Normally I’m quite Liberal but here is an exception: Should CCTV be in kids classrooms?

Here are the advantages...
1. Staff and parents can see how their kid’s behaviour (may even help curve bullying).
2. Would therefore act as a deterrent that saves tax payers money, and even peoples educations or in very rare cases undiagnosed behaviour problems.
3. Would help kid rid of time consuming and stressful tests designed to monitor teacher performance by monitoring child performance.

4. It would make sure the teacher does a good job. This last reason is to my mind the best reason for it. When I was at school there were so many teachers who won't worth the name, let alone the salary. Yet "amazingly" whenever a school-college inspector came round the quality of the teaching would improve ten fold.

One great thing about CCTV is that you don't need anyone watching it (a good thing as in a school this would be a paedophiles ideal job). You just need the CCTV video available when you need it. What I'm talking about is tapes that unless stopped will over record themselves say after 48 hours.

I can see how some people will moan about "privacy". All I can say is that i didn't know you had that much privacy in a class room anyway. After all not only are you being watched by your teacher, but also by your fellow students.
And it’s not like I’m proposing this idea for outside the class room. Just inside so all those bad teachers you wish had been retrained finally will be, and all those lessons you may have destroyed or disrupted could be replayed to your parents.

I dislike this last bit, but I think its for the best (certainly if what I managed to disrupt and avoid learning is anything to go by).

The one major problem I see with this idea is the teacher unions. But if they want to strike because they know they are c*** then maybe its not going to make that much of a difference to the kids? (It might even be for the best if they are re-trained or replaced). In any case long term achievement tends to out way short term sacrifice (apparently this is especially with education!!).

Er...

Sounds nice, but seeing as im at school right now the idea scares me. i dont wanna get ino trouble!

Considering that there are already government paid employees who's very job is to pay attention to the students: The Teachers, I don't see how this can be a privacy issue. Heck, put cameras in their lockers and RFIDs in their textbooks.

If we put CCTVs in classrooms to make sure teacher is doing a good job, then shouldn't all occupations have cameras watching them to make sure they're doing a good job? Should all people just carry around their own CCTV to be reported back to the authorities?

I don't like this idea at all. Sure there are good reasons to do it, but there are good reasons for the government to tap phone calls, too. In some cases. To me, it's an invasion of privacy (there I go, moaning ) and an indication that we can't trust people. It's just leading down the wrong road in my opinion.

It would help clear up all of those incidents of a teacher patting a child on the shoulder and then being accused of child molestation. it wold also help parents see what their child is really like away from them (my mum has NO idea).

On the downside, theres always the chance a child-lover could be employed to monitor them and I do NOT want that happening.

Personally I still like this idea of CCTV in all class rooms. Not so much for the sake of child behaviour; but because of c*** teachers, wasting government money, children’s interests, and possible future interests in certain subjects. Hell if some of my teachers had known how bad they were they may have agreed they were unwittingly wasting their own lives (that's if they genuinely cared about leaving this world a richer place).

So it's not bad child behaviour that generally worries me. In fact the idea kids might not be able to chuck a piece of paper, or leave a burning cigarette in the teachers room when they are trying to give up smoking (something I did in revenge), is the downside to the idea. And it really is a massive downside. Anybody who thinks kids shouldn’t be allowed to be kids is just some authoritarian p***k; who ether didn't have a child hood or forgot about it.

The Compromise...

Introduce strict guidelines about how CCTV should be used.
1.Say only if something criminal or would constitutes a suspension plus happens.
2.Give teacher the power to use it only on certain problem pupils
3. Or if they are unable to control a certain class

Basically a bit of bureaucracy is the key to balancing education and child hood. And of course it would be less effective, but at least it provides the kids with a normal childhood in return.

4. Of course there should be certain exceptions say in problem schools (those dealing with behavioural problems, or where kids are being caught bringing knives to school). In fact how about under my scheme if one kid gets caught brining a weapon to school the whole school-year losses their CCRV Protection Rights for about a week? That way that kid would be one of hell of an example as even if they are expelled they going are still going to be one hell of an unpopular little bugger around the neighbourhood.

5. I'm not in favour of anyone constantly watching the CCTV as such (waste of money and paedophiles dream job). I am in favour of it being available if and when it really is needed.

6. Oh and any pupil should be able demand the tape be saved, in order to deal with things like bullying (and other acts directly against them) (but not as a means of getting over kids into trouble, unless it’s real trouble of course).

One thing I demand that stays is that the education inspectors have unlimited access to the tapes. Yes they could be paedophiles, but I remember many strangers sitting at the back of the class watching us whilst the quality of teaching suddenly improved. So if inspectors watching CCTV could be paedophiles so could a minority of some those current government inspectors sitting at the back of classroom.

Ok so what do you think of that compromise?
Would this be acceptable to you?
Have I compromised too far or not enough?

(Remember politicians, or senior party officials could-will be watching this thread).

[edit on 090705 by Liberal1984]

First you say you're interested in watching the teachers, then proceed to say why it would be good for watching the kids. I'm confused.

In any case, I still feel the same.

Isn't it part of the teacher's job to watch the kids?

And by the way, using the *** instead of saying the nasty words is circumventing the cinsors and against the T&C. Just FYI.



[edit on 27-5-2006 by Benevolent Heretic]