-kilometre-detention.gif
Re:Call your union rep (Score:5, Insightful)
If my kid came home with a note like that, I think I would ask him/her what he most wanted in the whole world (assuming new computer, gaming station, pony etc) and go out the same afternoon and buy one.
Re:Call your union rep (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, this depends quite a bit on other variables, notably the height of the pyramid. Standing at ground level puts your perspective above ground level. Imagine standing at the middle of one edge of a square pyramid that is 10 meters on a side. Imagine the pyramid is only 1 meter tall. Certainly, you can see all of the corners. Even when the apex reached eye level, because your eyes are offset from the center, you would still be able to see three sides, and thus all four corners.
This wouldn't work for the pyramids in Egypt, unless ground level involved a pretty big hill...
As a teacher myself, I find this comment to be... (Score:3)
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 a
Re:As a teacher myself, I find this comment to be. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
Remove all 2.4 GHz emitting devices (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remove all 2.4 GHz emitting devices (Score:5, Insightful)
- make them leave their cell phones in their cars
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Amen! I have been visiting potential schools to which to send send my eldest child next year. They all have weekly "computer" or "technology" sessions for the kindergarteners. I ask what they actually do in there, and the answer always boils down to "using education software to practice recognizing numbers, letters, and words that could be just as well done with paper and pencils but without the development of fine motor skills that you get w
Re:Remove all 2.4 GHz emitting devices (Score:5, Insightful)
hmm, you have not thought this through I see...
Sure, the children are learning the same things, letters and numbers. But what pencils and paper do not teach is the use and familiarly of modern technology.
We want children to grow up around the things that they will be using extensively for the rest of their lives. Insulating them from technology will not help them, it will cause more harm than good.
Waste of time and money? Absolutely not.
Re: (Score:3)
You must know some 12-year-olds with exceptional vocabularies.
Re: (Score:3)
How does someone use the phrase `corporatist plutocrats` and not get modded into oblivion? Is this person 12?
Just call them "running dogs of Wall Street" then.
Maybe the Chinese have enough traditionalist shills here that it would be modded up, in aggregate.
Re:Remove all 2.4 GHz emitting devices (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't matter if chalk dust causes lung problems, it appears to be enough if the 'safety of this technology has not thoroughly been researched'. The health effects of WiFi signals has more likely been much more heavily researched than graphite dust from pencils, dry-erase marker dust or the liquid that evaporates from them. For that matter any additional un-tested off-brand pens and markers brought in from students.
I like the comments above from others. If the union is successful then also absolutely prohibit any teacher from bringing a mobile phone on to campus. Remove microwave ovens from the schools as well. If a 600mw WiFi radio on a ceiling is thought to be dangerous, then a powered up phone in a closed metal vehicle should be viewed as reckless. In keeping with standard school policies, a teacher with a powered on mobile phone anywhere on campus, including their cars, be subject to a zero-tolerance policy and result in immediate termination.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Remove all 2.45 GHz emitting devices (Score:4, Funny)
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!
Not this shit again. (Score:4, Insightful)
Do I really have to say more?
Re: (Score:3)
Tell me about it. At this rate we will "sufficiently studied" ourselves back to living in caves.
Microwave ovens haven't come to Ontario yet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Probably the same reason the word 'nuclear' (as in nucleus') has been dropped from 'MRI'.
Re:Microwave ovens haven't come to Ontario yet? (Score:4, Funny)
No, the real reason was what happens if you walk into a hospital and say you are there for an NMR (say it out loud, quickly).
Well then... (Score:2)
This is dumb beyond words. These are the people teaching our children? Could be fun in 20 years.
Re: (Score:2)
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In my opinion, this is not even the stupidest thing they've done. We also have race-based schools here now. Of course, being the favoured pets of the provincial premier (who's wife is teacher) have received very large wage increases in his time in office, even as the provinces finances are being flushed down the toilet.
Re: (Score:3)
"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"?
Re: (Score:2)
Ask relevant scientists about global warming. Then ask relevant scientists about wifi causing health issues. You'll notice a difference.
A 1,000 comment story involving global warming will pop up before too long. Let's leave this argument alone until then?
Re: (Score:2)
"we dont know if its happening"
Are you wilfully ignorant, or just a few decades behind the ball here?
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Not thoroughly researched? That's precious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Not thoroughly researched? That's precious. (Score:5, Informative)
Oh, it gets better.
In Ontario, Catholic schools are 100% fully-funded public institutions running in parallel with the secular public schools. It's nice to know that my tax dollars are being used to teach kids that gay=bad, safe sex=evil and wifi=devil.
Other provinces have joined the 21st Century and de-funded religious schools, but all of the political parties in Ontario are too chicken-shit to do the right thing.
Re:Not thoroughly researched? That's precious. (Score:4, Insightful)
What the... are you some crazed lunatic trying to attack religion? You religion hating bigot!! Why can't you let the religious be?
*smacks self across face*
Oh. Sorry, I almost fell into the trap that's being played out here in the US when someone mentions removing "God" from the dollar/pledge.
Re: (Score:3)
Sounds like it's time to amend the Canadian Constitution.
Re:Not thoroughly researched? That's precious. (Score:5, Insightful)
Okay, I know its not fun to hear, but what you think you know about Galileo & the church is more complicated and less fun. From Wikipedia:
Earlier, Pope Urban VIII had personally asked Galileo to give arguments for and against heliocentrism in the book, and to be careful not to advocate heliocentrism. He made another request, that his own views on the matter be included in Galileo's book. Only the latter of those requests was fulfilled by Galileo. Whether unknowingly or deliberately, Simplicio, the defender of the Aristotelian Geocentric view in Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems, was often caught in his own errors and sometimes came across as a fool. Indeed, although Galileo states in the preface of his book that the character is named after a famous Aristotelian philosopher (Simplicius in Latin, Simplicio in Italian), the name "Simplicio" in Italian also has the connotation of "simpleton".[55] This portrayal of Simplicio made Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems appear as an advocacy book: an attack on Aristotelian geocentrism and defence of the Copernican theory. Unfortunately for his relationship with the Pope, Galileo put the words of Urban VIII into the mouth of Simplicio. Most historians agree Galileo did not act out of malice and felt blindsided by the reaction to his book.[56] However, the Pope did not take the suspected public ridicule lightly, nor the Copernican advocacy. Galileo had alienated one of his biggest and most powerful supporters, the Pope, and was called to Rome to defend his writings.
So while, yes, the Church did lock him up and heliocentrism was at the center of it, it was more about Galileo being stupid in how he wrote his book & the hurt feelings of a powerful man (the Pope). Frankly, no one looked good in that mess. The church was actually one of the biggest sponsors of science back then, something that rarely gets recognized because its so much more fun to set it up as religion vs. science, as if they've been in a death struggle since the beginning of time.
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Damn straight. Catholics don't have the right to say anything about anything!!!! Light your pitchforks brethren!!!!!
Excellent knee-jerk reactionary response! 7/10.
The OP was just showing how hypocritical Catholics are about the requirement for supporting evidence for the belief that WiFi harms people.
The hypocrisy should be pretty apparent to non-religious people.
Re:Not thoroughly researched? That's precious. (Score:4, Informative)
Where's the hypocrisy? I missed that part. The Catholic Church, specifically Catholics, started many of the hospitals we have today. The Mayo Clinic started as St. Mary's and was financed by a nun collecting money. The Church started the university system. The "Big Bang" was first describe by a Catholic monk. Genetics was first explored by a Catholic priest. There are many more examples where the Church not only allowed scientific exploration, but encouraged it.
I guess I just don't see the hypocrisy except from people like you who don't know history. Yes, Catholic believe sex is for procreation (how that affects this argument, I don't know) and, yes, Catholics respect life. I guess it's just easier to live with your 16th Century view of what Catholicism it than read what is actually true.
Re: (Score:3)
What (Score:2)
Am I going completely mad?
Re:What (Score:4, Insightful)
If you thought fear-mongering and ignorance were exclusive to the American deep south and are now on the verge of changing your mind, then no, you're not going mad, you're going sane.
I doubt it'll be any more pleasant than the alternative though.
Two stories (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:2)
If a teacher can't identify and punish people using their devices in class something is seriously wrong. Either they're lazy, or their class sizes are much to large, or there is a problem with the administrative and parenting levels not backing them up. Like most things, it's a learning experience, kids should learn not to pull out their smartphone when they should be paying attention, and if that means having said phone confiscated for the day/week/month (1st, 2nd, and 3rd strike respectively) they'll le
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If a teacher can't identify and punish people using their devices in class something is seriously wrong ... their class sizes are much to large
Hmm whats the cheapest way to solve this problem. Hire double the number of teachers which at current admin:teacher ratios means hiring double the number of admin personnel in addition, or ... unplug the wifi that serves little educational purpose anyway...
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
What you've basically just said is that a teachers have too many kids in their class rooms to make eye contact with each one of them every 2-3 minutes, which is all it takes to tell if a student isn't paying attention and once you know that it's pretty easy to figure out why. If that's the case, doubling the number of teachers isn't just going to solve the 'wifi problem', it's going to improve education as well.
My point is, WiFi isn't the problem. The problem is kids not knowing how to behave respectfully
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I'm not embarrassed to say that I only knew what "exoteric" meant because it was Dictionary.com's word-of-the-day.
Re:Two stories (Score:4, Informative)
3rd story is "The administration is being a PITA, so I'm going to retaliate."
I have relatives in the system, so I don't know if I'm skirting either a legal or cultural privacy violation, but I know of at least one situation where the union is fighting management with all they got up to and including RF exposure FUD because management and/or IT busted a teacher for unplugging an access point because kids were screwing around online instead of paying attention to her, and that results in trouble tickets and eventually trumped up accusations of "hacking IT hardware" or "intentional vandalism of school property" or however its exactly phrased. And accusations that she should have been "working harder" to police the kids, and countered with she should be able to control her classroom environment just as she's "permitted" by mgmt to control the room lights (oh how nice of them). Then add in the usual corruption, where a young hot single opposite sex of the principal teacher was not busted for doing the exact same thing, whereas the victim is, as you'd expect, the exact opposite demographic and was busted. And the race card has been released, also. Which is probably too much detail, perhaps pinpointing the exact legal case I'm talking about. So we'll stop there.
My electrical engineering response was that teacher was an idiot for playing with the connectors and cables, should have just wrapped the antenna in tinfoil or bought a wifi jammer off deal extreme or ebay.
Wifi is something that can be controlled... can be controlled in many ways, by many different people. Therefore a workplace with terminally poisonous control issues, is going to fight viciously over it as if its the most important thing to ever exist. Its like a hyper violent military battle over some ugly little plot of grassland... no one cares about the plot of land as merely a plot of land, its just an excuse for both sides to draw as much blood as possible.
I'm Surprised (Score:5, Funny)
They didn't also require AC receptacle plug covers installed so electricity doesn't leak out of the wall sockets and give everyone cancer.
Excellent!!! (Score:2)
What's next? (Score:2)
Next they will be against forms of birth control. Oh, wait...
The "Precautionary Principle" (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Re:The "Precautionary Principle" (Score:5, Funny)
"Honestly, I think it's time to re-evaluate the usefullness and legitimacy of the "Precautionary Principle"."
Let's play safe and keep it instead. Think of the children.
Re: (Score:3)
Unknown dangers of cords (Score:3)
Ontario? (Score:3, Funny)
I would expect this from Alberta, but Ontario?
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Did you miss the last election's results? Ontario is only a couple shades lighter blue than Alberta. And the provincial liberals only formed the government by a pretty fine margin.
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Worry about real health risks (Score:5, Interesting)
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Another technology whose safety is unresearched: (Score:2, Funny)
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 pharmaceutic
They're scared of kids with cameras (Score:2)
This is a Catholic school system in Ontario. Maybe they're terrified some pedophile priest will be recorded on video and streamed to the Internet. Ontario Catholic schools are home to the "largest case of non-residential school sex abuse by a Roman Catholic priest in North America". [wikipedia.org]
Much cheaper solution... (Score:2)
Everybody knows that running Cat5 is expensive and difficult in aging school buildings! Instead, have every student (and teacher) craft their very own Tinfoil Hat as an art project!
It'll "protect" them from all these horrible microwatts of non-ionizing radiation and provide a life-enriching art project at the same time!
Problem solved.
The union should feel free to contact me so I can tell them where to send the check for my consulting fee.
Those who can't (think), teach! (Score:2, Insightful)
This article embodies the general tone in schools and universities over here. Profs aren't allowed to think too hard, or else they will ruin the illusion of conformity the WASPs so desperately crave.
Looking back at my education, I can think of maybe... 5 profs that actually knew their stuff. Okay, 5 and a half, because I forcefully enlightened one of them. The other hundred-ish ? Mindless imbeciles, going through the motions, reading from cue cards, collecting their extortionate paycheques. Like any or
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I think it's hilarious that you refer to WASPs in an article about the Catholic school system. Talk about not thinking too hard!
tablets - less than 5 years for policy life (Score:3)
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.
Maybe they should stop sleeping with the partners (Score:2)
as well as they the human body radiates [wikipedia.org] about 100Watts or 500 times more power than the maximum allowed power from a WiFi access point. Going out it sun is definitely out as at 1kW [wikipedia.org] per square meter of 5000 times strong than WiFi that definitely going to be fatal...
What a load of Bollocks!
D.
Which just goes to show... (Score:2)
...that just because you are a teacher doesn't mean you are intelligent. This is something I figured out fairly early on in high school, but believe kids should be told it up front so they don't treat everything the teacher says as absolute fact. Not that they should disregard everything a teacher says, but teachers are people and people can (and, in my opinion, usually are) stupid. So they can certainly be wrong, not that many teachers will own up that fact (the good ones will.)
It has been researched actually (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Lemmie get this strait... (Score:3)
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What about the safety of chairs, has that been thoroughly researched? No, and therefore the precautionary principle and prudent avoidance of exposure to sitting on your ass 6 hours a day should be practiced.
How about "for most of human evolutionary history, clothes have not been worn, and we know for a fact clothing spreads germs and head lice and athletes foot. Therefore we must think of the children and not allow the wearing of clothing in our schools. Heating bills will probably 'perk up' a bit, but..."
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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.
I would like to buy your rock (Score:4, Funny)
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This way, I'll owe you $25, and you'll owe me $25, then we'll call it even.
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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?
Re: (Score:2)
Can you believe that this American educators are this stupid? Only in the USA!
. (oh wait)
You sound distressed. Being distressed can have serious long-term health consequences. Therefore, to improve public health, these educators should be removed from this world, or at least stamped with Surgeon General's warning: "Taking This Individual Seriously May be Hazardous to Your Health".
Re: (Score:3)
I think you fell into the sar-chasm.
Re:Actually sounds reasonable (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Re: (Score:3)
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.
Re:Woohoo! (Score:5, Funny)
Exactly. They have hire people to carry those data-packets around.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:more union cable pullers (Score:5, Informative)
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.