Teachers in two UK secondary schools are taking part in a trial of body-mounted video, wearing cameras to record student incidents to deter bad behaviour. A handful of US schools 鈥� 鈥� have also started using them within the last two years. More are set to follow.
Advocates point to : reduced use of force, reduced complaints against officers, a reduction in crime and improved evidence gathering.
On the surface, it seems a terrific example of technology making life easier, cheaply. But the idea is unpopular with school unions and teachers. What evidence do we have that they can help in classrooms?
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The answer, as with similar proposed solutions to complex social challenges, is very little. . And reduced use of force was only seen when officers had the cameras on permanently. When they turned them on and off 鈥� as some are suggesting happen with teacher cams 鈥� the .
Unwanted impact
Other security measures commonly adopted by schools, such as CCTV and metal detectors, have been cited as having . It is also suggested these can increase the fear of crime and unsettle students. Being filmed has an impact on behaviour, but it might not be the one we want.
More importantly, teachers are not the police. Our role rests on the relationships we develop with classes and students, of which trust is a crucial part. Filming students undermines that. A body cam screams 鈥淚 don鈥檛 trust you鈥� to a student.
And remember the PR toilet into which Google Glass tumbled, largely thanks to its privacy-invading ability to record pretty much everything in the wearer鈥檚 field of view? One bar in Seattle .
School or prison?
Teachers and unions, while keen to reduce violence in schools, seem understandably united against any imposition of body cams: a recent (online, self-selecting) poll in education weekly newspaper the TES showed that 62.3 per cent of 600 teachers surveyed wouldn鈥檛 want this.
Admittedly another two-thirds said that it would make them feel safer, but that tells us nothing about whether that safety comes at an acceptable cost.
The leaders of UK unions the National Association of Schoolmasters/Union of Women Teachers and the Association of Teachers and Lecturers have spoken out against the cameras, on the grounds of privacy, practicality and the threat of .
Students would be less likely to disclose abuse to teachers if they thought they were being filmed, and there is a real risk that we desensitise students to pervasive surveillance.
More fundamental problem
Most importantly, even positive findings about police body cams can鈥檛 be extended to the school domain because the environments and the stakes involved are very different.
Research from actual schools is practically non-existent, apart from the ongoing UK trial, which is still to produce meaningful data.
If teachers need cameras to prove that what they claim happened in a class actually happened, then there is a more fundamental problem that technology cannot address: the status of the teacher. Far more effective would be robust and guaranteed teacher training in how to run a classroom 鈥� something that is often hit and miss.
