Arab Spring in Africa?

I received an email from a former student who is now a freshman. In the email, she mentioned how she is inspired to promote the message about "Kony 2012," a movement to capture the man who is ranked the number one criminal of the world. And how? Through the use of technology to make him "famous" and to curtail his ability to avoid being arrested. The idea is to use technology -- You Tube and other social networking mediums -- to spread the word of his criminal abuse and exploitation of children, ranging from abducting boys as young as seven or eight and forcing them to serve in his army as well as the raping of young girls. Why has he not been caught already? The best reason is that he is not newsworthy enough, though, as the creator of the movement mentions, had one child in the United States been treated in this manner, it would have become headline news. So how is the movement gaining momentum? So far, several celebrities have joined the cause, hoping to bring an equivalent notoriety to Kony, and the upshot is that a once disinterested United States congress has dispatched over one-hundred advisors to Uganda to aid in Kony's capture. Additionally, the movement plans a "Kony 2012" day on April 20th to make his notoriety known worldwide, which brings me to my former student. She asked, as I mentioned, for me to try to organize the movement in the middle school. However, I noted immediately the red flag of mixing politics and education directly. With that said, I was going to post the link to "Kony 2012" on Edmodo for my students' own interest (and did so, briefly) until I received an email from our school principal not to allow students to hang any posters about Kony. She added that the topic would be addressed in social studies. The video begins with the phrase, "Nothing is more powerful than an idea whose time has come," and I believe the seed of this idea originated in the powerful and sweeping changes in the "Arab Spring" which relied upon technology to bring down long-enduring strong-armed dictators. I must say that I have mixed feelings about my principal's decision, and, in fairness to her, have not been able to talk to her about the reasons for proceeding this way. Of course, I am mindful of the ages of the students I teach and of the disturbing nature of Kony's actions. However, technology is shrinking both the time and space of our world -- the tragedies of 9-11 are evidence of that -- and, as educators, we must prepare our children for the realities of the world they are growing into, which, in this case, is a rather harsh one.