Recording the Classroom

Last night, my sister told me about a teacher at her son's junior high that routinely tells students they are stupid, should be prepared to flip hamburgers and puts down her son by saying, "he can't add" when he got a B- in her class. Imagine students recording without permission in classrooms. What would they catch? There are obviously rules and laws against this kind of electronic monitoring but we put hidden cameras on school buses, in hallways... privacy is becoming harder and hard to control and these cheap technologies have the potential to challenge our existing systems.

By the way, my nephew's teacher should be challenged and it definitely is not ok to put down students, make fun and use the classroom as a negative soapbox. We should take on bullying teachers.

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Thomas Lifson at The American Thinker reflects on the power of technology to shake up the government school system:

The MP3 revolution is upon us. iPods are ubiquitous. For as little as fifteen bucks a tiny device clicks in and turns the iPod into a digital recorder. Suitable for uploading to the web by any kid in America.

Think of the historic opportunity we have to improve education by decentralized monitoring of classroom conduct. I am certain sanctimonious arguments are made to respect the privacy and intimacy of he teacher-student bond. The learning process depends on trust. Laymen just don’t understand the complexities.

Spare me. These are public employees, union members more than independent professionals, and they are hired to teach geography not spew political hyperbole. We need to monitor them. They shouldn’t say anything in the classroom on our dime that they aren’t willing to see heard on the internet.