Posted on 02/13/2012 12:01:22 PM PST by RansomOttawa
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 says computers in all new schools should be hardwired instead of setting up wireless networks.
It also says Wi-Fi should not be installed in any more classrooms.
In a position paper released on Monday, the union — which represents 45,000 teachers — cites research by the World Health Organization.
Last year the global health agency warned about a possible link between radiation from wireless devices such as cellphones and cancer.
Some believe wireless access to the Internet could pose similar risks.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
But since it's the Catholic teachers' union, we can't blame this Ludditism on the publik skools. Scientific ignorance is an equal-opportunity employer.
I thought it might be for a rational reason like being able to keep the kids from accessing the network with unauthorized devices, but I should have known better since it’s a teachers union.
Perhaps the government should no longer provide health insurance coverage to cellphone users. Seems like a prudent action to take if they ban wifi.
“keep the kids from accessing the network with unauthorized devices”
it may be about unauthorized devices, but that leads to a rational debate. Couching the issue in impossible-to-disprove health concerns removes rational debate, like Global Catastrophic Climate Change.
I saw lots of this when the issue was cell towers. Once people realized that FedGov had written a law that overrode local zoning boards, the issue changed to health issues from the deadly cell tower rays and screeching rants about children’s safety.
If they said “We want our students for focus on the lessons, and not email, post on FaceBook, surf the web or otherwise disrupt their studies”, I would have a little bit of understanding to their position.
But, mysteriously .... they didn’t.
If students had to focus on the lessons, the teachers might actually have to do some work and not be useless.
This is the caliber of people that are educating our kids and WMO to boot. Just search Physics for future presidents by Richard Muller on YouTube then watch and learn. Cancer is caused by a Gama ray neutron hitting a atom in your body. Thus it splits the atom and the atom ionizes which CAN cause cancer.
Indeed. This speaks volumes about the intelligence of the teachers (or at least their union).
TC
Seriously, 802.11b WiFi base stations and devices are limited to 100 mW EIRP, for multi-point networks. Point to point networks with directional antennas can go up to 4 W EIRP, but that's not the situation here. 802.11g and 802.11a have even lower power limits.
Hand-held cell phones can transmit up to 600 mW, although an external antenna can transmit up to 3 W. Cell phone base stations transmit up to 100 W, but most people can't get close them.
In all cases, the devices rarely transmit with the maximum power. They only use the power needed to keep the connection alive, in order to lower power consumption (extend battery life) and avoid drowning out other nearby devices on the same frequency.
Yeah, I was hoping it might be something reasonable like that as well, but my optimism disappeared as I read on.
that goodness for the ozone layer!
Starbucks: The Death Machine
I thought for a moment that there might be some sanity here, as in simply eliminating EVERYTHING that flows electrons (except lights) from the classroom - so kids could actually START LEARNING again.
But I’m dreaming.
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