Say no to Big Brother cameras

Big Brothers, Cameras in Classroom, Issue 19, Josh De Bets, opinions, Opinion - By Joshua De Bets on Thursday, February 16, 2012 - 02:42

Maybe I am a little paranoid or have read too many dystopian novels to see how this scene plays out, but there should never be security cameras allowed in a classroom. More so each day, it seems that a classroom environment, at least in public school, is becoming more like a prison yard and less than a schoolyard. Budget cuts, less funding and crackpot ideas like surveillance in schools deter from the goal of education and the classroom which is to inspire and nurture the social, physical and cognitive growth of children.

Recently, Los Angeles teacher Mark Berndt was accused of taping shut his young students’ mouths, blindfolding them and placing a giant cockroach on their faces. In this extreme circumstance, I can understand the demand for surveillance in a classroom environment, but one extreme example should not inspire Big Brother snooping during recess or third period English class. Cameras would cause children to second-guess themselves and become uncomfortable in an environment that should inspire learning and critical thinking. If I knew some unknown person was monitoring me from a camera, I would be dead quiet and too focused on my paranoia to learn and speak my mind.

Even though Los Angeles schools are taking heat for this recent disturbance they are not the only ones at fault. Where is the parent involvement? Parents should make the effort to meet their child’s teacher and feel out the environment their child spends the majority of their day in. Berndt’s peers and coworkers themselves should also have noticed something strange going on and reported it.

Cameras are too extreme and too expensive to implement in schoolyards. With better communication between child and parent, child and teacher and teacher and parent extreme cases like Berndt’s should become nonexistent. To quote novelist Aldous Huxley, “Children are remarkable for their intelligence and ardor, for their curiosity, their intolerance of shams, the clarity and ruthlessness of their vision.” Cameras in classrooms would undo all this and make children drab and complacent beings. They would suffocate under the surveillance and be denied their intellectual and social inspirations and rights.