I have traditionally been against the installation of cameras in classrooms. My view was that such an initiative would show disrespect for the teacher and make them feel insecure and constantly scrutinised. I also felt that it would weaken the teacher’s authority.
But with the proliferation of secret cell phone videos that have made its way to YouTube, I wonder if it’s in the best interest of teachers and students alike to have cameras installed in the classroom. This will stop children from filming their teachers without their knowledge, it will pick up incidents where students are bullying their teacher and it will prevent predators from abusing children:
In the wake of school abuse scandals like the one involving Miramonte Elementary School in Los Angeles, some people think equipping classrooms with camera could protect children from predators.
Surveillance cameras are nothing new. They are in convenience stores and government buildings and even in bus stations.
But they aren’t in classrooms.
Mal Weisberg, the owner of a company that sells surveillance equipment, said this should change.
“These parents deserve to know what their kids are up to,” said Weisburg, whose company, Privacy Connection, has been selling such cameras for a quarter century.
People don’t have patience any more. Everything needs to be immediate and instantaneous. I heard someone on the radio last night complain about the 5 seconds of advertising they had to sit through before they could access their YouTube clip.
More than four-in-10 teachers said children failed to read for pleasure at the age of 11, it emerged.
The study – by the publisher Pearson – found that many schools fear children have short attention spans and prefer to spend time online rather than reading a novel.
Teachers also said that books were not seen as “cool” by pupils and raised fears that parents are failing to do enough to promote a love of reading in the home.
Frank Cottrell Boyce, the author, said: “It’s worrying to think that so many young children are not being inspired to pick up a good book and get lost in a story.
“According to Unesco, the biggest single indicator of whether a child is going to thrive at school and in work is whether or not they read for pleasure.”
The poll questioned around 400 secondary school English teachers.
Two-thirds of those questioned said that reading was not seen as “cool” by pupils, according to the study.
Three-quarters said that children’s attention spans were shorter than ever before, while 94 per cent claimed that pupils preferred to be using the internet rather than reading.
It is my belief that a crucial part of my job is to promote the joys of reading. I take pride in selecting books for my class that will appeal and entertain. I also have a Book Club. This allows my students to see that reading is not necessarily a personal experience but it can be a shared experienced too.
It has been labelled “heartbreaking” and one of the most effective anti-smoking advertisements ever.
The new public service announcement from Thailand shows two small children approaching adults who are smoking and asking them for a light.
Not one of the adults shown in the ad gives the children what they ask for.
Instead the adults — who have no idea they are being set up — begin giving the children earnest lectures on why smoking is so bad for them.
“If you smoke you die faster,” one man tells a little boy.
“Don’t you want to live and play?”
“When you smoke you suffer from lung cancer, emphysema and strokes,” another says.
The children then reveal their trump card, a brochure they hand the adults which reads: “You worry about me. But why not about yourself?”
The video, produced by the agency Ogilvy Thailand on behalf of the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, was uploaded to YouTube a week ago and has since gone viral, attracting more than 350,000 views.
The foundation has reported a 40 percent increase in the number of calls it has received about how to stop smoking.
I’m sick of reading excuses for why a bus full of middle school children acted in a most deplorable way to their bus monitor. There are no excuses for such vile behavior. I don’t care what age you are, you have a responsibility to be a good citizen and decent person. It sickens me to see a pack bullying situation where a soft target is exposed and then tormented without any resistance whatsoever.
Explanations like this are both unhelpful and insensitive to poor bus monitor, Karen Klein:
When kids reach middle school, bullying becomes more common and more sophisticated, experts says.
“Middle school-age kids are sort of an age group that is notorious for an uptick in the intensity of bullying,” said Dr. Gail Saltz, a psychiatrist in New York and TODAY contributor.
During the middle school years, kids are facing intense peer pressure, the pack mentality is strong and kids feel a growing sense of independence – all while their moral compasses are still developing, she said.
“It’s a time when they’re figuring out who they are by sometimes crossing the line and breaking the rules,” Saltz says. “Their insecurity drives a lot of cliquishness and defining themselves as better by making someone else feel worse.”
Don’t even try to excuse this behaviour in any way based on the age of the perpetrators. This is a culture problem. The parents of these children need to do as much soul-searching as the children themselves.
I am saddened to hear about the families of the students getting death threats. What kind of response is that? What is the sense in dealing with bullying by continuing the chain of bullying? This is isn’t even about a bus full of children. This has even wider implications.
Middle school children worldwide should be put on notice. No more excuses. I don’t care how old you are. It’s time to grow up and treat others with respect!
The question that keeps popping into my head when I see footage or disturbing images of bullying is, where is the teacher supervision?
THESE are the distressing and disturbing images, which should shock every parent. Boys and girls, as young as 14, are being involved in ugly, violent schoolyard brawls.
Police are investigating fights between teens from Kempsey High School after 14 fighting clips were uploaded on the internet last week.
The footage, since pulled down from YouTube, shows high school students cheering on female and male kids brutally attacking each other.
Wild punches, kicking and hair-pulling is all part of the no-holds barred brawling.
Kempsey Police Inspector, Michael Aldridge said he is currently working with various groups to identify the people in the shocking videos.
“We are aware of it. The Kempsey fights are being shot from Kempsey high school students who are engaging in fighting,” he said.
“Ourselves with the school, the school liaison, police youth liaison officer and the safety command response unit have all come together and we are reviewing and identifying who is in the videos. We have been working with the school along with other various units, we are going to break down who it is and from there we are going to take whatever action we can in line with the school.”
Inspector Aldridge said the fights were uploaded to YouTube on June 5, but may have occurred in the past year.
The fights occur in school grounds with classrooms and teachers in sight and on soccer fields and parks. Each clip lasts between 14 and 40 seconds.
Kempsey High School principal, Mick Eller said he has seen one of the clips. “There were 21 clips but I have only viewed one of them,” he said.
Mr Eller said some of the clips are of fights that happened last year and students have been disciplined. He did not reveal how many students had been suspended or reprimanded by police.
“School students from Kempsey High . . . have been dealt with at the school level, some have involved police, some haven’t,” Mr Eller said, adding the school has implemented counselling and mediation to curb the violence.
Other highly publicised school brawls can be viewed by following this link and read about by following this link.
It doesn’t matter how sensitive the themes in Jessica Barba’s anti-bullying movie is, at least she has the presence of mind to do something about the issue. Yes, a fictionalised suicide may be pushing the boundaries somewhat, but bullied children do commit suicide. I would much rather teenagers address the issue than sit back and ignore it.
The Long Island student suspended over her anti-bullying video and fake Facebook page is garnering national attention. For the first time since the incident played out over YouTube, the school is speaking out to CBS 2.
It’s been a whirlwind of publicity for 15-year-old Jessica Barba, but not the kind she expected. She anticipated a few thousand hits on online. Instead, she has made headlines and appeared on national television.
“As long as the word about bullying is getting out, that’s what it was all about in the first place. If I’m able to touch more kids’ lives, that’s what I will do,” she told reporters.
“Her project turned out so wonderfully and we’re so proud of it,” said Barba’s mother, Jody.
The Longwood School District remained mum on how Barba “created a substantial disruption” and “violated school policy,” but CBS 2′s Jennifer McLogan caught up with the reluctant superintendent, Dr. Allan Gerstenlauer.
McLogan: “Why are you unable to speak about this?”
Gerstenlauer: “We cannot speak about any student discipline issue because of the privacy issues that are engaged in that.”
The school said privacy issues are the only reason they aren’t speaking about reprimanding Barba for creating the fake Facebook page and YouTube video about a fictitious teen who commits suicide after being bullied in school and online.
Jessica Barba said it was part of a school project on persuasive speech. A parent alerted police and the school, apparently concerned that it was all real. Although a caption at the beginning and end states the character, 12-year-old “Hailey,” is fictional.
Since then, students have claimed they have been threatened for wearing t-shirts they created, petitions and flyers in support of Barba’s project.
The school has denied any threats. The principal and Barba’s guidance counselor, along with her parents, have a 7 a.m. meeting on Thursday.
Barba’s suspension began one week ago. She hopes to be reinstated and return to class to turn in her anti-bullying project.
I was deeply moved by dying teenager Shaun Wilson-Miller’s YouTube video. Filmed as a farewell to all his friends and a request that his father is taken care of, Shaun amazingly, talks positively about his life experiences and how his girlfriend Maddie has made him a very happy person. I commend Shaun for the message, which I feel will strike a chord with adults and children alike.
What I abhor is the vile, disgusting comments that are attached to this heartrending clip. They are crude, demeaning and completely unacceptable! YouTube has a responsibility to ensure that these sorts of comments are taken down and those writing them have their accounts banned! I am appalled that a dying child can be subjected to such bullying.
This YouTube clip presents the very best and worst of what life has to offer. It shows a child that refuses to play the victim, even when faced with the toughest and most dire of situations, and it demonstrates the most disgusting sections of society – those that hide behind false names and keyboards whilst taunting and degrading an innocent person.
Because of those awful people, poor Shaun has had to make another clip refuting their claims.
I’ve maintained all along that teachers found to be verbally abusing their students should be made accountable for their actions, regardless of whether the offence was captured without their knowledge. Even though I am of this opinion, I completely object to the secret filming of teachers by students.
Teachers hurled insults like “bastard,” ”tard,” ”damn dumb” and “a hippo in a ballerina suit.” A bus driver threatened to slap one child, while a bus monitor told another, “Shut up, you little dog.”
They were all special needs students, and their parents all learned about the verbal abuse the same way — by planting audio recorders on them before sending them off to school.
In cases around the country, suspicious parents have been taking advantage of convenient, inexpensive technology to tell them what children, because of their disabilities, are not able to express on their own. It’s a practice that can help expose abuses, but it comes with some dangers.
This week, a father in Cherry Hill, N.J., posted on YouTube clips of secretly recorded audio that caught one adult calling his autistic 10-year-old son “a bastard.” In less than three days, video got 1.2 million views, raising the prominence of the small movement. There have been at least nine similar cases across the U.S. since 2003.
“If a parent has any reason at all to suggest a child is being abused or mistreated, I strongly recommend that they do the same thing,” said Wendy Fournier, president of the National Autism Association.
But George Giuliani, executive director of the National Association of Special Education Teachers and director of special education at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., says that while the documented mistreatment of children has been disturbing, secret recordings are a bad idea. They could, he said, violate the privacy rights of other children.
“We have to be careful that we’re not sending our children in wired without knowing the legal issues,” Giuliani said.
Stuart Chaifetz, the Cherry Hill father, said he began getting reports earlier in the school year that his 10-year-old son, Akian, was being violent.
Hitting teachers and throwing chairs were out of character for the boy, who is in a class with four other autistic children and speaks but has serious difficulty expressing himself. Chaifetz said he talked to school officials and had his son meet with a behaviorist. There was no explanation for the way Akian was acting.
“I just knew I had to find out what was happening there,” he said. “My only option was to put a recorder there. I needed to hear what a normal day was like in there.”
On the recording, he heard his son being insulted — and crying at one point.
He shared the audio with school district officials. The superintendent said in a statement that “the individuals who are heard on the recording raising their voices and inappropriately addressing children no longer work in the district.”
Since taking the story public, Chaifetz, who has run unsuccessfully for the school board in Cherry Hill and once went on a hunger strike to protest special-education funding cuts, said he has received thousands of emails.
At least a few dozen of those he has had a chance to read have been from parents asking for advice about investigating alleged mistreatment of their children.
Mr. Chaifetz is clearly a loving father with the very best of intentions. Whilst I don’t advocate his methods, I understand that it comes from the frustration and shock of having his son labelled as a violent child. But the difference between Mr. Chaifetz and future copycat parents is that he underwent a long protracted process before going down this road. I fear that parents will be wiring their children in the first instance. It is also important to note that autistic children don’t have the same capacity to stand up for themselves and communicate verbal offences to their parents.
Teachers shouldn’t wire themselves to prove abuse on the part of students and vice versa. What we should be doing is working together instead of creating an us vs them mentality.
Either it’s just me or the quality of yard duty supervision is severely lacking. In the short time I have been working on this blog, I have encountered many cases of schoolyard bullying occurring amongst a crowd of student onlookers, yet without a teacher anywhere in sight. Either this has to do with an awareness issue among teachers or schools that have yet to properly address the supervision requirements for their school. There should be sufficient numbers of teachers on duty to deal with incidents as well as to patrol potential blindspots.
Marshall Brooks’s cheekbone was broken in two places and his eye socket shattered when one of his classmates gave him a vicious beating last week just outside their Westwood Senior High School yard.
But what was most horrifying to the seasoned police officers and school principal who viewed video footage of the attack in Hudson is that not one of the 50 or so students looking on tried to stop the beating or bothered to call 911.
Instead, they captured the action on their cellphones, eager to upload the drama to the Web. Only after the damage was done did someone step in.
“I saw the video and can’t believe no one intervened, or called police or even tried to help the young man,” said Sûreté du Québec spokesperson Sgt. Bruno Beaulieu.
“It was an unfair fight, like between David and Goliath, with the attacker at least twice the size of the victim.”
A 17-year-old student at the school, who can’t be named because he’s a minor, was charged with assault causing bodily harm and was released to his parents on a promise to appear in court at a later date.
He’s not allowed on school property for the rest of the academic year.
Brooks, 17, is recuperating at his Rigaud home after having reconstructive surgery at the Montreal General Hospital. Doctors feared he might lose the sight in his left eye, but, fortunately, it has returned – albeit a bit blurry.
“The kids didn’t seem to get that what they were watching was something dangerous,” said Brooks’s mother, Tina.
“Some were his friends and didn’t or couldn’t do anything and instead of calling 911, they were creating something cool and funky for Facebook.”
Brooks said he remembers being put in a headlock, pulled to the ground and punched repeatedly. But he said the fact that no one came to his rescue – and worse, recorded his suffering – doesn’t surprise him.
“It’s high school tradition to record everything and every fight,” he said.
“And compared to what you can find on TV or the Internet, a fight is nothing.”
The video of the beating has since been taken down from YouTube.
Australia has very strict procedures and regulations when it comes to yard duty. Perhaps these standards should be adopted worldwide.
I’ve inherited a class that does not have a whiteboard. Well actually it does, but it is covered up by a Smart Board. It seems that my school was so excited to install brand new Smart Boards (interactive whiteboards) that they set it up directly on the existing board. They were so keen to set up the Smart Boards it didn’t even occur to them to take down the whiteboards first!
As much as I love my Smart Board, I find it much easier to write and present maths problems on a traditional whiteboard.
So I got my school to order one for me. Last December ….
And it only arrived today!
Meanwhile, my Smart Board died two weeks ago. The projector just decided it couldn’t facilitate any longer (I hope it didn’t have anything to do with my ghastly interactive whiteboard handwriting). A teacher without a whiteboard is like a carpenter without a drill. It is a huge challenge to teach without a board. A challenge that has proved frustrating and in a sense, quite revealing.
It has taught me that no matter how incredible modern technology has become. No matter how much education has been transformed because of touch screens, blogs, the internet, YouTube, Wikipedia etc. Nothing can replace the simple whiteboard!
Topical Teaching 