Students Videoing Teachers Without Permission

Even if you are not doing anything wrong, would you like to be secretly videoed? Almost no one would. And if you are a classroom teacher, you can't be the perfect, most interesting teacher all the time. No one expects you to be. Enter the cell phone camera and other small video cameras. Students have used these to video teachers. One teacher in Canada had to take a leave of absence for stress because a video of him shouting at a student was placed on YouTube. The teacher, who was described as one of the best, was too embarrassed to return to the classroom. Apparently, one student purposely upset the teacher and another filmed the incident. At the school, the two students were suspended and a rule made that digital devices were no longed allowed in classrooms. Might there be other ways to handle the problem? Should teachers be expected to be in control at all times? Should what happens behind classroom doors be available to all? Should student behavior be videoed? What do you think? Is there an answer? No matter what, in today's world it's dangerous to say or do anything in public that you wouldn't want to see online, on television, in the newspapers, or on a cellphone.

Comments

[Merle Marsh]

Hall Davidson of Discovery Education has some great ideas for using cellphones in the classroom.

[Richard Byrne]

Great topic. Unfortunately, "no electronic device rules" are frustratingly difficult to enforce. And the larger a school is the more difficult it is as enforcing school wide policy takes a school wide effort. I have mixed feelings about cell phones in the classroom as there are some academic justifications for allowing students to have them. Whether or not those justifications are strong enough to outweigh the negative aspects of cell phones in classrooms remains to be seen.