Censorship at BHS
Students and staff alike are no strangers to censorship. Most of the time it is within the school’s best jurisdiction to block obvious sites such as Youtube or Omegle, but other times students find themselves with nothing more to do than let out a pained laugh to what they can find as only being an error message on their chromebooks: Bing, Webkinz, coolmathgames.com, etc. While we couldn’t actually ask the help desk about such matters (as they are not tangible beings but rather an abstract concept), we took it upon our ourselves to interview the student body on their various opinions regarding censorship here at BHS. Ranging from a Brolivia and Balentina original Kelly Xhumba all the way to Sarah Ali, we were sure to not leave out a single drop of content, as required for our final article. While being blessed with a teacher’s standpoint on such matters proved itself unattainable due to this piece’s “last minuteness”, it is in most classrooms at least one point throughout the year a teacher letting out a long deep sigh as their day plans are yet again derailed due to a harmless site being blocked. Time is no more than an illusion… a concept created by man merely to keep track of his own endeavors, as he floats on a rock in space alone, ultimately amounting to nothing. Teachers are granted a broader scale of internet liberty, as they can log into Netflix without a problem. However, the curiosity of the modern student doesn’t cease to exist, as websites seem to be abruptly banned without warning, and we are left no choice but to watch our childhood favorites such as Papa’s Cupcakeria, Run, Moto X3M, and so forth, be ripped from our grasp.
Many students find themselves crediting the outlawed website, coolmathgames.com, for learning important life skills. Sarah Ali, sophomore here at BHS, recalls the popular site teaching her “everything [she] needed to know as a child.” The games were important attributes in aiding her early education, as she was sure to add it helped her in “addition, drawing lines (which ended up helping me in geometry), time management and running a business with Papa’s Cupcakeria.” Ali couldn’t stress enough how the popular game from Flipline Game Studios will help her in the near future in her Virtual Enterprise class this upcoming 2019-2020 school year. What’s most important to many in this day in age is diversity and the understanding of other’s backgrounds and unique heritages. Where does this fit into the big picture of petty banned websites on our servers? Poptropica. Ali was impacted greatly by the different maps that present themselves on the popular, yet also outlawed, website. Ranging from ancient Greece to the Romans, Ali recalls, “Poptropica taught about different cultures and religions with Arabian nights, animals and sea monsters in survival island, and adventure”.
Many popular adobe flash games will be shut down soon, as Adobe will no longer be in use in the near future. It is unfortunate that students of the future will not be able to come together to play these games, and an even further a tragedy for students who already grew up with such games, and cannot finish their educational journey how they started.
Under democratic rule and a capitalist regime, we will now be exercising our first amendment rights to further include [DATA EXPUNGED].
We will not be taking journalism next year, so we would like to formally thank all 5 of you who have been keeping up with our articles. It has been truly a pleasure writing for each and every one of you, individually. We hope our articles are able to be enjoyed for years to come by many future students. Have a good day.
Olivia Solomon is a Junior at Bethpage High School, critically acclaimed meme expert, and sleep lover. She is fluent in sarcasm and working on learning...
Val Grgin is a sophomore at Bethpage High School. This is her first year in journalism. If you can’t find her she is probably at cross country or track...