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-Lurid Crime Tales-

Quebec students suspended for posting teacher's outburst online

2006-11-27

OTTAWA -- Quebec school officials are considering banning the use of cameras and cellphones in all classrooms after two students secretly recorded their teacher's angry outburst and posted three clips on YouTube.

Jocelyn Blondin, chairman of the Commission scolaire des Portages-de-l'Outaouais, said Friday two Grade 9 students, one female and the other male, provoked the unnamed teacher last week at Ecole Secondaire Mont-Bleu in Gatineau, Que.

The school convinced YouTube to remove the videos on Monday and suspended the students indefinitely this week because they knew that the school has a strict policy banning cellphones and digital cameras. Blondin said board officials will meet with the students and their parents Monday to determine when the suspensions will end.

The students are in a special class because they have academic problems, Blondin said. He added other students told him the teacher was good at helping them improve their grades.

The teacher, who has more than 30 years' experience, remains on stress leave. The teachers' union has asked the board to ban cameras and camera-equipped cellphones in all classrooms within its jurisdiction because they can be used to invade the privacy of teachers and students.

Union vice-president Louis Belcourt said the students caused a disturbance throughout a class and recorded the teacher's reaction on a tiny digital camera when he ordered them to leave. School board officials said the camera was small enough to escape the teacher's notice for about 50 minutes.

Blondin said this is the first time an Outaouais student has posted a video of a teacher on YouTube, but a similar incident happened about two weeks ago at a school north of Quebec City. "I think students are just trying to embarrass the teachers they don't like," Blondin said. "In the future, students will have to keep their cellphones in their pockets and use them outside of class."

Posted by:anonymous5089

#4 Where the wife works they can remotely listen to every classroom, no one has a problem with it.

Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom 2006-11-27 18:41

#3 To tell you the damn truth maybe they should videotape every class.

Posted by: Penguin 2006-11-27 15:59

#2 At the trailing daughters' public high school, the students are forbidden to have take their cell phones away from their lockers during the school day. The argument is that

a) using cell phones for making and receiving calls distracts from the business of teaching and learning, and

b) cell phones have been used elsewhere to enable cheating on tests (and camera phones to share panty pictures, amongst other nefarious activities not consented to by all parties).

Primary and secondary students are not full citizens and do not have all the rights of citizenship (including, for instance, the right to bear arms on school property, or to participate in unsanctioned personal expression), based on the presumption that children and teenagers do not yet have the knowledge or judgement to differentiate consistently between wisdom and stupidity. In this case, the students provoked an unnecessary confrontation, then posted the resulting outburst online to embarass a highly regarded teacher. There was no argument that the teacher had been behaving inappropriately, teaching inappropriately, or was otherwise acting contrary to the interest of students, the school, or the community which paid her salary. In a situation of teacher misbehaviour, such a recording would be helpful in building a case. But in this particular situation it was the students' behaviour that was intrusive, destructive and unacceptable, not that of the teacher. Were those two mine, indefinite suspension from school would be the least of their worries.

Posted by: trailing wife 2006-11-27 15:58

#1 The teachers' union has asked the board to ban cameras and camera-equipped cellphones in all classrooms within its jurisdiction because they can be used to invade the privacy of teachers and students.

It's a public building where public business occurs. What privacy exists? Locker rooms and rest rooms maybe, but the conduct of 'public' business does not occur there. Go teach in a 'private' school if you want to hide. Can the principal sit though any class and observe the performance of the teacher and students? Yes. Then why couldn't the same administrator use technology to watch multiple classes and record? And if said administrator could do it, why couldn't the students as long as it was not intrusive? Unless, of course, you have something to hide.

Posted by: Procopius2k 2006-11-27 12:00

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