6 ms·

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 educatio

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.
- greedo 7y ago
  We worry today about incriminating twitter/FB posts derailing careers. What will happen when people can retrieve your childhood and show that OMG you dissected frogs?
  - behringer 7y ago
    Little johnny was a womanizer in elementary school. See how he spanks the girls in his class? No way he can be president!
  - vraivroo 7y ago
    The easy and correct solution is to... not make incriminating posts.
    - DocTomoe 7y ago
      What may be completely normal and morally ok today might be a horrifying abuse of privilege and humanity tomorrow. Just ask any US Democrat talking about race relations in the 1950s.
panzagl 7y ago
There are good questions below about lifetime of the video, etc. and while I can just state that everything is fine, the real answer is that schools in the US are not the closed organizations that are implied by a lot of the response here. School administration is 3 people, the district has a couple dozen. Budgets are public information, board meetings are open to all, and getting an agenda item to address concerns is not that difficult. This is the benefit to our education system not being centrally directed by some Federal organization who would be all too happy to have the 'FAANG Classroom Panopticon' installed so they can say they're 'doing something' about whatever the issue dujour is.
- giaour 7y ago
  I don't think this addresses the concerns being replied to. Teaching is incredibly difficult and time consuming, and just like teachers do not have the time or expertise to also be full time social workers for their students, they also do not have the time or expertise to ensure that surveillance data about their students is appropriately secured and purged. The same applies to local school administration officials, who as you point out are few in number and already stretched too thin across their existing responsibilities. I don't think anybody's saying that a particular teacher or administrator is to blame, but the original anecdote you shared is a bit chilling if you grew up expecting your childhood misdeeds to be forgotten over time. I remember that the most frightening thing the principal could say to you was "This is going in your permanent record"; the expectation otherwise was that it wasn't.
  - panzagl 7y ago
    There are laws in place to address public release of info about minors. A lot of schools require a parent's signature before they'll post a public picture of a student, even if just captured incidentally. My wife's school is pretty paranoid about this stuff, mostly because of things like custody issues, restraining orders, etc. So a legal framework is in place, one with a little more teeth behind it than your typical EULA.
    - giaour 7y ago
briffle 7y ago
She would probably quickly change her opinion if a principle started regularly watching recorded videos, instead of doing in person teach evaluations...

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.

greedo 7y ago
We worry today about incriminating twitter/FB posts derailing careers. What will happen when people can retrieve your childhood and show that OMG you dissected frogs?
- behringer 7y ago
  Little johnny was a womanizer in elementary school. See how he spanks the girls in his class? No way he can be president!
- vraivroo 7y ago
  The easy and correct solution is to... not make incriminating posts.
  - DocTomoe 7y ago
    What may be completely normal and morally ok today might be a horrifying abuse of privilege and humanity tomorrow. Just ask any US Democrat talking about race relations in the 1950s.

panzagl 7y ago

There are good questions below about lifetime of the video, etc. and while I can just state that everything is fine, the real answer is that schools in the US are not the closed organizations that are implied by a lot of the response here. School administration is 3 people, the district has a couple dozen. Budgets are public information, board meetings are open to all, and getting an agenda item to address concerns is not that difficult. This is the benefit to our education system not being centrally directed by some Federal organization who would be all too happy to have the 'FAANG Classroom Panopticon' installed so they can say they're 'doing something' about whatever the issue dujour is.

giaour 7y ago
I don't think this addresses the concerns being replied to. Teaching is incredibly difficult and time consuming, and just like teachers do not have the time or expertise to also be full time social workers for their students, they also do not have the time or expertise to ensure that surveillance data about their students is appropriately secured and purged. The same applies to local school administration officials, who as you point out are few in number and already stretched too thin across their existing responsibilities. I don't think anybody's saying that a particular teacher or administrator is to blame, but the original anecdote you shared is a bit chilling if you grew up expecting your childhood misdeeds to be forgotten over time. I remember that the most frightening thing the principal could say to you was "This is going in your permanent record"; the expectation otherwise was that it wasn't.
- panzagl 7y ago
  There are laws in place to address public release of info about minors. A lot of schools require a parent's signature before they'll post a public picture of a student, even if just captured incidentally. My wife's school is pretty paranoid about this stuff, mostly because of things like custody issues, restraining orders, etc. So a legal framework is in place, one with a little more teeth behind it than your typical EULA.
  - giaour 7y ago

briffle 7y ago

She would probably quickly change her opinion if a principle started regularly watching recorded videos, instead of doing in person teach evaluations...