Editorial: Candid camera for teachers

Saturday, Sept. 1, 2007 | 8:01 a.m.

Schoolteachers have it hard enough without having to contend with students secretly videotaping them, hoping to capture an off-moment that they can post to Internet sites such as YouTube.

Yet teachers across the country are vulnerable to this behavior now that students carry recording devices as routinely as they carry pens, notebooks and calculators.

A story this week by Newhouse News Service said teachers who momentarily lose their temper, stumble over a fact or word or do anything that could be seen as a misstep are fair game for students eager to humiliate them before their communities and even a national audience.

The story said students will sometimes goad their teachers, hoping for a response that will garner laughs or outrage after their footage is uploaded to their favorite online site.

Paul Monroe, who helps run the Web site Teachnology.com , told the news service, "Teachers really have to be wary of everything they say and do in the classroom unless they want to be the next YouTube star."

Of course, teachers should be governing their speech and actions regardless of recording devices, but they are only human and are as capable as anyone of an unguarded moment now and then. Students with recording devices can pick up that one moment, out of context, and use it to ruin or damage a teacher's career.

Our view is that schools everywhere are perfectly justified in updating their policies to conform with new technologies. Just as no teacher should be expected to tolerate students wearing headsets, no teacher should have to put up with other kinds of distracting electronics unless they give permission.

We agree with the policy of Benjamin Davis, an adjunct journalism teacher at Rutgers University who was quoted in the Newhouse story. He said he doesn't bar cell phones or other recording devices, but that he does require them to be placed on his desk during class.

School districts should set penalties for students who ignore policies aimed at eliminating such classroom distractions. With standardized test scores of American students comparing miserably with the scores of students in most other developed countries, students should not be allowed to distract themselves and others with their YouTube ambitions.