Slashdot Mirror
UK Schools Consider Searching Pupils' Smartphones
An anonymous reader writes "What right to privacy do school pupils have on their mobile phones? UK education officials are considering ways to clamp down on cyber-bullying and classroom disruption by allowing teachers to search and delete content from student handsets if it is deemed unsuitable. However, questions remain whether such a move would give teachers too much power and infringe on student rights."
On the one hand, a proposal to allow teachers to search smartphones is an expansion of the invasive-yet-dubiously-competent surveillance state. Therefore, our limey friends on airstrip one have an obligation to adopt it, it's in their national character or something.
On the other hand, such a proposal will, almost certainly, provide teachers with a supply of kiddie porn, thus abetting the paedophile menace, perhaps the only thing that your average Daily Mail reader fears and loathes more than immigrants on the dole...
How will they decide this one?
No phones. Period.
That was when you were 9. Times have changed.
Scenario 1:
Johnny and Mark gets into a fight after school.
1970 - Crowd gathers. Johnny wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best mates for life.
2010 - Police called, arrests Johnny and Marko. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Mark started it. Both children go to anger management programs for 3 months. School board hold meeting to implement bullying prevention programs
Scenario 2:
Robbie won't Keep still in class, disrupts other students.
1970 - Robbie sent to office and given 6 of the best by the headmasterl, Returns to class, sits stil and does not disrupt class again.
2010 - Robbie given huge doses of Ritalin. Becomes a zombie. Tested for ADD. Robbie's parents get fortnightly disability payments and school gets extra funding from state because Robbie has a disability.
The seeds of yet another encroachment on human rights by the UK
Kids are not adults.
It's a good thing they are called "Human Rights", not "Adult Rights" then, isn't it?
I'm sure there'll be plenty of apologists here who will say
1. "I'm old and I don't like that young people have better times ahead of them so I am happy to hear about them being clamped down in some way."
2. the legal apologist who says if the law allows/denies it, it must be ok/not ok. who cares that we're discussing, at least obliquely, the effects of this scenario that it creates.
3. "when I was a kid" douchebags.
4. the wannabe tyrant who props up his insecurities by always siding with big brother tyrants.
How about just throwing out the kids who are disruptive in class? this way no property has to be ruined, no lawsuits filed, and the kids who want to be there to learn (or at least graduate) can do so. if it's the kind of thing where the kid's sitting there quietly with headphones on, leave him alone.. he's not bothering anyone else. the only reason teachers throw these kinds of 'offenders' out is because of their insecure feelings of being 'dissed.' Really, it's not necessary because the kid will fail the class...or pass it because he already knew the material. Remind him that paying attention is important and he'll need to take off the 'phones to do that. if he says 'no' just say 'remember there's a test next week, I hope you'll be prepared.' and leave it at that. if the kid keeps forgetting to turn off his cell phone ringer, then throw him out of the class until he starts remembering. none of this requires a panopticonic policy. of course such policies have a benefit for the emotional security challenged people out there who are more often than not in-charge.
The 'cyber bullying 'excuse for this new 'power' is just another form of 'for the children.' searching/confiscating phones and deleting files on them is not going to stop bullying.. in fact, all this will do is enable yet another way for faculty to bully students.
That was when you were 9. Times have changed.
Scenario 1:
Johnny and Mark gets into a fight after school.
1970 - Crowd gathers. Johnny wins. Johnny and Mark shake hands and end up best mates for life.
2010 - Police called, arrests Johnny and Marko. Charge them with assault, both expelled even though Mark started it. Both children go to anger management programs for 3 months. School board hold meeting to implement bullying prevention programs
That's great. You've been watching The Bells of St Mary's where the bullied kid learns how to box and beats his opponent in a David and Goliath struggle and it all worked out beautifully. Congratulations.
Now here's how it really happened in 1970. Mark picks a fight with Johnny who doesn't want to fight. Mark insists and instead of the good guy winning, Mark kicks the crap out of Johnny anyway. Johnny is left bleeding, bruised, dazed, stunned, crying and traumatised. Johnny goes on to have problems in later life because he was bullied in school.
It wasn't all a bed of roses. God forbid if nostalgia for a non-existent golden age ever forms the basis of policy.
Drill baby drill - on Mars
Maybe in your system of morality. Kindly keep it to yourself, if the only alternative you find is to force it upon others.
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
kids are however humans still.
Shh! Don't tell anyone. Then we'll have to stop treating them like slaves and idiots (until they suddenly and magically become people at the age of 18 of course).
Absolutely not. Kids are minors, and therefore enjoy greater protection from the law, not less. They still retain basic human rights and many civil liberties. You cannot force a child to work commercially for you for free. You cannot compel a child to testify against themselves. The police may not search children without a warrant. The only reason schools enjoy greater control over their students is by arguing "in loco parentis," that they are literally acting as the child's parent while the mother and father are absent. Even under this doctrine, there are limits. You cannot compel a child to salute the flag or recite the pledge of allegiance. The school may not interfere with a child's practice of religion.
This is all how it should be.
My problem is with the implication of your post. Kids are not adults, so they have no human rights or civil liberties, so we can do what we want to them. The Great State of Texas has been a prime example of this, Kids get investigated as children with no human rights, and then tried as adults with no protections from the law.
And honestly, speaking as a teacher, demanding to see the notebook was a rookie mistake. The problem with you and your friends was that you weren't focused on the lesson. Your teacher should have put you back on task, but instead chose to make this a personal issue between you. Your teacher sacrificed the strong position of "You're not learning the lesson" for the weak position of "You're hurting my feelings."
Look at it this way. Do you remember what you were supposed to be learning that day?
He put his boots up on the table and made a face. "The sig," he smirked. "You can waste your life in search of the sig."
If, when I and my children lived in the UK, a teacher had tried to do this I would have sued s/his ass off.
Under what law?
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
You can predict the mental out come Johnny in either situation and that seems to be where we are falling short. By treating Johnny as a slighted traumatized victim before he himself has had a chance to reconcile the situation is what is getting us into this sheep culture to begin with. The reality is there will always be aggression between children as well as adults but indoctrinating a victim mindset is the worst possible method since it effectively eliminates the potential for the person being attacked to attain a positive state on their own and if that fails then intervene.
All in all neither of you are correct because both of you make predictions based on outcomes that could go either way or neither but recommend or endorse solutions for your one outcome alone.
A loop, by its nature, continues. If that didn't make sense, start reading this sentence again.