Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State • Hacker News Board

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#141

Post by nostrademons » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 7:08 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #139

nostrademons wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a teacher in the room has the same "you're being watched" effect as a camera, it's just less efficient at watching. I want to highlight the tension between liberty & socialization here, because I think it's getting glossed over. Public education is a huge infringement on individual liberty - it's basically mandatory brainwashing of kids for 6-8 hours/day, 180 days/year, for 12 years. Nobody would realistically…

Your analysis has an underlying assumption of individualism. That is, the ideology (quite common in the U.S.) that each person is competent to make their own decisions and has the right to do so independently of what anyone else might want. Having kids or taking care of mentally declining parents tends to put a big dent in that. Or working in other situations where you commonly interact with people who are clearly no…

That's my point, but I'm not taking a position on it (at least within this comment thread - I've got plenty of personal views on it that I apply to my personal life).

I'm pointing out that there's a continuum between total individual liberty, where everybody does exactly what they want, and living in a larger society of people, where your actions affect others and there need to be some sort of constraints on them. We've been picking points along this continuum for centuries, and sliding slowly towards more restrictions on individual liberty for the benefit of society simply because population density is higher now. The point we're at now, where we accept that giving your children over to an institution to be raised for half their waking childhood is normal but cameras in the classroom are abhorrent, is an arbitrary artifact of what we grew up with in our own childhoods. In the next generation, perhaps they'll view cameras in the classroom as normal but Matrix-style pods as abhorrent. Someday perhaps they just won't think, the same way a mitochondria (once an independent organism!) doesn't think too much about being a component of our cellular makeup.

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#142

Post by giobox » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 7:11 PM UTC

panzagl wrote: post #3

Since I can't read the article I can only go with story time here- my wife has cameras in her room and she loves them. Fights about 'who started it' are ended with the words, 'Ok, let's look at the video'. And when some little bully gets called on the carpet and their bullying parent comes in all set to steamroller administration with 'that's not what my child said happened why are you picking on them' the principal…

This is almost literally the premise of an actual Black Mirror episode. While I do have some nest cameras, I'm likely never going to use them to resolve a family dispute, talking works for me.

I'd also feel uneasy at normalizing such surveillance for my kids. I'd like them to be able to sort a dispute without recourse to a video that won't always be there. Family disputes can often have an emotional dimension too, one that simply playing back a cold video account of the event won't resolve.

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#143

Post by greedo » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

flycaliguy wrote: post #113

panzagl wrote: post #3

Since I can't read the article I can only go with story time here- my wife has cameras in her room and she loves them. Fights about 'who started it' are ended with the words, 'Ok, let's look at the video'. And when some little bully gets called on the carpet and their bullying parent comes in all set to steamroller administration with 'that's not what my child said happened why are you picking on them' the principal…

My partner is a teacher here in Ontario Canada. We couldn't be more against this idea. Sure, your example of conflict resolution seems nice but there is no crisis of "who started it" that needs this level of intrusion. Truth is these classroom conflicts almost never have a clear cut instigation point. I guarantee you a bully will figure out how to egg another student on outside of the camera's view and then slyly pro…

Witness the NFL. Huge amount of viewers of each game, video replay, multiple cameras. The players know they're being watched the minute they step out of the locker room. Yet you still see them failing to exhibit restraint when goaded on by an opponent. The referees always fail to notice the instigators, but almost always catch the retaliators...

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#144

Post by greedo » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 7:27 PM UTC

rayiner wrote: post #133

astazangasta wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The number one problem with education in the US is the lack of discipline in the class room. Surely lack of adequate funding, crumbling infrastructure, out-of-date textbooks or lack of textbooks, bad curricula, a highly regimented and normative model of education (with "normal" kids and "problem" kids) and many other things could be judged to be more significant issues than "lack of discipline", which might be slapp…

US schools are very well funded. Adjusted for purchasing power, US educational spending is up there with Switzerland and Norway as the highest in the OECD for primary and secondary education, and is the highest for tertiary: https://www.oecd.org/education/EAG2014-Indicator%20B1%20(eng... . Primary school aged children have plenty of executive function. We’re not talking about daycares for toddlers. Americans just hav…

There's a gap between schools being well-funded, and the money being well-spent.

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#145

Post by asark » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 7:37 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #130

astazangasta wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think teachers are actually teaching? One of the very, very important skills kids learn is how to be socialized - how to behave with others in a social setting, how to be quiet and pay attention when that is appropriate, how to settle conflicts. These are all skills you can and should be learning in school. This is what teachers do, they don't just drill you on the three Rs.

There's a difference between teaching kids to socialize and serving as a de facto social worker.

Yeah, past a certain age almost all the problem kids have parents enabling them and/or causing tons of problems for them at home. You can't fix that in school, certainly not as long as parents are allowed to have any say in what happens there (which seems like something we should maybe not just get rid of), and if teachers start having to regularly go on home visits with the very parents who are accusing them (the teachers) of all kinds of nastiness because they sent precious little Timmy to the office for calling a fellow student the C-word and using their phone in class to post same on Insta, say goodbye to most of your teachers. They didn't sign up for that.

[EDIT] incidentally I'm baffled that so many schools allow phones in the building at all, let alone students to carry them to class as they're every bit as disruptive as one would think, but I gather that's another "pressure from loud, shitty parents" decision.

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#146

Post by asark » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

greedo wrote: post #144

rayiner wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US schools are very well funded. Adjusted for purchasing power, US educational spending is up there with Switzerland and Norway as the highest in the OECD for primary and secondary education, and is the highest for tertiary: https://www.oecd.org/education/EAG2014-Indicator%20B1%20(eng... . Primary school aged children have plenty of executive function. We’re not talking about daycares for toddlers. Americans just hav…

There's a gap between schools being well-funded, and the money being well-spent.

Administrative bloat's pretty bad, and from what I've seen a serious audit/investigation of every district in the country would turn up north of 50% being full of corruption—padded stipends, kickbacks for building contracts, hiring the spouse of an assistant super to do nothing, promoting "favorites" to higher paying positions (exactly what it sounds like, happens all the time), that kind of thing.

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#147

Post by asark » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 7:46 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #6

asdf333 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thanks for the real life anecdote. just like in startups, its helpful to hear from the actual users instead of what some armchair critics feel is happening. however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell

>however, i do worry about fights and bullying being taken to 'the dark corners of the school' such as the bathroom or some unused stairwell 1) They did that a lot back in the "old days" anyway, since it was away from other people 2) bullies usually have poor impulse control and don't think immediately about the consequences of their actions, so they frequently won't think about the cameras, so at least some of the t…

3) the hallways are already monitored by cameras in many schools, and the kids, though informed, often completely forget about it until reminded for some reason.

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#148

Post by asark » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 8:03 PM UTC

opwieurposiu wrote: post #14

Currently trying to decide how to school my kids ages 3yr and 1yr. Public, private or homeschool. Parents who have been there, How did you choose?

1) Public can mean relocating, if you want a good district, and higher housing costs. So that sucks. Even the good ones are usually just OK, really, with some exceptions. Whole exercise is kinda horrifying, even if you have a very normal considered-good experience of it—personally I'm very uncomfortable with the basic structure of public schools. Free buses are very nice.

2) Private's often as bad or worse—just being private doesn't mean it's an improvement. Private schools often pay worse than public (total comp) so consider what sort of employee pool they're drawing from. The exceptions tend to be the "prep" variety which are less common and are eye-wateringly expensive unless you're fairly poor (most have generous scholarships) but nonetheless capable of raising a kid who the admissions folks (for whatever reason) like. If you can't afford even-more-expensive boarding schools you're probably looking at just a couple quality private schools in a given city in most cases, if any, and they may not be close to your house. Exceptions include some (only some, you gotta do your homework) Catholic schools, though you may have trouble getting in and will likely pay more if your family's not Catholic—there's a process, and you can probably fake your way in, but it'll take time and commitment and planning in advance by at least a year, I'd say, plus you gotta be comfortable, you know, repeatedly lying to clergy. If you want something that breaks out of the typical mold[1] you're either talking seminar-type classes (so, prep, expensive, and not available everywhere) or hippy-dippy might-work-for-your-kids-hard-to-say-until-you-try unschool-alike stuff (still not cheap).

3) Homeschool's wicked-expensive too if you're losing a salary for it, especially with just one or two kids. Not every parent's cut out for being home alone with the kiddos every day, all year, too. Some are, some aren't, may not figure it out until you try. Also not everyone's great at teaching though if your kids are above-average in the intelligence department it's not hard to at least do better than your average public school, given the pace they move at and the much worse instructor-to-student ratio. It's real work, though, regardless.

Exceptions all over for the above I'm sure, but that's the gist. We're doing public. I kinda hate it but the other options are out of reach for one reason or another.

[1 EDIT] by "typical mold" I mean isn't structured more or less the same as public school.

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#149

Post by vraivroo » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 8:05 PM UTC

maxden wrote: post #49

ralusek wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Not worth it. There are mountains of evidence demonstrating that people change their behaviors when they know they are being watched. Do we really care about the automatic resolution of petty squabbles between children, or even the coercion of children to never engage in petty squabbles? Do we really want to rob children of mischief, conflict resolution, and making a case for themselves in a way that cannot alw…

I agree, it is normalizing surveillance such that the kids grow up expecting there to be camera everywhere and accepting it.

What's wrong with that though?

Re: Welcome to the K-12 Surveillance State

#150

Post by vraivroo » Wed, Jul 03, 2019, 8:06 PM UTC

nostrademons wrote: post #129

ralusek wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Not worth it. There are mountains of evidence demonstrating that people change their behaviors when they know they are being watched. Do we really care about the automatic resolution of petty squabbles between children, or even the coercion of children to never engage in petty squabbles? Do we really want to rob children of mischief, conflict resolution, and making a case for themselves in a way that cannot alw…

> There are mountains of evidence demonstrating that people change their behaviors when they know they are being watched. We definitely know that kids change their behavior when being watched, but most of the time we call that "parenting".

Exactly. Nobody behaves worse when they know they are being watched.