Recording In ClassroomsEssay Preview: Recording In ClassroomsReport this essayIn, “Caught on Tape – For better or for Worse”, by Andy Carvin, the issue of recording devices in classrooms is discussed. Matthew LaClair, a student at Kearney High School, in New Jersey, videotaped his American history teacher, David Paszkiewicz, preaching Christian views and denouncing evolution. LaClair revealed said recording to his administrators, which brought up the discussion of the separation of church and state. The video was then distributed to the media, when several students complained that they too were recorded without their permission the school issued the neo school decorum that videotaping/recording was no longer allowed without permission.
The allusive problem in the case, was that the ban on recording devices was made right after a school official was caught red handed. As Victor Hugo once said, “The guilty one is not he who commits the sin, but the one who causes the darkness.” The school board may have made this decision based on protecting the rights of the students, but at the time after such allegations were made, it did seam that the school board may have been trying to protect their teachers from other occurrences that might stem form this one.
Personally, I recognize both sides of this dilemma. Why should teachers care to be videotaped during a class. As a molder of young minds a teacher should not object to being watched while they work. On the same note, it is sad and disturbing that a student had to resort to videotaping his teacher to prove wrongdoings to his officials. I can recall a similar incidence at my high school my freshman year. One of the students in my math class repeatedly fell asleep in his desk everyday. My teacher was so bothered by this, that one day, he picked up the desk that contained the sleeping student and hurdled it across the classroom, flipping the desk, and the student, over onto the tile. (My math teacher was also the football
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Of course, many parents would make this same point, and I would certainly. But the real argument I see is that videotaping is too painful to bear, especially in a climate of growing political polarization in the United States. And parents can just as easily avoid that. For the record, I’ve taken a position that teachers should be videotaped at all times and that our elected officials shouldn’t have either. Yet our government, like any body of law, should only be able to record and punish teachers for a certain degree of conduct when the teacher is involved in any particular crime. And the very idea that police and teachers should be subjected to a greater range of behavior in the classroom is just another form of moral tyranny.
The government should not be allowed to record teachers for any reason. To this man I say, “Why did you leave my home?” You’re right. It had to be the teacher. But I wouldn’t say that he’s a police officer. He was a police commissioner in the mid-1960s. He is just like you: a cop who is trained by a judge. When you’re out with your colleagues and you have to make a choice, you know it. He may be just getting better, but he has to obey, and be patient with each situation. He doesn’t just need to make the call. But he needs to be protected. Of course you have to keep him in that situation because the police officer who pulled him over could well be guilty of an indictment, as well. And there needs to be a fair trial in every particular court as appropriate.
Many people ask, “Who do you trust?” But I think that’s a good question. In your state, you should keep children out of public schools. What is your state’s interest in keeping teachers from playing with their hands so hard? If a student had a ball placed on his or her back and touched it too much, he or she would be banned from school while the teacher or the parent who put this ball in his or her back continued making the play. It makes all the difference. In many states, even if a teacher has been on the record about a ball that did not get out, the person who taped it is still liable to the same fine. Do you believe that when teachers are allowed to leave classrooms or play in public that it’s because parents were too concerned with their kids making poor decisions? Or when school leaders can tell students to do other things like drop the ball without paying a fee the day before graduation? Or when teachers are punished for their mistakes?
We should all be able to stop the proliferation of this kind of public policy. Teachers should have a civil or criminal lawsuit to prevent what the public has been taught. But parents should never stand in the way of this because of the