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.'"

Comments

oh please.

[garcia]

But privacy advocates, teachers' groups and others worry about putting classes under an all-day microscope. Some say cameras could be misused and interfere with teaching, and others fear that districts using them could become complacent about security.

Cameras will do anything BUT interfere with teaching. There are two possible scenarios: a) teachers begin to ignore the cameras and carry on as always or hopefully b) they will realize that the cameras are 100% coverage of their daily teaching and can be used for/against them during review time. They would hopefully improve their teaching and in-class behavior. This could only lead to a better teaching experience IMHO.

How many people have been in class and had a teacher watched by an administration member only to watch a COMPLETELY different teacher come through? Exactly.

I guess districts could possibly become complacent. Do businesses that monitor their cameras become complacent? No, I am pretty sure that they use them effectively for their purpose. I guess ANYTHING is better than a sticker that reads "all visitors must report to the main office."

Just my worthless .02

Re:oh please.

[mopslik]

This could only lead to a better teaching experience IMHO.

Having seen teaching politics first-hand, I don't fully agree. Quite often, administration has one specific thing in mind, and any deviation from this expectation is a black mark against a teacher. I know of a principal at one of the local school who is always suggesting:

- teaching methods which are horribly outdated
- demonstrations using equipment that is not available or, in some cases, hazardous
- topics which fall outside of the curriculum or, often, in completely different subjects

In this case, it's not a problem with the teacher, but with the head-honchos who think they know what's best. Obviously, poor teachers will be caught with these cameras, but so will some of the good ones.

Re:oh please.

[Feyr]

not likely, cameras are not the end-all be all. and if the camera bothers the kids enough, trust me they WILL destroy/render it useless.

ever seen what a sheet of chewed paper can do to picture quality? *grin*

Re:oh please.

[goliard]

Cameras will do anything BUT interfere with teaching. There are two possible scenarios: a) teachers begin to ignore the cameras and carry on as always or hopefully b) they will realize that the cameras are 100% coverage of their daily teaching and can be used for/against them during review time. They would hopefully improve their teaching and in-class behavior. This could only lead to a better teaching experience IMHO.

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.

Re:oh please.

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently you don't live with a teacher. My wife is a teacher and let me tell you. There are no long vacations for teachers. Vactions are used for grading papers and preparing lesson plans for the upcoming weeks/months. The summer evenings and weekends are used for prep for the next year as well as continuing education. Most importantly summer is used for making a few extra bucks because salaries are so low for teachers. They aren't getting better either. Every time we turn around budgets are getting cut and teachers are getting laid off. While both my wife and I agree not all of the tax payer money ( teachers pay taxes too you know ) is well spent, there really isn't enough money to go around for most schools. This leads to my wife spending a large portion of her check on supplies for the classroom and filed trips for the kids. One thing I like about our current county is they decided that since they were having to cut most of the music and art programs they could no longer justify footing the bill for sports. If your kid wants to play football it is going to cost you $400 for the year. Basketball is $250 and other sports have a cost associated with them. These are extra curricular activities and the school can't afford to pay for them. Especially when they can barely afford to pay for teachers, lunches, facilities, supplies, etc.

Now, onto the problems with cameras in classrooms. The biggest issue I see is that both the teachers and students know they are being watched all the time. This can lead to unatural or ineffective relationships between the teachers and students, as well as the students with eachother. When one knows they are being watched all the time they think about each action longer, they may change what they are doing because of the influence of the camera regardless of the change being positive or negative in the long run. You can count on some children facing higher anxiety levels and performing more poorly on exams.

The positives are that tax payers would have a better notion of what is going on in the class room, they would see how thier money is spent and teachers that suck would not have any more excuses. Oh wait though, tax payers wouldn't really see much of how thier money is spent because 90% of the supplies in the classrooms of quality teachers are there because the teachers sacrifice thier own pay to put them there.

Ok, I'm done being off topic and ranting. I don't think this will do any real good in our schools, I think it will cost a lot more money that the schools don't have to begin with, and I think that if we are going to give more money to schools this isn't how it should be spent. We need more money for library books, better text books, field trips to museums and other places of educational value ( the exploratorium in SF comes to mind). We need to be able to supply class rooms with every thing they need and pay teachers what they are worth. I strongly believe that if the pay was better the profession would attract better teachers.

Re:oh please.

[4of12]

Cameras will do anything BUT interfere with teaching.

Excellent!

You'll be ready to have that webcam installed in your workplace next week, then?

You'll be quite pleased when needless inefficiencies and complacent behavior (eg, posting to Slashdot) is readily abandoned as you become aware of being watched.

Crap!

[larry2k]

No more smoking while the teacher is out!

One-to-one

[lewiz]

I know where this could surley have a benefit (not that I fully understand or agree with the implications of ``in class recording''). At my school, which is in England, a teacher is not allowed to be left alone with a pupil (male or female) for obvious reasons. This has gone to the extent such that certain offices have windows in odd places just to make sure it is easy to ``see in''.

The advantages of having a video camera in situations such as these are obviously very great. There is no longer the requirement for more than one teacher (or pupil) to be present. I know these one-on-one sessions certainly helped with my electronics a couple of years ago before they introduced these new rules. Hopefully they'll be able to benefit future students too!

This is not good.

[mjmalone]

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.

One more reason to opt out

[Rikardon]

Well, here's one more reason to consider homeschooling my kids. Or at least consider sending them to a private school where such devices can't (or are less likely to be) be eventually required by law.

I already have real reservations about confining my kids for six or more hours a day to a classroom filled only with people their own age, to suffer (mostly) uninspired teaching in regimented fashion, in exchange for dubious literacy. Now I have to worry about them being trained from their earliest years to accept a surveillance society, too.

I can't escape the feeling they could do vastly more productive and useful things with that time on their own. Spider Robinson wrote an excellent piece about this in today's Globe and Mail.

I'm all for it.

[jonbrewer]

Having taught in difficult situations in the past, I'm all for cameras in the classroom. While a Peace Corps volunteer in 1999-2000 teaching in an agricultural school in Poland (Zespol Szkol Rolniczne w Czernichowie) I was frequently yelled at by the principal for kicking particular students out of class. If only they could have seen the difference the removal of one disruptive student can make in a classroom...

Some may argue that a teacher should be able to handle all students, but with 160 students to keep track of, one can't be both teacher and psychologist to all of them.

I think the presence of cameras will restrain those likely to cause disturbances in class, and will be a tremendous aid in dealing with those who don't belong in a traditional classroom setting. Of course this is from personal experience only. I have no idea what the academic literature says about the idea.

* Not to say that the three kids (from different classes) I frequently kicked out weren't bright - they just made it impossible to get through a lesson with the rest of the students. In some situations pragmatism needs to trump "no child left behind" - if it's a choice between one student not learning a lesson or 20+ not learning...