School Appropriate Lyrics

Another difficulty for teachers and parents is allowing students to research lyrics they want to know more about while keeping it appropriate for their age-level. Although teenagers are getting the point where they should be able to make their own decisions about what's okay and what's not, younger and younger children are given IPods for Christmas, have access to the internet (sometimes unsupervised), and are not developmentally ready for some of the content of popular music.

Plus, many lyrics sites also try to sell things such as ring tones. It can be a minefield of spam and possibly viruses that most children are not equipped to safely navigate. I have a teenage friend who recently had her cell phone infected with a virus (I didn't know it could do that) because of a ring tone she downloaded off of a lyrics site.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a fan of censorship. It would just be nice if there was a site or network with children in mind that would bring up more than just Disney Channel lyrics to search.

Perhaps starting with a great band, such as Nickleback or Green Day would be a good start. Or, a wiki could be created with children in mind. Using a huge network of people to edit can cause errors, but it can also greatly broaden what would be available. Having music teachers, such as myself, and parents as moderators would help keep the content appropriate.

Barry's Response - The key would be in educating the children about the caveats before granting free access. Have them pass a few basic knowledge tests in the matter of computer/internet safety, ethics and security.