Slashdot Mirror
YouTube Stays Relevant Despite Pulled Content
Gray writes "École Secondaire Mont-Bleu has banned all personal electronic devices and suspended two 13-year-old girls after one uploaded to YouTube a camera phone video of their teacher yelling at the other. After the video was posted on the popular internet video site, the teacher was so embarrassed that he stayed home from work, where he remains on stress leave. The teachers' union is now trying to get all personal electronic devices banned from all schools in Western Quebec." Meanwhile, via the PVRBlog comes word that YouTube has helped raise CBS' ratings by some 7-9%. From that article: "CBS has uploaded more than 300 clips that have a total of 29.2 million views on YouTube, averaging 857,000 views per day, since the service launched on October 18. CBS has three of the top 25 most viewed videos this month (Nov.1-17), including clips from CBS's Tuesday night hit drama 'NCIS,' 'Late Show with David Letterman,' 'The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson' and 'The Early Show.' The CBS Brand Channel is also one of the most subscribed channels of all time with more than 20,000 users subscribing to CBS programming on YouTube since the channel launch last month."
I want content for 'pulling'
Corn!
-b.
Proving once again that you can never have too much overkill.
One is the fact that kids were recording what was going on privately, i.e. these two teachers fighting. Sure one can argue it was done in public, but still. This is a new world, where even the average joe can feel like a famous actor, where any little flub or stupid act they do can be recoreded by 500 people with camera phones, and uploaded to millions of viewers in a few minutes. It used to be you needed to be someone important to be embarassed by millions, now you just need to be in the unfortunate position of being around a cell phone.
As for CBS, good for them. I would rather have an entire episode of a show, with commercials on youtube in a good resolution then to have to watch it on TV, or be forced to record it via dvr, etc.
Main Entry: relevant
Pronunciation: 're-l&-v&nt
Really earning your pay, aren't you, editors
What, Linux doesn't have spell check?
And how many times did you ever go home and tell a parent about how a teacher treated you, and get ignored or dismissed with "They wouldn't do that."
Personally? As much as I'm against the Big Brother society, I'm amused that someone is so scared of how he could be portrayed by an objective viewfinder. And he'll tell us all about how the context isn't there, but there's no good reason why a teacher should be yelling and carrying on to the point where it looks good on video. There's other more effective ways to reach people, and if you can't figure one of them out then there are other career paths.
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
The Slashdot article may be ambiguous, but the actual article it links to makes clear it was the teacher yelling at a student, not two teachers yelling at each other.
FTFA: the incident took place a month ago, when one student provoked the teacher into yelling at her while a classmate secretly taped the confrontation.
As Admiral Akbar once said: It's a trap. TFA also mentions that the exact same thing happened at another school in Canada.
We all know how easily video can be creatively edited & pictures can be photoshopped... so short of banning camera phones & (video) cameras, I don't really see how you resolve the issue.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
I think that we are FINALLY starting to see all kinds of content, including television content online in some kind of substantial quantity.
I was checking out Comedy Central's clips of the Daily Show like I usually do every few weeks or so, and I was shocked to find that you can stream tons and tons of good content from the Daily Show at a time. I used to have to click and watch an ad for every 1 minute segment, which was almost more trouble than it was worth. Last night, I clicked "play all", and I got several hours worth of Daily Show content, with ads interspersed through out (like TV).
I think it's interesting that TV exceutives are FINALLY starting to notice online viewship. It seems to me that they would've done it much earlier, because tracking advertising online is about one beeellion times more effective than those useless Neilson boxes that give very limited information on a tiny same of the population.
How else would you post videos of your schoolmates making the professor dance or burning stuff?
Yeah. Would you choose a neurosurgeon who pokes around people's brains in his spare time? I wouldn't.
I'm going to start uploading videos of a certain teacher of mine to YouTube. There's a teacher at my high school who refuses to give black students bad grades. A black student who doesn't show up for class to take a test will somehow get an A on it, and will get higher marks on a paper than the rest of the class regardless of how poor their writing is. I know of about a dozen people that have complained about this to the school administration and parents over the last three years and the response is always "no way, they wouldn't do that."
Finally! Hopefully, big media will realise that literally giving away content is good for them in the long run. If this catches on like we've been hoping for years now, the DMCA, copyright laws and its like won't need to be changed, they'll just become irrelevant withg the advent of the new paradigm. (sorry for the buzzwords, folks.)
Linux, you magnificent bastard, I read the fucking manual!
You couldn't pay me enough to be a teacher to primary/secondary student. Well, you could... but it'd have to be one heck of a lot more than a teacher makes now.
Several of my relatives (my generation) have teaching degrees. One now works in a body shop, one owns a flower shop, and the third is back in school learning a new trade.
Kids who deliberately provoke a teacher to film the results don't need to be yelled at so much as slapped around a little. And that's why I'd be a terrible teacher.
Malda is irrelevant. That's with an "a," Zonk, because they have real editors that, you know, EDIT.
First the star wars kid and now the yelling teacher de l'enfer. I'd hate to be a school kid in Quebec, it sounds dangerous for mental sanity...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
It's ridiculously easy for teachers to abuse their authority. Many often display questionable behaviour in the classroom or elsewhere, the account of which might be met with skepticism when reported to a higher authority, or might simply be flat-out not reported owing to the submissive nature of most students or due to the awkwardness inherent in getting a teacher chastised for an isolated incident.
With the knowledge that lectures are being, or might possible be, recorded by the students themselves, teachers suddenly become accountable for all their actions--as it should be. Banning such videos from youtube, and electronic devices as whole from schools, is a broad handed tyrannical gesture and an affront to student rights and free speech.
http://dailymotion.com/
Was it two teachers fighting, or the teacher yelling at the student? This is completely ridiculous that instead of maybe training teachers not to Yell at students they would ban any devices in order to make sure this inappropriate behaviour can carry on unchecked. Needless to say there are some kids that deserve to get yelled at, hell some kids deserve to get the shit beat out of them, but it is never the teachers place to do it which is unfortunate as most absentee parents are up for the challenge of actually raising their own children either.
What does this word mean? I can't find it in any dictionary!
I think the parent in the article said it best, "...teachers need to be accountable for their actions..."
It is the same with the police, No one would remember Rodney King if someone had not caught the police beating him on video, and ever since then the police have been trying to make it illegal to film/tape them (calling it obstructing justice, personally I call it ENFORCING justice).
Teachers (like the police) have a resposibility to the public, and if a fear of being caught on video doing something unethical, illegal, or stupid, keeps them in line then so be it.
Not at losing control and yelling at the child but at BEING CAUGHT doing it. Nice to see hypocrisy is not a nationally limited 'virtue' but alive and well worldwide :)
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
Why can't we all just get along?
"How about always behaving as if you are on public display?"
Not everyone agrees that this would be a good thing.
So, a teacher does something stupid and gets caught on tape... the response of the school district?
1. Leave (probably paid) for the teacher
2. disciplinary action for the kids doing the filming
3. ban of personal electronic devices in classrooms
Uuuuh, can I be the first to say: WTF!?!!
Could this situation be *any* more backwards than what it should be? How about an appropriate response like:
1. Fire / discipline teacher
2. Public praise for the kids involved
3. No ban of anything
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
The Kids should be suspended..
If anything shows that kids can't be trusted with technology.
I recall another video on YT ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fePxLRCr1sw ) a month or so ago where this kid with his face covered is asking people egg some persons house.
What is funny about the video is you can find other videos by the same person showing their face, people calling him by name and is account is his name.
I think kids should be allowed to have electronic devices because the threat of being recorded will keep bad teachers in check.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Proving once again that you can never have too much overkill.
/. readers who are teachers from Quebec do not take offense becasue there are at least a few good teachers there I'm sure.
Walking a fine line labelled "troll" here...but I had to comment...
I'm not sure what it is, but from my personal experiences with teachers from Quebec, as well as anecdotal evidence from others (my girfriend was raised in Montreal and I know a couple of other Quebecois with similar experiences as well) I now have quite a dim view of the teaching "profession" there. This is especially true with regard to teachers in anglophone schools in Quebec. They are VERY strongly unionised and VERY protective of their own self interests and, quite frankly, a few of them are mentally unstable. I KNOW this is a blanket statement and I hope that any
In any case, I think that there is some sort of systemic problem with public education in Quebec concerning monitoring competency of teachers and providing accountability. Perhaps it has to do with the union having too much control (unions have a purpose but when they are corrupt or the bargaining posisions are not on level ground it can be harmful). It seems very close to impossible to fire a teacher in Quebec--one would have to be convicted of physically or sexually abusing a student to be fired, or some other similar grave justification. That culture is why some people of questionable capability, mental capacity or emotional stability can remain teachers for as long as they want.
From what I understand, teachers with short fuses have been occasionally blowing up on students in Quebec classrooms for decades. We aren't talking about stern corporal punishment in the style delivered by the nuns of the old Catholic schoolhouses here either--we are talking they go all "Kosmo Kramer" on a student. In my girfriends primary school this was the sort of discipline meted out by these real pieces of work:
* Forgetting to bring something for show and tell in Grade I would mean you were ordered to go home and get it...unescorted..even if you lived a couple kilometres away or had to cross major throughfares. The parents wouldn't be notified of this.
* One teacher would throw objects at her students' heads if they were talking when she didn't want them to (chalk, etc). When my girfriend caught flying chalk coming toward her head one day and threw it back she was sent home and told not to come back the next day.
* Locking children in broom closets was a choice method of discipline. Parents were not notified of behavioural problems that justified such a punishment, nor were they asked if it was appropriate to discipline their child that way.
* Yelling and screaming tantrums--by the teachers--was common in some classes.
What happened to detention or going to the principals' office? What happened with informing and involving parents with such issues? Apparently, at least as early as the late 1970s, such practices have fallen out of style in a few schools in Quebec. And guess how complaints from parents are dealt with:
* Denial - your kid is lying or exaggerating
* Defence of the actions by teachers, however inappropriate the parents might think they are
* Promises to stop using such methods on your child--mixed in with threats of legal action should you complain publically about a teacher.
Yes, it is true I've met a couple of great teachers who (at least at one time) taught in Quebec. Former STUDENTS that I know, pretty much without exception, had multiple teachers that were incompetent and/or nutjobs at some point. I was not educated in Quebec myself, and I had my fair share of stupid teachers, but I cannot remember there being as many nutjobs as I've heard about in Quebec. Can't say whay that is aside from something systemically wrong with teacher training/hiring/screening becasue as a whole the Quebecois are among the most wonderful people I've met (thankfully they didn't learn how to behave from their teachers).
If they saw any personal electronic device (phone, PSP, etc) you were immediately scolded. Usually the first time it happened, MOST teachers/administrators wouldn't do anything beyond scolding you, but after that (or even the first time with some) they would confiscate the device and/or send you to the office.
Of course, there was the occasional teacher who didn't give a damn what you did, so long as it wasn't disruptive. But otherwise, everyone acted about the same.
Now, I personally think of cell phones and the like as a crutch on which no person should depend--much like computers, though at least a computer has more potential for good. But seriously, with the exception of when your car breaks down (yet another crutch), when if ever are you someplace where you cannot find a phone to use?
That being said, the policies which came into effect at my school did absolutely nothing beyond encouraging students to simply not get caught. If you ask me, this encourages exactly the wrong type of behavior. Which is probably why on every survey taken by the sociology class to which I saw the results, some 85% of students admitted to cheating. Punishing people for getting caught only encourages them to be more careful about not getting caught, but rarely is this sufficient to prevent the act itself from happening.
So, unless the administration at the school from the article plans to either punish the act of the student carrying such a device, by searching every student as they come into the building (possibly via a metal detector), or make the consequences of getting caught so severe that no student would dare risk getting caught (ie: first offense-detention. second-suspension. third-expulsion), then I don't see this having any real effect. It's just like the speed limit: almost every single person goes 5 miles over because the odds of getting caught are so slim and the consequences are almost negligible.
Furthermore, it's difficult to define personal electronic device. In the case of my former school, I made it a point to emphasize that under their current system, a digital watch was against regulations.
So, essentially what I'm saying is, even if the school implements such a policy, I doubt that it will affect the behavior of the students adversely, speaking from experience.
The teachers' union is now trying to get all personal electronic devices banned from all schools in Western Quebec.
So that teachers will be able to yell at each other, beat children without noone seeing, maybe some molest them and so on ?
so that things will stay hidden ?
I will never listen to any babbling about 'childcare','child upbringing','good parenting','good teaching' crapola from any teacher from now on.
Read radical news here
What is this guy, a pansy?
If the teachers' union should be up in arms over anything, it's that Slashdot editors apparently can't be troubled to spellcheck their headlines.
Sheesh, you lose credibility when you screw up spelling on the main page. The correct word is "relevant". Weeeee.
It is indeed possible to misuse personal electronic devices, but does that justify banning them all? Police are already involved in this case, so there's no reason to take away everyone's iPods too. The uploader will be identified and punished, let that be the end of it.
So long as students understand there will be consequences for misuse, then the problem should disappear. This only happened because the students didn't expect any trouble, just shits & giggles.
When a teacher loses control, there's no excuse.
Pranks like this get caught and lead to kids being punished, but whenever a teacher loses control, that damages their credibility and that of the school's. In this case, both the teacher and students need to be suspended; and they all need counseling. The kids need to be taught not to play pranks and the teacher needs to learn how to maintain control.
We need those student cameras in place in case teachers start shit with the students (i.e., beatings, molestation, etc).
Banning student cameras in this case is like banning cars because someone went on a rampage across a playground.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
As Admiral Akbar once said: It's a trap.
Well, if it is a trap then is is a big black bear trap in plain site. The camera may have been hidden but if a student is trying to goad you on then shouldn't it be obvious to a teacher what the appropriate action is? Getting into an hysterical screaming match with someone who is provoking you is something children do, or drunken pub crawlers, or white trash guests on Jerry Springer. Mature adults in positions of authority do not act this way and shouldn't have to know they are being photographed to behave civilly.
so short of banning camera phones & (video) cameras, I don't really see how you resolve the issue.
Well, by behaving like a civilised, mature human being, at least in public places like classrooms, you would virtually eliminate the possibility of being filmed in a compromising act. Furthermore, if you do not act like a total ass to students or anyone else you won't be providing incentive for them to film you surrupticiously or fabricate an offensive and embarrassing photo or video of you.
By the way...if a teacher behaves like an ass and mistreats his students it merely teaches the students to be the same way, which is probably what mad the girls do something so devious and vindictive anyways. Seems the golden rule is completely lost on this charater.
like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hut3VRL5XRE
and put it up undedited on youtube, right at the end of each school day. Put a mechanical clock in the corner of the view to make any cuts obvious. This would protect both students from abuse and teachers from baseless allegations. Too bad it would scare the crap out of some students, and they would be afraid to raise their hands and ask "the dumb questions." Other students would play to the camera. Still others would be motivated by the camera to work harder. I think it would be an interesting experiment.
Thoughts?
Remember when the digital photos from Abu Ghraib came out, and the Pentagon immediately swung into action to prevent any repetition? By banning digital cameras?
The school is simply teaching the kids an important real life lesson about what happens to whistleblowers.
finds this gem:
n ewsid_4476100/4476105.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/newsid_4470000/
Apparently filming kids secretly in a classroom is "underhanded" but not illegal; teachers seem to be unhappy about film material demonstrating that they lost control completely. I can't find anything that says whether open filming would be legal or illegal.
The CBS Innertube has been a good thing for me. I don't often watch TV, but the CIS stuff is fairly good and I hate to miss it. And Innertube works! Fox.com has a similar service, and ABC sucks. ABC requires your firewall to be dormant, you adblocker to be off, and now you have to allow images from sites other than the original, plus they have installed tracking software with the viewer download. On top of all that, their streaming is spotty and the some programs 'way out of date.
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
Having lived in the vicinity of that high school, I can quite honestly say that while I totally disagree with this censorship, there are two sides to this story. Should the video be removed from Youtube ? No. Should we immediately accuse the prof ? No. Did the kids provoke the prof ? I wouldn't be surprised. Mont-Bleu is one of the more problematic communities because of the very high student population and generally low income; an educated ghetto. Combine that with idiot parents and you end up with what we have here, a teacher losing their mind to these stubborn disrespectful teens.
I hope this fiasco raises some stir in the local press and maybe get a few big heads talking. I just compare kids today with kids ten years ago, and well I wish I could drive the school bus into the river because these teens are going nowhere.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
After all of the teacher videos I've seen, I'm thinking this sort of teacher accountability is necessary for our kids to be safe and not traumatized in school. The teacher pulling the chair from underneath a student, the teacher physically threatening and emotionally scarring an entire assembly of students, and completely blazed teachers are all good reasons kids should be able to videotape their negligent teach.
How much annoying little niggling crap do teachers have to take from students as well? If you've got the situation where kids are provoking teachers into having arguments and then putting it on the web, lets have it both ways then - put cameras all around the schools and you solve so much potential issues in terms of classroom disruption.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
The blog Teacher Videos has these sort of negligent teachers on parade. They need to be held accountable for what they're doing.
So schools, can place CCTVs around to monitor students, submit students to search, and general pry into the lives of students.
But when students monitor the administration that cannot be allowed to happen?
This is classic and typical of EVIL OVERLORDS!
If a student went up to an administrator and told them their teacher slapped them privately, they would have a weak investigation, the teacher would deny it, and the parent wouldn't know who to believe and wonder if they were nuts for sticking up for their child. The teacher IS an administrator, and if they told the principal a student had slapped them, the student will be suspended or expelled immediately. It's an issue of responsibility, and the fact that students have no credibility without evidence.
...the true rulers of the republic.
Sure the public school system may be able to hide behind their unions and "privacy" concerns, but perhaps that would further segragate the quality of education received by those in private school. As a parent paying big money to send a kid to a private school, one would feel this would be a right. If one pays for it, one deserves the right to see what they've paid for. Just like Kramer, there is a line between discipline and acting in a way that is uncalled for.
Being originally from Indiana and the formerly well known Coach Bobby Knight, his unadultered commentary shows up as well. I looked his name up on YouTube. One of them is a half-time tirade in the locker room.
Here is the link. Hilarious to listen to but BE FORWARNED, his speech will make a sailor blush. If Coach Knight found about this audio being posted, the team will catch hell even if this was recorded a few years ago !
CBS corp. has stated in an interview that youtube owes them billions of dollars for unauthorized viewing of copyrighted material.
haha, now that would be funny, what a twist!
I disagree with that (at least in current day Britain). But given you've made that point - having cameras everywhere would mean that you would have the truth caught on camera. And most disruptive behaviour and classroom violence that goes on is actually student-student.
Personally I'm with either completely banning the devices or evening the playing field if students are starting to manafacture situations to ruin the careers of the teachers (which is what this article is all about). It would also show parents that their kids aren't the perfect angels that they think they are.
Professor Karmadillo Songs of Science
They have a similar scheme on some of the school buses. It works like this: at some point the camera at the front may be on, for the rest it may not. At first, kids were doing exactly as you described, but after a while no one cared anymore. Whether this was due to the fact that the vids were not posted to YouTube daily or that everyone figured the cameras were never on as nothing ever happened as a result of video evidence (at least in my area). Overall, I think if cameras were installed in schools the vids would be very artificial at first (no "dumb questions" etc.) but they would gradually become a reflection of what life was like before the cameras, resulting in an effective objective view into any possible disputes.
You have just received the Amish virus. Since we have no electricity or computers, you are on the honor system.
A friend of mine who is a teacher said to me a few weeks ago that this was common at the secondary school he teaches at now. Infact, some kids are trying to make their teacher lose their temper on purpose just so they can record it and put it on youtube later. Doing this of course makes the kids who did it a hero among their peers, and the teacher very embarassed.
More than anything, kids today need to learn respect for authority.
No. More than anything, kids need to respect others on an individual basis because they are a person too rather than respect because they are an authoritarian figure.
In fact kids should question authority, and respect only the person because they are their equal and that all human beings need to be respected.
When you talk of authority, you start getting into master and slave arguments.
And I for one believe men are created equal and needed to be treated equal. When you teach someone to respect authority, it usually means fear authority or see what you can get away with when they aren't looking.
If you respect someone not because you fear them, but you want to treat them with decency then you won't act like a complete jerk to your fellow man when the roles reverse.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Rumsfeld would be proud.
Let's not try to solve the underlying problem, by scrutinizing the behaviors of the teacher and/or the students involved (depending on your point of view) -- but let's blame the cameras instead.
Let's not have a sensible policy about the use of cell phones or cameras while in school, instead let's ban them altogether. It doesn't matter that cell phones are convenient tools for working parents to contact their children. It doesn't matter that cell phones and cell phone cameras have already been credited for foiling hundreds of kidnappings and catching a number of child predators, obviously the fragile ego of teachers is far more important than any safety or peace of mind we may derive from having those kids carry cell phones and cameras.
Like I said, Rumsfeld would be proud...
You left out the beginning of that sentence. Let me fix it for you: According to the Portages-de-l'Outaouais school board, the incident took place a month ago, when one student provoked the teacher into yelling at her while a classmate secretly taped the confrontation.
Now, remember, this is a statement from the same school board that's banning all electronic devices simply because they can be used to provide a factual record of teachers' actions. (Whether the video was taken out of context or not, that's still what this ban boils down to: preventing students from recording factual evidence, which means anyone who complains about a teacher's actions will have to rely on nothing more than their word.)
There isn't even a statement from the girls themselves. Why should we trust the school board's story that this was an orchestrated prank, rather than a teacher simply getting caught yelling at a student?
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
and some wonder why they are quitting school ???
/. story recently on smuggling in cell phones in their underwear
... crap) People younger and younger are realizing that the way out is through self sufficiency and most of the formal education systems simply do not teach that, and certainly will not allow it during the student's forced stay/sentence.
plus another
schools are becoming a battleground over communication. those who have the powerful minds yoked are losing control of the system that keeps the humans docile and working for other's benefit, and they do not like it. ("stay in school, you get a good job!"
Kids need to stand up and claim personal rights to devices that permit and enable communication, or simply refuse to participate in the system. find education elsewhere. their parents need to support them in this, or they are selling out their kids.
Don't ask, don't tell. And for heaven's sake don't tape anything!
I've been a teacher - and there is NO excuse for yelling at a student. If you can't get your point across without simply screaming at a student, you have no business being a teacher. Imagine pulling that stunt in another job.
I've also been on the other side - as a kid, I was physically slammed against the wall by a teacher who gave my skull a good crack, because I'd been fooling around with other students and locked them out after recess (there were 20 other doors they could have gone through so they were stuck outside for a grand total of 1 minute). That teacher should have been fired - he very easily could have seriously injured me - but no one was interested in hearing about it. No one believed it or bothered listening.
Funny that I wound up teaching myself later in life - and having seen both sides, I *still* side with students 80% of the time. A large majority of educational professionals are in the job for other reasons. I personally know one who was only in it because she wanted the summer vacation. I had a principal who openly stated she hated kids. Others simply failed at other jobs and begrudgingly took teaching positions.
The western educational system is falling apart at the seams, and it's not just the students that are causing it. In fact, it's rarely the students. It's usually the parents, the teachers themselves, and legistlators.
"École Secondaire Mont-Bleu has ... suspended two 13-year-old girls after one uploaded to YouTube a camera phone video of their teacher yelling at the other ... the teacher was so embarrassed that he stayed home from work, where he remains on stress leave.
In other news, Canada has also put all Jewish people on notice for totally humiliating Hitler. He realizes the holocaust, which Canada refuses to punish him for, was stepping out of line but the Canadian government finds the Jewish determination to let the entire world know what happened utterly unacceptable.
Would be to have video cameras installed in EVERY classroom, so that if some smart-alec tries to set up his teacher this way again, the full story can still be seen... including how the teacher was goaded into responding the way that he did. Not that I excuse what he did, but having another video to substantiate what led up to the occurence would have made it a lot easier for him to just apologize for overreacting and move on without continuing to be embarrassed. With such facilities, a student who is trying to provoke a teacher into doing something stupid could just be sent to the office for disciplinary action, and the school could have the entire incident on tape.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
... but we need those spell checkers!
No, seriously, I think your ideas are well-defined and all, but I found it interesting that your post, while decrying lost skills due to one technological marvel, clearly demonstrated lost skills due to another.
Cheers!
---
120 characters. Netcraft confirms it.
I'd like to see evidence that "Very rarely is the teacher at fault, I can easily say based on reports I see via NEA and NJEA newsletters nearly half the time the teacher is punished despite 9/10 times the student provoking the teacher."
I'll agree that death threats and violence by students upon teachers are on the rise compared to 50 years ago. But that's a direct reverse from 50 years ago when violence by teachers AND parents upon students were the accepted norm. The only difference between yester year and modern times is the direction of the violence.
I'll also agree that we punish kids too lightly, and that counseling is not always the best solution. But we need to find a middle ground - we certainly cannot go back to the day when kids got the hell beat out of them (remember, folks, violence only begets violence), and we can't have the ultra permissive situation we have today. Kids need to be treated with respect and taught that it goes both ways.
That having been said, banning student cameras won't stop the abuse that they're sometimes used to record. There's no LEGITIMATE reason to deny students that freedom because of a few abusers... that is, unless you desire them not to be in competition with the Government, which is moving toward monitoring everyone 24/7 (currently even moreso in the UK than the US).
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Heh, I was looking for the video in question, but I think I like this one better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fr3AxRtPZc
my girl is a teacher and i tell you its not always the teacher. kids these days in schools are little punks. wile they might be like that in school they may not be that way at home with is why some parents whont beleve you or some kids that are like that in home and school but the parents just act bliend to it couse they dont wanna deal with it. i dont have kids myself but i would not be eyther type of parent above i knoe kids can be bad hell its all part of being a kid. why do kids act so bad in schools these days and it doesent matter if your school is flagged as good or bad it happons in all of them. its pretty simple they can get in no real truble for acting up like that unless of course theres parents like mine who dont go for that little angle crap and fear would keep you from acting up lol. but to be honest the amount of parents willing to keep there kids in line is far less then those who will not and just dont care. im not blaming the kids fully there is some bad teachers out there however as long as said kid is doing knothing to provke even a bad teacher you genrely whont have a problem. and on the note of kids assulting a teacher that has been known to happon. my gf still teaches young kids so its not a issue yet but if a older kid ever thrented or assulted my gf well the parents will be suing me for beating the shit out of the basterd.
I fully realize that a LOT of good teachers undergo punishment every week by rowdy students. BUT, I venture to say that those NEA/NJEA newsletters citing teachers as punished "half the time" are probably seeing something that's almost fair.
Even if 9/10 times, the "student is provoking the teacher" - so what? The teacher is expected to maintain a higher standard. The school classroom isn't a democracy, after all. Students don't really have much in the way of "individual rights" in school. If anything, they're run much more like a prison system than anything else. Metal detectors at the entrances and guards checking who goes in and out, etc. etc. If you give teachers that level of control over their students, then you're counting on them being "benevolent dictators", at the very least.
Being a teacher isn't an easy job, not is it one that some people are cut out for. In some ways, it's like being a police officer. Most people you deal with view you as "the enemy", yet expect you to come to their rescue, on demand.
Especially in the high-schools, I think a good teacher *earns* the respect of his/her students (or not). It's not so much a problem of parents not punishing them at home. That may or may not be true, but regardless, they're a captive audience of the teacher during the school day, each and every week. What the parents do with them at home is rather irrelevant. Teens always try to "test the limits", to see what they can get away with. Teachers need to make the boundaries really clear, up front, but still give their students complete respect, within those lines they've drawn.
Dude, Quebecers have no common ground with english canada.
If youre from Calgary, the Saguenay is as foreign as Oklahoma.
If youre from Riviere du Loup and you go to Moose Jaw, its like being in a foreign country since no one there speaks your language even though in theory both are official.
Trying to find excuses is as bad as the girl who gets beaten by her boyfriend and then finds the saddest most pathetic reasons why she should stay.
There is no reason for english Canada and Quebec to remain joined. None. (well, there are over a million francophones living outside the province of quebec but they will quickly become a historic relic like Lousiana. Separation means they will be absorbed quicker.)
Canadian history is very simple. French colonized quebec, english showed up did the rest, they fought, the french left and the remainder of the french there lived under british rule.
If mexico overtook the US, youd feel the same century later.
Quebec has as much right to sovereignity as many nations we recognized the past few years (Bosnia being a great example since its a mix of three ethnic groups, well if you consider 'muslim' a nation). I think the goose-gander analogy is perfect right about here. You cant say that this group is allowed self determination and this group cant.
And no Boisclair does not want sovereignty. The last few PQ leaders have been more interested in power using the promise of sovereignty as a carrot. The charisma of the original PQ leaders like Levesque, Parizeau and company is not even in the same ballpark as the poseurs who led them the last few elections. Its like comparing JFK to Bob Dole.
Anyways, Canada is a banana republic with over 15,000 companies switching to US ownership since free trade two decades ago. Our armed forces are merged for all purpose with the US. our leaders are each election more and more dependent on the US. Free trade fine print means that all our bases...I mean all our resources like water, oil, electricity are guaranteed to the US (we cant hoard just for ourselves if there is a crisis so we cant say "first we take care of canadians then the US clients") as well as allow the abolition of any local or national law which contradicts the free trade deal.
We are a few years away from being Puerto Rico or Guam.
And lets not even go to the cultural well because that is just sad. Canadians know more about the US, its laws and customs than their own country. Music is an american affair except in quebec where the french factor means you have american music sung in french, canadian TV programming is non-existant.
Canadian films? Whazzat?
Hell, we have a province that has agreed to allow muslims to solve domestic cases using their freaking religious laws instead of the civil code.
How's that for a banana republic?
Separation will not solve ANY problem. Most likely it will hasten Canada's fall.
But if quebecers want to separate, they have all the rights in the world.
Moi?
Couldnt care less because the day after separation, I will still have to pay my bills, shovel the snow and life will go on.
Sanity has nothing to do with this.
And let's not even try to compare quebec schools to US ones. The worst school in montreal (the black districts like St.Michel, Montreal Nord and St.Henri) are prolly safer than the majority of public shcools in US cities of the same size.
Quebec has one big city of 3 million people, then the next one has 600,000, two-three of 200,000, another 2 of 100,000 and then its small towns..
Zeke
I don't see why this is an issue. The teacher disciplined a student by yelling at him, which was probably a well deserved punishment. What is the issue with it being videotaped and shown to the public? The teacher obviously went overboard or he would not be embarassed for anyone to see. Suspending the kids just seems ludacris. The parents SHOULD sue, for suspending their kids for doing nothing wrong. So F***ing what, that's what I say.
...is it just me?
The cameras are great truth-documenters and we need lots more of them. The innocent little tech devices don't lie and show all for the world to see and judge. This is very bad for the bad guys and there is no turning back!
People in Queerbec don't speak French.
They speak Joual.
Here in New Zealand, I had a substitute teacher who got sick of us (not me of course!) not listening etc, and he yelled at us and stormed out the door! The funny thing was, he was about to stride right into the door frame, he moved out of the way and slammed the door, and it closed on his bag. He had to open the door to get his bag back! I had my camera at the time, and I remember wanting to have recorded it, but its a large F717, (possibly has a fault according to another article) and he would have noticed. The rest of the lesson we had the other teachers come in and drink coffee with us.
For the last, what, one, two centuries, teachers have regularly abused their students, beating them down, in some form of apparent pathology or another. Some because they felt they had to squash intelligent students because they were as well, when they were kids, or in others, they chose to because some students threatened the status quo.
However, in another recent case, someone with a cell phone camera recorded a pro-creationist teacher telling science students in school that they would go to Hell for not accepting creationism as fact.
Simply put? Just as people can use cameras in this surveillance based society to imprison the innocent, it can equally be used to imprison the guilty. So if you can't deal with the idea of being dressed down because you were stupid enough to let your own stupidity be caught on camera, don't bitch about it. Suck it up, or cut it out. Plain and simple.
Just because you can mod me down, doesn't mean you're right. Shoes for industry!
Yep it was a trap, what concerns me is the fact that the teacher fell for it. I'd say it was time to call supernanny.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
In America, kids rebel too much. In 3rd world countries, they just as often get killed for rebelling, even as adults, and they immigrate here to experience individual freedoms.
Like I said, there ought to be a balance.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Go out and make your own content for YouTube, yah lazy bastards! For YouTube to stay relevant it needs original content, not the same network crap regurgitated into a web browser.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
I wish it were true that teachers were one of the most important people in society. If it WERE true, our paycheques would be a lot better, we'd get more respect from the students and their parents, our schools wouldn't be underfunded, etc.
Instead, you've got a situation where people are doing a lousy-paying job just because they LOVE to do it. The best doctors, actors, lawyers, professional atheletes, etc. get paid a ton. The best teachers work away in obscurity.
The truth is, elementary education isn't treated with respect, and that carries over to the educators. If it were treated with respect, we wouldn't see things like evolution being dropped in favour of religious dogma, funding being cut continuously, etc.
Teachers these days are considered glorified babysitters. The unions are there for a reason. We ARE important to society, but since society likes to fuck with us, we need the means to fight back.
As long as there some sort of measure to make sure that kids know if they pull out video phones/ cameras every ten seconds and film each other and the teacher for a lark when they are supposed to be working on their French/Maths/Chemistry/whatever that they will get pulled up before the head teacher and disciplined for disruptive behaviour.
My experience of teaching (only as a school librarian teaching library skills and computer skills) was that a minority of kids will find any excuse to mess around and it's a constant battle to keep them concentrating on their work and not poking their mates with pencils/throwing paper balls at each other etc.Putting it into a school contract that they can randomly pull out a video device and start recording at any time... hmmm.... not so sure.
hmmm.. I know where you coming from, but can I ask, have you any experience of teaching school aged kids?
You went a long way in saying, "You'd be a terrible teacher", when I said it right in the part you quoted. Yes, I'd be a terrible teacher. Feel free to say it again in a few other words if it'll make you feel better.
When the respect a child has for their teacher (and undoubtedly for ANY authority figure for these kids) is as broken as this, how far do you suppose reasoning with them is likely to go?
Perhaps "slapped around a little" isn't the best choice of words, but I do think spanking has gotta make a comeback. I've had this discussion before, and interestingly enough all of the people I respect most around me were spanked as children. The uncontrollable brats my cousins are all raising have never been spanked.
On this topic I think the bleeding hearts can just keep on bleeding.
"If you and your friends can't cut it in the teaching profession, then the problem isn't that we don't allow you to get away with abusing and intimidating our children. No, the problem is YOU."
Spoken like somebody who has never had to do substantial time with somebody elses botched children.
The ex-teachers in my family didn't strike children, or yell at them... they just felt the stress involved was not worth the money. Every year the children got worse. Finally, they just gave up.
"We are going to need to weed out the scum and the freeloaders and the riff raff currently serving as teachers - teachers like you would be. ONLY then can we increase their pay"
So what will you do when you find out that there are only genuinely devoted and talented teachers to teach maybe, what... one student in 500? When you discover that the rank and file are just average people, just like in most other professions, will you burn out your privileged elites?
Your utopia only works if there are enough terrific teachers to fill all teaching spots... and if the students don't break them down. Good luck with that.
"Just as we need police officers who are honorable and intelligent and of mild tempermant who can respond to the most intense situations and remain cool, we need teachers who can do the same."
Oh, that's even better. Let me know how you fare with that.
Wimp.
Sounds like hes better off not teaching 'our' children anyway.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
I'm seeing a lot of posts saying "the teacher shouldn't yell" or some other why don't you just reason with them.
I do volunteer work with 13-15 yr olds in the Australian (Catholic) High school system. Kids talk, they're disruptive and don't like authority. From what I've experienced in the school system students are far more disrespectful. I was amazed when I heard students swear directly at teachers. How many of you have to put up with that in your working environment?
Children need to respect the authority of their teachers and be disciplined by them. Parents going on about "suing" are stupid and teaching their children poor skills to deal with life
That would work wonders for school productivity, I'm sure, but the comments on such a Youtube video should be controlled. None of that "look at that idiot he farted lol" stuff.
OSx86 FTW
YouTube claims to host entertainment, not news. The content should have waivers, the same as any other published media.
Unless the laws in Canada have changed, you cannot even take a picture of an individual or group without their express or implicit permission. People in the public eye like politicians have given tacit approval to the press (job requirement), but private citizens have not.
If this situation required some disciplinary action, the video should have been provided to local authorities (school board, principal, city council.) Publishing it in this fashion is a smear campaign, and I think the parents of kids doing all these postings need to consider whether they can afford to be sued.
Everyone has skeletons in their closet. Unless it's a major public figure, I think it's way out of line to treat every potential misconduct as entertainment or news. People have a fundamental right to privacy, guaranteed in most constitutions.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
If that had been my kid, that headmaster would become the victim of a few LINE combat maneuvers (now rolled into MCMAP) that I've mastered.
m bat_system
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_Corps_LINE_co
You know, I never really considered that, but it fits my thoughts exactly. As I said earlier, I don't like the Big Brother thing - but that extends more to the usage of that footage against me by some vaporous black helicopter crowd. I however don't particularly have a problem with being recorded very often, especially in public places, if both sides are the ones privy to the objective view.
Case in point - Rodney King. And any other cases where authority was caught on tape being abusive. The common person should have a right when in public places to show what's going on around them. Could you imagine if someone had gotten Auschwitz footage to the world's newsreel tables?
I wish there was a choice that said "Factually Wrong -1" when I mod.
> More than anything, kids today need to learn respect for authority.
> This doesn't mean that authority is always right or infallible, just
> that kids should be taught to respect
My own parents always taught me that respect is NEVER something that is just *given* as a matter of course. Respect must be EARNED. And it's a two-way street; respect must also be RETURNED. And yes, I respect my parents; in part, for lessons like that.
cya,
john
Imagine all the people...
If the teacher knows how to play fair the whole chalk concept can actually be a good tool, I had an 9th grade art teacher who instead of sending you to detention (except on some extreme cases only about 4 times in a whole year and two of them It happenned to me and a couple of friends after ignoring his orders to put away my magic the hathering games for the 8th time ), he would instead pickup a piece of chalk and fling it at you with just enough strength to make you go ouch, but once the first chalk was cast he considered himself a fair target and on no account did he ever punish anyone for flinging the chalk back at him, he simply smiled, (unless you actually managed to hit him in wich case he would get an even bigger "very good grasshopper" grin), reached for the blackboard picked up another piece of chalk and proceed to demonstrate what years of experience can do to improve ones skill and accuracy, everyone would eventually figure out who was the best shot in the classroom and had the largest supply of chalk lying around and cut the crap, (and get a good couple of laughs in the process). ,and drinking his former students out of the table and then picking himself calmly up to go to home his wife and two kids
12 years later , its not rare for him to to keep giving a lesson on experience versus youth
that would probably work actually. as soon as the guys are afraid of the women, they have to play nice.
look! it's a bird, it's a plane, it's....a girl? yes, a girl browsing Slashdot on Linux
I mod down pathetic posts.
...until PMS time comes.
Please, for the good of Humanity, vote Obama.
So, what you're saying is, that you prefer Social Darwinism over natural evolution.
And yes, by mentioning Social Darwinism, Godwin's Law has been envoked, hence this thread is terminated.
----
Please give me a complete url to where can I download the offending video.
> You better believe we need to hold these people to the highest level of accountability.
Nobody should be hold to a higher standard than what we are paying them for. How much higher is the salary of a high-school teacher than the salary of a software engineer?
Just one. Who the fuck would go to YouTube to watch an entire school day?