Talking With Teens About Ethics

One of the biggest stories in the news this past year has been the RIAA’s lawsuits against people allegedly downloading music to their computers (MP3’s) without paying the artists. There has been a lot written about the issue on both sides. Many of the people sued were students at colleges and universities and some much younger than that. As a teacher, I thought this would be one of those “Teachable Moments” where something important is happening right now, and it could be an excellent lesson. We used to call it “Current Events.” What a great topic for discussion in class. But, I was not prepared for how this was going to come out.

All the classes I teach at our high school are taught on computers in a computer lab. That adds an extra layer of planning to my day that some of my colleagues in the so-called “core” courses may not have. I have to make sure that all of the computers are working, the printer works, the data projector, etc. In addition, because we are on a network, we have issues like log-ins, network hard drive space, and the biggest issue of all: Proper Use of Academic Computers.

At some schools the code of conduct for computer use is set by School Board Policy. Others do it at the Building Principal level, still others leave it up to the Network Administrator or the people who run the computers labs. Sometime, there is even a committee involved. (shudder) However it is done, no school leaves the computer lab open without rules about who can use them and under what circumstances. A lot of that is to prevent viruses that disrupt the system, especially on Windows based networks.

Our school is no different. We make rules about what students can and cannot do. If they download songs anyway, we take away their computer privileges and we attempt to adjust our network to not allow it. We filter the sites, we block programs, we try to do a better job of monitoring student activity. We talk about what is good, bad, right, improper, moral, wrong constantly. Don’t anyone tell you schools don’t teach values, we do.

I want everyone to know, I am paying for my music. I love iTunes! I love the instant gratification it offers. But I also feel that if I am going to teach students, I need set a good example. So, I don’t steal music and I encourage others not to.

The effect of all this Ethical Discussion? We are always playing catch-up with our students. We block a game site, they find a way to play it on a German site. We block a gambling site, they use a proxy server. We take away one kid’s computer access, three others step up to take his place. It is constantly us verses them, and I had the feeling that the students were not coming around to our way of thinking. They were not buying into the values I was pushing for in class. So, the stage was set for a rousing discussion about what was right and what was wrong.

The assignment was to read an on-line computer columnist and write a summary and response. I assign columnists like Bill Palmer and Bob Cringely all the time. I feel if you are learning about computers, you need to keep up with what is happening out there right now. I admit it, I primed the pump by talking about plagiarism ahead of time. I brought in an article from the local newspaper and read it aloud to the class on the Illegal Downloading of Music. I mentioned how I use iTunes and we talked about other programs like Gnutella, Kazaa, Napster and Limewire. Everyone had to find a news article on the internet about Music Downloading and write about it. We discussed how artists could be hurt if they didn’t get paid for their cd’s. The students wrote their essays and turned them in.

Their opinions? “The RIAA is stupid.” “It is only illegal if I get caught.” “I don’t think stealing is right, but I don’t think downloading music is stealing.” “I think downloading music is stealing, but the prices are too high anyway, so it is okay.” I argued with them. “What if it was your music? What if you weren’t getting paid?” That had little effect.

When it comes right down to it, they don’t really think of this as a problem. There is a real disconnect. As far as they are concerned, this is an “adult” problem, not a “kid” problem. These were good kids. These aren’t kids who are in trouble and in the office all the time. But they weren’t intimidated by the threat of lawsuits. It just wasn’t their issue.

They had me second-guessing myself! Was I the one who had everything wrong? I agreed with them that cd prices have been way too high. Making the price of downloading part of the ISP subscriber fee does make sense. Especially if you download a lot. People who never download music could just pay less. Then I thought, maybe they don’t see it as a problem because they aren’t involved at all. They don’t get music that way. Oops, wrong again!

We took a poll of which students in the class had downloaded music and how many songs they had. The answer I got from my students was incredible! Some had almost a thousand songs! Of course, some kids didn’t have any, some had only a few, but most of those that had songs in the hundreds! Here I am thinking I have the most with a couple of hundred, I came in near the bottom of the group.

So were the songs legal? Most kids thought that if they were paying for the internet, then they were paying for the songs. Some insisted they only downloaded them from “free” sites. Others felt it was legal as long as you didn’t share. The “sharing” thing was big. The consensus was that it was okay to take songs, but you shouldn’t put songs up to be downloaded by others. Of course, this was mostly because they felt this would make it easier to get caught. Yikes!

Some kids said they stopped downloading and erased the songs off their computers once the lawsuits started, because their parents made them do it. We teachers always say that parental involvement is huge, so I asked about what their parents said. But none of the kids had a discussion with their parents about whether or not it was legal or illegal, they just didn’t want to get sued by the RIAA.

What conclusions can a teacher draw from this? I wish I could say there is a happy ending and all my students came around to believing that it is wrong to steal music. But they didn’t. I have been serving on our school’s discipline committee for a number of years. We discuss a lot of issues, and the dress code is a hot topic. One thing I know for sure is that the students and the faculty are not in agreement about what can be worn in school. I am afraid the same may be true of the music downloading. We do not see eye to eye on this. But I am not giving up. I still bring the topic up for discussion. I still read the articles to my students. We talk about it all the time. I hope we’re making progress.