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Since I can't read the article I can only go with story time here- my wife has cameras in her room and she loves them. Fights about 'who started it' are ended w

Since I can't read the article I can only go with story time here- my wife has cameras in her room and she loves them. Fights about 'who started it' are ended with the words, 'Ok, let's look at the video'. And when some little bully gets called on the carpet and their bullying parent comes in all set to steamroller administration with 'that's not what my child said happened why are you picking on them' the principal just rolls the footage and watches as the realization that their kid is a little shit dawns on the parent.

asdf333 7y ago
thanks for the real life anecdote. just like in startups, its helpful to hear from the actual users instead of what some armchair critics feel is happening. however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell
- magduf 7y ago
  >however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell 1) They did that a lot back in the "old days" anyway, since it was away from other people 2) bullies usually have poor impulse control and don't think immediately about the consequences of their actions, so they frequently won't think about the cameras, so at least some of the time they'll do their bullying in view of the cameras.
  - leetcrew 7y ago
    regarding 2) that may be true of many bullies, but I would expect at least some of them to learn how to get away with it. I could certainly imagine that some bullies would start exclusively tormenting their victims in camera deadzones and the victim finally stands up for themselves in view of the camera. all the evidence would show that that kid started a fight unprovoked.
    - ticmasta 7y ago
      I think prisons show this is true. They're arguably some of the most surveilled areas in society yet have many occurrences of violent and serious crime.
  - panzagl 7y ago
    I don't know how much it even really decreases outbursts in the classroom- this is at the elementary level so all the kids are pretty impulsive. But the reality is that it gives teachers a tool to make admin and parents address the behaviors without just dismissing it.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    #2 sounds like natural selection that'll result in more effective bullies.
    - AstralStorm 7y ago
      Outside of school "bullying" is a kind of crime. Either assault, battery or mugging. For some reason juveniles get the epithet instead of the real thing, as if it is less grave or something...
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        Not all bullying is physical, and the "school to prison pipeline" approach has its own major issues.
  - greedo 7y ago
    Bullies are extremely effective at detecting and determining safe times and places to bully others. My tormentors waited til right after school, til I left school property. Then it was Mad Max time to make it home...
  - asark 7y ago
    3) the hallways are already monitored by cameras in many schools, and the kids, though informed, often completely forget about it until reminded for some reason.
- DocTomoe 7y ago
  > however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell That is easily solveable: Video surveillance in unused stairwells and bathrooms (ideally individual stalls). What, suddenly people have problems with that? A panopticum only works when the threat of surveillance is ever-present.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  >however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell... Maybe you're relatively young, but I'd wager the old heads among us remember the days when these things were settled out at the bike racks. So that worry was already happening, and had been happening for a very long time.
- vangelis 7y ago
  The lesson learned from zero tolerance tolerance policies is that there's no reason to hold back if you're both going to get in trouble.
- droithomme 7y ago
  Yes. Not all bullies are idiots. Some are quite clever. They will torment and provoke their victims just off camera, then move into view of the camera as the victim starts to hit back. Most people who have had more than one kid, or who have supervised children in any capacity, know that some of them will make a game of setting up the other to get blame for something the first one started.
Ididntdothis 7y ago
This makes sense. I am also ok with surveillance cameras whose footage gets only used when something happened and otherwise gets discarded. But cameras that feed into a system that constantly analyzes the video is pretty creepy and has potential for a lot of abuse. So let’s go old fashioned and set up a camera with a VCR by no internet connection or analytics capability.
- yifanl 7y ago
  Even a VCR tape gets put into cold storage and can be converted into a digital stream any time later. Data is extremely persistent and it's very easy to forget this.
rayiner 7y ago
I wish we had these as kids. The number one problem with education in the US is the lack of discipline in the class room. Teachers spend all their time babysitting problem children instead of helping everyone else learn. Parents of problem kids do everything they can to push their children’s behavioral issues back on the teachers. Cameras in the classroom could go a long way to helping schools build record evidence that can be used against such students.
- Arubis 7y ago
  > Parents of problem kids do everything they can to push their children’s behavioral issues back on the teachers. Whew. That's a lot of labeling! And the solution is to build evidence to be used against these tiny criminals. Rather than just presume the kids are little shits on purpose and recording them to prove it, why not ask the kid what's going on at home? I'd bet real money that "lack of discipline" maps pretty closely to "lack of a stable home environment".
  - panzagl 7y ago
    Well, yeah, but calling a parent in and saying 'you need to stop partying until 3am with your boyfriend of the week so Timmy can get some sleep and not be an impulsive little monster with no respect for his female teacher' does not go as well as you'd think.
    - bilbo0s 7y ago
      Doesn't mean it's not true.
    - mikepurvis 7y ago
      I don't see how this scenario is changed by having video of the child's misbehaviour.
      - panzagl 7y ago
        Because discipline can be made to stick- Timmy can be suspended and when Mom comes in to say it can't be his fault, because that would imply it was her fault and she's never been held responsible for her actions before, oh well too bad video doesn't lie. Otherwise admin backs down about 50% of the time. If you want to point out that this doesn't help Timmy, I'd agree. It does help the other 29 kids in the class, their parents, the teacher, and admin though.
UweSchmidt 7y ago
Wait, there is a camera in the classroom itself, always on? The footage is saved somewhere and can be viewed by who knows who or what algorithm, judging by whatever standards the person or algorithmy applies at that time? ...justified by "solving" various conflicts in the classroom, conflicts that have root causes like large class sizes, social issues, stressful environments, overbearing parents, disrespected teachers or whatever - so we just build an panopticon? Right now I can't even imagine watching surveillance video like that, seeing all kinds of reactions and emotions of people, of children interacting; what right do I have to systematically observe without them knowing? Screw all of that. Spend any amound of money to have small class sizes, pay teachers better, make schools friendly and welcoming, have more counselors around or whatever. But please throw out those cameras.
- panzagl 7y ago
  The footage is only kept at the school. My wife's job is not to be the total arbiter of social justice for her students, it is to provide them with an education.
  - UweSchmidt 7y ago
    How can you ensure the footage is kept "at the school" (as if that was sufficiently limiting the exposure of the footage)? Who has physical access? Is the surveillance system cloud based? How is the school's security? Are her superiors legally allowed to watch the footage to evaluate performance? Could those overbearing aggressive parents eventually demand access to the footage, and worsen the whole problem? Are the childrens' parents aware of the consequences of the cameras? That every tiny little move in the formative phase of their children's lifes is recorded for all eternity, and that data generally tends to leak, and all kinds of entities want access? It is data. People were surprised when 1980s-era USENET forum posts where made accessible a few years ago. Back then it was unfathomable that this data would be searchable and accessible or even relevant, but it was. Same with our data now: it will be analyzed in ways we cannot even imagine. I am stunned by how quickly surveillance spreads.
    - 7y ago
ralusek 7y ago
Nope. Not worth it. There are mountains of evidence demonstrating that people change their behaviors when they know they are being watched. Do we really care about the automatic resolution of petty squabbles between children, or even the coercion of children to never engage in petty squabbles? Do we really want to rob children of mischief, conflict resolution, and making a case for themselves in a way that cannot always be substantiated with hard evidence? Do we really want to condition young minds to see a constant surveillance as a kind of benevolent security blanket? And that's not even all that's at stake. The Overton window is shrinking as it is, and academia has adopted a censorious and puritanical orthodoxy. Classes benefit a great deal from the students who care enough to challenge what is presented as de facto truth, but I'm inclined to believe that this will give a basis to silence that behavior. Looking back on my own experiences, would I have felt comfortable speaking out against teachers if I knew I was under surveillance? I'm not so sure. But in most cases, even the teachers themselves often told me that they were happy to have somebody engage them meaningfully. But some weren't so happy, and those are the ones that have a new channel for abuse. And what about the teachers? Some of the best teachers I had would've been fired for what they taught, or allowed students to do. Allowing controversial class discussions, sometimes among students bordering too young to handle the subject matter. Doing a dangerous chemistry or physics demonstration that bends the rules slightly. A classroom led by a cheeky teacher was often ruined by the superintendent or principal standing in the doorway. Now they're in the doorway 24/7.
- throwayEngineer 7y ago
  As a kid who was bullied, i would have loved to have evidence. Totally insane to think that "privacy" should take priority over safety. This doesn't change freedom, this only stops injustices. This sounds like a Luddite's take on modern security cameras.
- panzagl 7y ago
  No one actually watches the video, unless something happens. And this is an elementary classroom- resolution of petty squabbles means 28 kids don't get to learn while 2 others yell 'he did it first'. They can be beasts to each other at recess.
frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago
Well of course, your wife gets a huge benefit out of it. However the kids are the ones who are paying the cost.
- germinalphrase 7y ago
  It is - like many things in the messy world of compulsory education - obviously a trade off. The alternative cost is lost educational opportunity if these disruptions prevent students from learning.
DocTomoe 7y ago
> my wife has cameras in her room and she loves them. Police also loves more surveillance. The push against surveillance tries not to help the (maybe benevolent) oppressor, but the (potential) oppressed.
- AstralStorm 7y ago
  Chilling effects exist, plus the potential for abuse. (And not by the policeman, but whoever gives him orders most likely.)
behringer 7y ago
This is horrifying.
- dang 7y ago
  Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.
edflsafoiewq 7y ago
I'd be worried that that encourages extremely crude resolution strategies (ie. "Whoever threw the first punch is at fault. Look how objective this is! See, it's all on camera!").
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
flycaliguy 7y ago
My partner is a teacher here in Ontario Canada. We couldn't be more against this idea. Sure, your example of conflict resolution seems nice but there is no crisis of "who started it" that needs this level of intrusion. Truth is these classroom conflicts almost never have a clear cut instigation point. I guarantee you a bully will figure out how to egg another student on outside of the camera's view and then slyly provoke that student when the tape is rolling. These conflicts start outside, on the sidewalk, last week, on the internet ect. These are complex social dynamics that are best dealt with using the teacher's training and experience combined with addition school staff when needed. Her classroom is a friendly place where students learn a second language. It must be protected from this.
- greedo 7y ago
  Witness the NFL. Huge amount of viewers of each game, video replay, multiple cameras. The players know they're being watched the minute they step out of the locker room. Yet you still see them failing to exhibit restraint when goaded on by an opponent. The referees always fail to notice the instigators, but almost always catch the retaliators...
giobox 7y ago
This is almost literally the premise of an actual Black Mirror episode. While I do have some nest cameras, I'm likely never going to use them to resolve a family dispute, talking works for me. I'd also feel uneasy at normalizing such surveillance for my kids. I'd like them to be able to sort a dispute without recourse to a video that won't always be there. Family disputes can often have an emotional dimension too, one that simply playing back a cold video account of the event won't resolve.

asdf333 7y ago

thanks for the real life anecdote. just like in startups, its helpful to hear from the actual users instead of what some armchair critics feel is happening. however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell

magduf 7y ago
>however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell 1) They did that a lot back in the "old days" anyway, since it was away from other people 2) bullies usually have poor impulse control and don't think immediately about the consequences of their actions, so they frequently won't think about the cameras, so at least some of the time they'll do their bullying in view of the cameras.
- leetcrew 7y ago
  regarding 2) that may be true of many bullies, but I would expect at least some of them to learn how to get away with it. I could certainly imagine that some bullies would start exclusively tormenting their victims in camera deadzones and the victim finally stands up for themselves in view of the camera. all the evidence would show that that kid started a fight unprovoked.
  - ticmasta 7y ago
    I think prisons show this is true. They're arguably some of the most surveilled areas in society yet have many occurrences of violent and serious crime.
- panzagl 7y ago
  I don't know how much it even really decreases outbursts in the classroom- this is at the elementary level so all the kids are pretty impulsive. But the reality is that it gives teachers a tool to make admin and parents address the behaviors without just dismissing it.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  #2 sounds like natural selection that'll result in more effective bullies.
  - AstralStorm 7y ago
    Outside of school "bullying" is a kind of crime. Either assault, battery or mugging. For some reason juveniles get the epithet instead of the real thing, as if it is less grave or something...
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      Not all bullying is physical, and the "school to prison pipeline" approach has its own major issues.
- greedo 7y ago
  Bullies are extremely effective at detecting and determining safe times and places to bully others. My tormentors waited til right after school, til I left school property. Then it was Mad Max time to make it home...
- asark 7y ago
  3) the hallways are already monitored by cameras in many schools, and the kids, though informed, often completely forget about it until reminded for some reason.
DocTomoe 7y ago
> however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell That is easily solveable: Video surveillance in unused stairwells and bathrooms (ideally individual stalls). What, suddenly people have problems with that? A panopticum only works when the threat of surveillance is ever-present.
bilbo0s 7y ago
>however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell... Maybe you're relatively young, but I'd wager the old heads among us remember the days when these things were settled out at the bike racks. So that worry was already happening, and had been happening for a very long time.
vangelis 7y ago
The lesson learned from zero tolerance tolerance policies is that there's no reason to hold back if you're both going to get in trouble.
droithomme 7y ago
Yes. Not all bullies are idiots. Some are quite clever. They will torment and provoke their victims just off camera, then move into view of the camera as the victim starts to hit back. Most people who have had more than one kid, or who have supervised children in any capacity, know that some of them will make a game of setting up the other to get blame for something the first one started.

Ididntdothis 7y ago

This makes sense. I am also ok with surveillance cameras whose footage gets only used when something happened and otherwise gets discarded. But cameras that feed into a system that constantly analyzes the video is pretty creepy and has potential for a lot of abuse. So let’s go old fashioned and set up a camera with a VCR by no internet connection or analytics capability.

yifanl 7y ago
Even a VCR tape gets put into cold storage and can be converted into a digital stream any time later. Data is extremely persistent and it's very easy to forget this.

rayiner 7y ago

I wish we had these as kids. The number one problem with education in the US is the lack of discipline in the class room. Teachers spend all their time babysitting problem children instead of helping everyone else learn. Parents of problem kids do everything they can to push their children’s behavioral issues back on the teachers. Cameras in the classroom could go a long way to helping schools build record evidence that can be used against such students.

Arubis 7y ago
> Parents of problem kids do everything they can to push their children’s behavioral issues back on the teachers. Whew. That's a lot of labeling! And the solution is to build evidence to be used against these tiny criminals. Rather than just presume the kids are little shits on purpose and recording them to prove it, why not ask the kid what's going on at home? I'd bet real money that "lack of discipline" maps pretty closely to "lack of a stable home environment".
- panzagl 7y ago
  Well, yeah, but calling a parent in and saying 'you need to stop partying until 3am with your boyfriend of the week so Timmy can get some sleep and not be an impulsive little monster with no respect for his female teacher' does not go as well as you'd think.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Doesn't mean it's not true.
  - mikepurvis 7y ago
    I don't see how this scenario is changed by having video of the child's misbehaviour.
    - panzagl 7y ago
      Because discipline can be made to stick- Timmy can be suspended and when Mom comes in to say it can't be his fault, because that would imply it was her fault and she's never been held responsible for her actions before, oh well too bad video doesn't lie. Otherwise admin backs down about 50% of the time. If you want to point out that this doesn't help Timmy, I'd agree. It does help the other 29 kids in the class, their parents, the teacher, and admin though.

UweSchmidt 7y ago

Wait, there is a camera in the classroom itself, always on? The footage is saved somewhere and can be viewed by who knows who or what algorithm, judging by whatever standards the person or algorithmy applies at that time? ...justified by "solving" various conflicts in the classroom, conflicts that have root causes like large class sizes, social issues, stressful environments, overbearing parents, disrespected teachers or whatever - so we just build an panopticon? Right now I can't even imagine watching surveillance video like that, seeing all kinds of reactions and emotions of people, of children interacting; what right do I have to systematically observe without them knowing? Screw all of that. Spend any amound of money to have small class sizes, pay teachers better, make schools friendly and welcoming, have more counselors around or whatever. But please throw out those cameras.

panzagl 7y ago
The footage is only kept at the school. My wife's job is not to be the total arbiter of social justice for her students, it is to provide them with an education.
- UweSchmidt 7y ago
  How can you ensure the footage is kept "at the school" (as if that was sufficiently limiting the exposure of the footage)? Who has physical access? Is the surveillance system cloud based? How is the school's security? Are her superiors legally allowed to watch the footage to evaluate performance? Could those overbearing aggressive parents eventually demand access to the footage, and worsen the whole problem? Are the childrens' parents aware of the consequences of the cameras? That every tiny little move in the formative phase of their children's lifes is recorded for all eternity, and that data generally tends to leak, and all kinds of entities want access? It is data. People were surprised when 1980s-era USENET forum posts where made accessible a few years ago. Back then it was unfathomable that this data would be searchable and accessible or even relevant, but it was. Same with our data now: it will be analyzed in ways we cannot even imagine. I am stunned by how quickly surveillance spreads.
  - 7y ago

ralusek 7y ago

Nope. Not worth it. There are mountains of evidence demonstrating that people change their behaviors when they know they are being watched. Do we really care about the automatic resolution of petty squabbles between children, or even the coercion of children to never engage in petty squabbles? Do we really want to rob children of mischief, conflict resolution, and making a case for themselves in a way that cannot always be substantiated with hard evidence? Do we really want to condition young minds to see a constant surveillance as a kind of benevolent security blanket? And that's not even all that's at stake. The Overton window is shrinking as it is, and academia has adopted a censorious and puritanical orthodoxy. Classes benefit a great deal from the students who care enough to challenge what is presented as de facto truth, but I'm inclined to believe that this will give a basis to silence that behavior. Looking back on my own experiences, would I have felt comfortable speaking out against teachers if I knew I was under surveillance? I'm not so sure. But in most cases, even the teachers themselves often told me that they were happy to have somebody engage them meaningfully. But some weren't so happy, and those are the ones that have a new channel for abuse. And what about the teachers? Some of the best teachers I had would've been fired for what they taught, or allowed students to do. Allowing controversial class discussions, sometimes among students bordering too young to handle the subject matter. Doing a dangerous chemistry or physics demonstration that bends the rules slightly. A classroom led by a cheeky teacher was often ruined by the superintendent or principal standing in the doorway. Now they're in the doorway 24/7.

throwayEngineer 7y ago
As a kid who was bullied, i would have loved to have evidence. Totally insane to think that "privacy" should take priority over safety. This doesn't change freedom, this only stops injustices. This sounds like a Luddite's take on modern security cameras.
panzagl 7y ago
No one actually watches the video, unless something happens. And this is an elementary classroom- resolution of petty squabbles means 28 kids don't get to learn while 2 others yell 'he did it first'. They can be beasts to each other at recess.

frgtpsswrdlame 7y ago

Well of course, your wife gets a huge benefit out of it. However the kids are the ones who are paying the cost.

germinalphrase 7y ago
It is - like many things in the messy world of compulsory education - obviously a trade off. The alternative cost is lost educational opportunity if these disruptions prevent students from learning.

DocTomoe 7y ago

> my wife has cameras in her room and she loves them. Police also loves more surveillance. The push against surveillance tries not to help the (maybe benevolent) oppressor, but the (potential) oppressed.

AstralStorm 7y ago
Chilling effects exist, plus the potential for abuse. (And not by the policeman, but whoever gives him orders most likely.)

behringer 7y ago

This is horrifying.

dang 7y ago
Maybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

edflsafoiewq 7y ago

I'd be worried that that encourages extremely crude resolution strategies (ie. "Whoever threw the first punch is at fault. Look how objective this is! See, it's all on camera!").

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

flycaliguy 7y ago

My partner is a teacher here in Ontario Canada. We couldn't be more against this idea. Sure, your example of conflict resolution seems nice but there is no crisis of "who started it" that needs this level of intrusion. Truth is these classroom conflicts almost never have a clear cut instigation point. I guarantee you a bully will figure out how to egg another student on outside of the camera's view and then slyly provoke that student when the tape is rolling. These conflicts start outside, on the sidewalk, last week, on the internet ect. These are complex social dynamics that are best dealt with using the teacher's training and experience combined with addition school staff when needed. Her classroom is a friendly place where students learn a second language. It must be protected from this.

greedo 7y ago
Witness the NFL. Huge amount of viewers of each game, video replay, multiple cameras. The players know they're being watched the minute they step out of the locker room. Yet you still see them failing to exhibit restraint when goaded on by an opponent. The referees always fail to notice the instigators, but almost always catch the retaliators...

giobox 7y ago

This is almost literally the premise of an actual Black Mirror episode. While I do have some nest cameras, I'm likely never going to use them to resolve a family dispute, talking works for me. I'd also feel uneasy at normalizing such surveillance for my kids. I'd like them to be able to sort a dispute without recourse to a video that won't always be there. Family disputes can often have an emotional dimension too, one that simply playing back a cold video account of the event won't resolve.