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Webcams Watching The Classrooms?
embarcadero writes "Webcams will be tuned to watch over 500 classrooms in the Biloxi, Mississippi school district this year, according to a story in USA Today. The goal is to make classrooms safer, but there's a lot of speculation about how the recorded info could be used for or against teachers in disputes or teaching reviews. I can just see Mrs. Waters pointing towards the camera, 'If I don't catch you cheating on this spelling test, that camera will! Don't even think about it.'"
True true, very true.
You haven't even began to mention that the students themselves will be more behaved overall.
That said, I think it's worth noting that students may feel more opressed than originally before with the knowledge that the "big people" in the office were watching. Personally, I believe that students already have a hard time concentrating and the associated stress of watching cameras could have a detrimental affect academically.
At least it'll mean the end of the hidden fun making and ridicule's that are so common in today's class room
My .01 ;)
Since the US mandates that children remain in school untill the age of 18, could this not be viewed as a move towards the monitoring of all citizens under 18 between the hours of 8am and 3pm? Just a thought
"Inattention makes clowns of us all" -Bean
I don't think that cameras are a big worry. If anything they only make the kids behave better and prevent slacking off from teachers. However, I think that just cameras are fine, adding microphones is going one step too far.
Of course anything can be abused, though, so that's a moot point.
Most of the kids were bad, and so I tried turning the camera on them and told them I would show the tape to their parents. They complained to the principal, who made me stop, and he did not renew my teaching contract.
eat shiat and bark at the moon
Just think of all those times you ended up in the office for something you didn't do, just because the teacher doesn't like you.. Yes it can be used to invade privacy, but then again the way kids bring and use guns in school today, it might be useful about catching kids with guns before they use them...
such is life...
My CS class already does this. And yes, its a highschool...public school.
http://www.atech.org/faculty/snyder/
Speaking at Defcon 12 - Credit Card Networks Revisted: Pen
Schools have been given, under U.S. law, the right to act in place of parents while children are in attendance. Sometimes they take it too far. The one group of citizens in the U.S. that has the least rights and is oppressed and discriminated against the most are children. When I was in high school I had a friend tell once she was asked to take a breathalizer at a gas station while refilling her car by a police officer. When she asked what she had done wrong the officer replied that it was night time, she was under age, and she was chewing gum. He said that was enough of a reason for him to force her to take a breathalizer.
Anyways, back on-topic. If your boss threatened to point cameras at you in your workplace and fire employees who he observed slacking wouldn't you be concerned? If your employer did so at least you would have the option of leaving due to privacy concerns, schoolchildren do not have this option.
I would also like to know how secure this system is. The article claims that the video can be viewed from any computer on the internet with proper authentication. There are serious security implications here, and schools have had notoriously lax security policies in the past.
Visualize the world of wine
i got money on the wires being cut or the cameras being broken within the first few weeks..
I know I would have personally taken some of them out if I was in that school.
I wouldn't want to be watched all day.. if I wanted to be watched all day, I'd go to work.
ChiefArcher
At the new engineering building where I go to school they already have cameras at the back of the class. They are controlled from a podium at the front of the room and can pan in all directions as well as zoom fairly well. They dont record anything (at least not that I know of) but they are used for catching people cheating. At least thats the idea, of course none of the profs have any clue as to how to use them as most of them cant figure out how the light switches work.
This is exactly what I stand for. You don't trust me, I'm gone. Simple as that. And even in this economy I have done that.
Yeah, the teacher gets nervous and loses focus, which I think is exactly what would happen in this system.
Imagine being at your job everyday, constantly being monitored and recorded to see how well you are performing? I'd feel pretty nervous and agitated all the time. It's one thing monitoring the McDonald's employee to make sure he doesn't spit in the french fries, but you're talking about something entirely different: scrutinizing every part of your work routine to make sure you're teaching properly. I think there are much more respectful and less intrusive ways of evaluating teaching performance. Teachers are professionals; we should treat them with a little more respect than that.
Make sure you approach the camera from behind. If it's in a corner you're kinda screwed.
On second thought, if you're not smart enough to do well on a test without cheating, maybe the camera amounts to a little test all by itself. (Watch the hilarity as little Johnyy is called to the principal's office to see a blown-up, enhanced photo of his face, taken by the webcam just before he put tape over the lens.)
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Sometimes that's OK, but usually that teacher is worse. Bland, unengaging, etc in fear that they might do something controversial. I think best-case is they just get used to it, a la "The Real World."
I've seen the other side though, and with the damned lawsuit-happy parents, the school would find itself perpetually in court.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Really? Why on earth do you think that? You seem to be presuminng that good teaching is not against the rules. In my limited HS teaching experience (11th & 12th grade English) I regularly had to bend the rules to deliver the education the kids actually needed, instead of what the Powers That Be required. For instance, I had a HS Senior reading at a 4th grade level; I decided to assign her special material much below grade level to try and meet her where she was and get her to advance -- as opposed to pretending there was no problem and passing her just to make myself look good (which is how she made it to 12th grade with a 4th grade reading level, to begin with). I mention that because it was the least egregious case of rule-bending for the sake of education I can remember.
I presume that you think most teachers are slackers who need to be forced to really do their jobs. Actually, I mostly agree with that! But I hardly think surveillance will work; it mostly will cause them to slack off in ways which make them look busy: assigning reams of mindless redundant exercises, responding to questions with punative "assignments" meant to discourge future questions, etc. It's remarkably easy for a teacher to invent ways of appearing "educational" and "hard-working", which are just ways of goofing off.
-*- Any technology indistinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced -*-
Oh, I agree.
The public school system can be as fascist as the educators wish and the administration will allow.
That is why this would be a great thing.
I actually took the extreme step of bringing a tape recorder to class in 8th grade, to document the laziness, stupidity, outright incompetence, churlish and childish attitude, and inappropriate language of one of my teachers. (
Or, rather, those were the things that it documented. I only brought it in to prove to my counselor, who had accused me of not "challenging myself", that I was in fact not being challenged by the class, and that the principal *should* approve my request to be skipped to the 11th grade, so I could enter college (post-secondary). In particular, the teacher's claim that you absolutely *had* to be moving at approximately 170,000 miles per hour, or a similarly ridiculous speed, to escape the pull of earth's gravity -- in a ROCKET. (confusing rocketry with ballistics). This was a science teacher.
I refused to agree with her -- simply refused, VERY politely, even resisting my normal urge to be smarmy, just told her that I thought she was wrong, but I respected her opinion, and left it at that.
For that, she sent me to The Office. And I had it all on tape.
Guess what? It's against school policy to admit any form of student record of an account except their own memory. They wouldn't even listen to the tape, even though I had thoughtfully fast-forwarded it to the pertinent section of tape, where we disagreed. 'They' being the counselor, the vice principal, or the principal. Since being sent to the office resulted in detention time from the vice-principal, and since the science teacher could give me a 0 for the day both in attendance and participation, it had very real consequences for me.
The point of this story?
If *they* were doing the recording, and were using it for purposes of review and resolving incidents between teachers and students, they could not avoid reviewing it. They couldn't just wish it away if they were making a policy of using the audiovideo. I mean, it's not that the principal or vice-principal were real assholes -- THEY would have removed any detention time and removed it from my record. If they would have been able to listen to the tape. But they couldn't -- the teachers evidently demanded this, either informally or via union, I don't know.
I mean, it seems like a small thing. But that kind of thing is happening to my little brother all over again, and the kind of frustration that causes -- on top of all of the OTHER things that schools do to screw you up -- can really make kids stop trying in school.
I find these cameras more welcome in a public school than I do in football stadiums or airports. As you so rightly pointed out, in school, we KNOW our rights are limited.
See teachers like you are probably the ones that would get the axe for bending the rules. Even though during my highschool experience, the teachers that were flexible both in what they taught and how they taught were some of the best. This is not to say that they gave in to the students and comprimised their integrity as a teacher.
But sometimes a bit of digression is very healthy and can allow students to learn more than sticking to "the book" will.
Furthermore, piling work on so that students are doing something is a horrible way to teach. Because in many cases you will be boring the upper half of the class, and overworking and frustrating the other half.
I just graduated from high school a few months ago. A lot of the teachers who I have learned the most from would have been fired, or at least gotten into a lot of trouble by now, if they were under 24/7 surveilance from our Nazi administrators. A couple of them were fired anyway.
As a part-time high school sub teacher, I can honestly say most of the troublesome kids in high school today could give a rats ass weither or not there's a teacher, principle, lunchlady, ect., let alone a camera.
If you ask me the Board of Education is doing nothing but wasting money that could be used elswhere in the school on cameras that will do nothing but make good targets for vandels.
HaHaHaHaHa
I have to admit my initial gut reaction was to be in favour of something like this. If you know teachers, especially in smaller grade inner city and underprivileged schools you'll have heard stories about how a couple of unrully students completely and consistently disrupt the class to the point that the education process almost grinds to a halt. The same parents that produce these little monsters refuse to do anything about it but freak out if someone else does.
So the teacher ends up in a no win situation where they can't really do anything substancial to prevent one or two kids for ruining it for everyone.
Add a camera and instantly - the teacher has an overwhelming argument supporting proper punishment or banishment for the out of control kids. So the psycho kids will get the punishment / attention they need and the other kids get an environment where they can actually learn.
But... you have to wonder what kind of effect it would have on a child to be effectively raised in a constantly monitored environment. If "Friend Computer" or "Big Brother" watches you your whole youth - how agressively are you going to champion your freedoms as an adult? Does America really need a whole generation of people raised to simply - passively - accept being monitored? Can you imagine how different you'd have turned out if you never got away with anything as a student?
There are some merits to the idea of monitoring classrooms. However, there are, if you really think about it very few circumstances that would apply to all classrooms at all times.
What about a program that allows cameras to be brought in on a temporary basis if there is reason to suspect that they are needed? Something like that, implemented correctly would probably cost less, be more effective and wouldn't create an atmosphere where children are raised in a state of constant intrusive monitoring.
Just my opinion, I'll admit I haven't let the idea sink in yet.
While I agree that we should have an adequate amount of oversight for teachers and students I think that this is excessive to the point on stupidity.
I believe that the public has a right to information about how the teachers are doing. These cameras will not help that in any way. If they are made available to the public then the teachers and students will be unable to work simply knowing that everyone is watching. If it is restricted to the principals then it is, at best a medium for review blackmail, and at worst an vehicle for back-seat teaching.
In my experience the LAST message that you ever want to send to your employees is that you do not trust them. Employees who feel micromanaged, or spied upon rarely if ever do decent work and typically suffer from a high degree of burnout. Given that most teachers are overworked as it is, the last thing that we want to do is waste money on an expensive insult such as this.
I also believe in taking reasonable measures to monitoring students. I believe that in-loco-parentis (when it is reasonably restrained) is logical. I do believe that students are entitled to privacy in the showers and I believe that any teacher or principal who acts otherwise needs to be fired.
But, students are already (in most schools) heavily monitored. Between existing closed-circuit cameras, teachers, principals, assistant-principals, security-guards, and (most importantly) their peers students are rarely if ever, truly alone. Most of them are keenly aware of this and that alone acts as much of a deterrent as anything ever would. Keep in mind that the action at columbine was monitored by a CCTV system, and that the system did not stop Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. At best this would add a pointless level of paranoia and serve as a further insult to the students.
In my experience perpetually delivering the message that you do not trust someone has a way of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. At best these cameras will tell the students (yet again) that they are not trusted by the school, and will make the school/prison comparison even more complete. At worst they will serve to alienate the students more by showing them that the district would rather spend money on cameras than additional teachers, supplies, or programs.
I also doubt that these cameras would provide any more security. Studies of the CCTV systems that have been put in place in England show little if any benefits. Those studies have shown that the deterrence factor is minimal. They have also shown that the people running the cameras (who only have a finite amount of time to look) tend to focus their time on minorities, women, and people they "are already watching" in which case, the money spent on the cameras, and the support staff provided no more security than existed before.
I support all reasonable methods to improve our school systems and in my opinion, this doesn't qualify.
I have to mention Sudbury schools. I first heard about it on /. and it sounds like something you might be interested in.
Also, John Gatto has some good ideas about contemporary schooling and its problems.
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
You chide liberals for taking a teacher's right to inflict physical pain in restitution for perceived crimes said student may or may not have perpetrated away, and out of the other side of your mouth you call for the 24/7 monitoring of students in the classroom?
I hope this teaching wife of your has more moxie than you do; I fear greatly for our future with outlandish and misinformed ideas like yours possibly driving reform.
By the way, do keep in mind that advocating such a brazen disregard for personal privacy makes you a "liberal" by your own antiquated standards.
of an incident that happened here in Singapore. A student used his swank camera phone to film a teacher verbally abusing another student. Needless to say, the student got in trouble...
Story here.
Never underestimate the predictability of human stupidity...
Just as a note, i actually work in an enviroment where cameras have been put in place, and have been there for some time... they dont really do anything, everyone just congregates in the small "black spots" where they arent being monitored...
It hasnt really changed anything.. its just made the areas where you can sit on breaks a little smaller... major annoyance..
In schools however it think this would be a great thing, i went to a small private school, and as such had the same teacher for calculus, physics and discrete mathematics.. he was hardly competent and covered this up by simply mocking the students (we all had to get private tuition in order to get a passing grade), had cameras been in place maybe our complaints would of been heard.
-KronicD
"Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
Hmmm, my son has cameras at his school in the UK. They are well hidden - so much so that even the head and the teachers have no idea where they are! Shock, horror - well not really, the kids have them in their phones or maybe have 3 minute digital video devices about the size of pens. They take great delight in recording the actions of the teacher(s) and postingthe results to their personal web pages... Little brother is watching too.....
While I completely disagree with the Stasi tactics of the school system, what people fail to see is that it is the system that is broken and was designed to keep children in line.
Compulsory school only came about in the mid 1850's. It's time to get rid of the system. I suggest reading some of John Taylor Gatto's books to find some more information and better answers to the questions about education.
Dumbing Us Down by John Taylor Gatto
A Different Kind of Teacher by John Taylor Gatto
Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto