teaching – Techdirt (original) (raw)

Instead Of Parents Spying On Their Kids Online, Why Not Teach Them How To Be Good Digital Citizens

from the don't-normalize-surveillance dept

Last week, when I wrote about Senator Graham’s crazy “But think of the children online!” moral panic hearing, I highlighted comments from a guy named Christopher McKenna, who runs an organization called “Protect Young Eyes,” which is one of those organizations that freaks parents out about all the evil things your kids might be up to. Among many of the crazy and misleading comments McKenna made, was one that was actually accurate, but interpreted incorrectly. McKenna whined that it was impossible to “watch over” kids online all the time. His solution was to force companies (and politicians) to censor the internet with filters and other tools. Or, at the very least he seemed to think parents needed better tools to spy on their kids’ online activities.

As we pointed out, another person on the panel suggested that rather than spying on our kids all the time, it would be better for parents to educate kids how to be good digital citizens, how to avoid danger, and how to better interact with the world around them. He was almost entirely ignored for the rest of the panel.

This divide in parenting techniques is a big deal, however. Thanks to new technologies it is much easier to spy on kids all the time. But we should be wary of that. Wired just had an article about how the app Life360 is ruining kids’ summer as parents are tracking everything they do:

That?s because for many adolescents, adult supervision has turned into adult surveillance. Schools are adopting facial recognition technology to monitor campuses. Parents can now remotely check their child?s browsing histories and social media accounts, watch their movements via motion-sensing cameras, and track everywhere they go with location-sharing apps. In a Pew Research Center study last year, 58 percent of US parents said they sometimes or often look at their teenager?s messages, call logs, and the websites they visit. In a separate study from 2016, 16 percent said they used location-sharing apps.

Life360 is one of the many digital monitoring tools now used by millions of parents in the United States. The app functions like an enhanced version of Apple?s ?Find My? feature that lets you share your location with friends or family?or what the company calls ?your Circle.? In addition to location sharing, Life360 lets family members see how fast people in their circle are driving, how much battery their cell phones have, and more. The service is free to download and use, although you can pay for additional features. According to the San Francisco-based company, Life360 had over 18 million monthly active users at the end of 2018.

This is… horrifying? We’re teaching the exact wrong thing to kids. We’re not teaching them to think for themselves, or to have their own life skills and street (or digital) smarts. Instead, we’ve become so overly worried (at a time when there is significantly less risks), and so infatuated with our ability to spy on someone’s every move, that we’ve not considered what kinds of lessons we’re teaching those kids in the first place. For one, teaching them to expect to be surveilled and watched at all times seems like a really awful idea. Second, it’s telling kids that parents don’t trust them. And, sure, not all kids should be trusted, but defaulting to that position seems like a terrible idea.

And all of this is happening at a time when people are freaked out about Facebook and Google’s “surveillance” of everyday activities — but what are we teaching our kids when apps like Life360 go way, way further. Indeed, much of the Wired article details how Life360 wraps up its constant surveillance in terms about how it’s “helping families.”

The term “helicopter parenting” became popular when I was a kid, but this seems to go way, way beyond that (perhaps this is “drone parenting?”). Protecting children is certainly a worthy goal, but what exactly are we protecting them from and at what costs? So much of this surveillance seems designed to prevent the very, very rare and very, very unlikely disaster scenarios. Those are horrifying, but given how unlikely they are, the actual “benefit” of this kind of surveillance is extremely low. However, the costs — training kids to give up their privacy, denying trust, hindering the ability of children to trust their own instincts and learn on their own — seems much, much higher.

Filed Under: children, educating, parenting, privacy, surveillance, teaching

Another State Lawmaker Thinks Teachers Should Be Banned From Discussing 'Controversial' Issues

from the 'party-of-free-speech'-strikes-again dept

Having gotten it into his head that teachers are “indoctrinating” the mushy minds of school students, an Arizona lawmaker has introduced a bill almost certainly headed for a Constitutional challenge.

State Rep. Mark Finchem wants to ban public and charter school teachers from spreading “controversial” political, racial and religious messages in their classrooms.

The Oro Valley Republican introduced House Bill 2002 in the Legislature last week. If it passes, teachers could face consequences as severe as losing their jobs for engaging in any “political, ideological or religious” advocacy or discussion with their students.

The bill [PDF] introduces, among other things, a requirement for teachers to attend three hours of annual “ethics training” and adopt a strict “ethics code” that prevents them from talking about a long list of things Rep. Finchem finds “controversial.” The list begins with blocking teachers from advocating for political parties, candidates, and legislation, which already makes part of the bill redundant.

State law already bars public and charter school employees from using school resources, including personnel, to influence the outcome of an election.

But that’s only part of the list of forbidden subjects. The bill also forbids teachers from:

Discussing any litigation making its way through the nation’s courts.

Introducing “controversial issues” not related to the course being taught

Endorsing any activity that “hampers or impedes lawful access of military recruiters to the campus”

Endorsing or engaging in any activity that “hampers or impedes the actions” of law enforcement

“Singling out” one racial group as “being responsible” for the suffering of another race

It also introduces some weird form of “Fairness Doctrine” by demanding teachers provide resources supporting both sides of any controversial subject that somehow makes it way past Rep. Finchem’s speech barrier. These multiple incursions on the First Amendment are followed by dubious “findings” Finchem wants to have codified as legislative facts.

A. The legislature finds and declares that:

1. The purpose of public education in Arizona is to produce knowledgeable and competent adults who are able to participate as informed citizens in the democratic process of selecting representation in our constitutional republic.

2. Education in a democracy is best served by teaching students how to think, not telling them what to think. Our country is divided over many issues affecting its citizens. It has been established through surveys that a majority of K-12 teachers discuss controversial issues in their classrooms.

3. It has been established that some teacher training institutions, teacher licensing agencies, state education departments and professional teacher organizations have condoned and even encouraged this behavior under the guise of “teaching for social justice” and other sectarian doctrines. Time spent on political or ideological indoctrination takes time away from instruction in the academic subjects taught by public educational institutions, including the foundational subjects of mathematics, science, English, history and civics, and prevents students from receiving the best possible public education as funded by the taxpayers of this state.

4. Parents and taxpayers have a right to expect that taxpayer resources will be spent on education, not political or ideological indoctrination.

Perhaps Mark Finchem will allow these many surveys supporting his indoctrination theory to be read into the state record along with the rest of his bullshit bill. Finchem claims a “stunning number” of calls from concerned parents has prompted this action, rather than the organized #RedForEd educator walkout that accompanied educators’ demands for increased funding.

There’s no chance this bill survives a Constitutional challenge if it somehow becomes law. Restrictions on speech — even that of government employees — demands a narrow crafting. Targeting speech with legislation requires a sniper’s mentality. Finchem is carrying a shotgun loaded with birdshot and hoping it’s enough to prevent speech he doesn’t like from being spoken in the state’s classrooms.

Filed Under: arizona, controversial topics, free speech, mark finchem, oro valley, schools, teaching

Japanese Music Collection Society Demands Copyright Fees From Music Schools For Teaching Music

from the getting-schooled dept

A brief review of our past stories about copyright collection societies should paint you a fairly complete picture on how these businesses operate. While they pimp themselves as proxies for content creators to police the known world for unauthorized use of that content, as well as operators working to license the use of that content, instead these companies work as syphons sucking money from both sides. They will be genuinely creative in their attempts to find infringement everywhere, liberally interpreting copyright law and what constitutes requirements for various licenses for things like art and music, while at the same time often being found to feign brain-death when it comes to paying the copyright holders’ share for the money they collect.

While the tactics used by collection societies regularly flirt with absurdity, it’s not terribly often that they behave in a way that will garner broad disdain. One collection society in Japan, though, has decided to cross that line, unilaterally informing music schools that they must now pay up for daring to teach students how to play music. The schools, it seems, are not taking this lying down, having banded together and planning to sue the collection society.

The music school operators said they planned to file a lawsuit against the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) with the Tokyo District Court as early as July, a representative told The Japan Times. In February, JASRAC informed several hundred private music school operators it will begin collecting copyright fees for the use of sheet music under its management.

It claims the use of music to teach piano or other instruments infringes on the “right of performance” under Article 22 of the Copyright Law, which stipulates the composer has the exclusive right to perform their work publicly. JASRAC plans to revise its regulations, enabling the organization to collect 2.5 percent of all annual fees charged by the music schools.

You can immediately see what I mean about liberal interpretations of the law. Only in the mind of someone working at a collection group would a private school teaching a student how to play a song constitute a “public performance.” For the collection group to suggest that this liberal interpretation entitles it to 2.5% of the gross revenue of a music school is plainly absurd. Japan’s exceptions to copyright law do include exceptions for non-profit educational institutions, but these schools appear to be private. Those exception provisions also appear to be more geared to works like educational software than music.

The schools are trying to get the government to fill in this gap.

In response to JASRAC’s move, Yamaha Music Foundation, Kawai Musical Instruments Manufacturing Co. and five other musical school operators initially set up a group advocating for the right to educate using musical works without copyright consent. The group, which now has 350 members, has collected over 10,000 signatures demanding a halt to JASRAC’s plan, which it plans to submit to the culture ministry in July.It remains unclear how many companies will join the lawsuit.

“We want the court to confirm that performances at (music) schools do not need JASRAC’s consent,” said a representative for the group.

For it’s part, JASRAC points out that there is no definition of a “public performance” in Japanese copyright law. But that likely doesn’t mean that JASRAC can simply interpret what a public performance is any way it likes, including in the teaching of a student. Instead, it seems likely that this dispute will give the Japanese government the impetus to flesh out the law. That will ultimately be a good thing, assuming the government doesn’t suddenly lose its mind and decide to pretend that educating students is a public performance of music.

Filed Under: collection societies, copyright, fees, japan, music teachers, teaching
Companies: jasrac

DailyDirt: Cheering For Mathletes

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

It’s a no-brainer that math is a critically important subject. Okay, a lot of people probably don’t remember much calculus from high school — or how to do “long division” — but the exposure to advanced math and encouraging everyone to appreciate math is still laudable. And making sure kids aren’t turned off by math will hopefully lead to more people involved in STEM fields in the future.

Amazon’s Education business unit is aiming to get teachers and students to improve their math skills and attitudes towards math. This “With Math I Can” effort is an attempt to encourage girls (and boys) who aren’t confident with numbers to stick with math and math-related subjects. [url]
A study of nearly half a million boys and girls (14-16yo) from 69 countries shows that there’s a negligible gender gap when it comes to math skills. A few countries favored boys over girls in math tests, but a couple of countries also had girls beating the boys. So the differences are chalked up to effort and teaching, not any innate ability differences between boys and girls. [url]
Apparently, girls seem to do more homework and play less with computers than boys do. According to an OECD report, boys test better at math than girls in many countries — but girls in Shanghai seem to be really good at math. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: education, homework, learning, math, stem, teaching
Companies: amazon

DailyDirt: No More Teachers' Dirty Looks…

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

School is out for most American kids right now, but that doesn’t mean parents and teachers aren’t still thinking about how schools could improve and how to get kids to learn better. There are plenty of problems that seem insurmountable in the US education system, but there could be some solutions that try to tackle them in limited trials. If these trials succeed, they might be expanded to more schools — and hopefully, over time, all schools can get better and learn from each other.

The standard disciplinary methods in most schools don’t seem to be particularly good at improving problem behaviors, so maybe it’s time to try other strategies that try to teach kids how to control themselves — instead of having teachers handing out orders and punishments. A Collaborative and Proactive Solutions (CPS) program is trying to teach educators how to handle unruly students by helping kids to recognize and control their own frustrations and work towards managing their own emotions and actions. If it works as advertised, this could help reduce all kinds of problems before they grow out of control. [url]
Letting students collaborate and set their own educational goals isn’t easy, but it might be the better way to prepare kids for the kind of independent learning they’ll need to do on their own when they’re done with school. Psychologists have learned a lot about how the brain learns, but teachers are only starting to incorporate brain-based strategies into lesson plans. [url]
More and more kids seem to be diagnosed with attention issues and ADHD, and at the same time, kids are being forced to sit still for longer and longer periods of class time. Perhaps if kids had more exercise and were allowed to move around a lot more, they’d be better able to sit still during classes? A randomized controlled trial seems to be in order…. [url]

After you’ve finished checking out those links, take a look at our Daily Deals for cool gadgets and other awesome stuff.

Filed Under: child behavior, cps, education, k-12, psychology, ross greene, school, students, teaching

DailyDirt: Higher Education, Not So High-Minded Anymore?

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Going to college used to be a reliable education path to a well-paying career — as well as a way to create a society of engaged and informed citizens. The workforce has changed a bit over the last few decades, and college degrees aren’t necessarily the best indicators of employee performance anymore. Sure, everyone still needs an education, but being able to learn on your own and pick up skills years after you’ve been handed a diploma are far more important than where that diploma was printed. Considering that student loans are rarely ever forgiven, people might want to choose their institution of higher learning with a bit more deliberation.

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker almost removed the Wisconsin Idea from the mission of the University of Wisconsin system. Instead of a statement that commanded the university to “search for truth” and “improve the human condition” — a draft of the budget proposal for the university system would have required an education that “meets the state’s workforce needs.” [url]
State universities don’t actually need to change their mission or mottos in order to fundamentally shift their philosophies. Ohio State University hasn’t changed its motto, but the way it’s doing business is more modern now — selling off anything it can for short term cash, e.g., getting millions for its campus soft drink rights to Coca-Cola and leasing its parking lots to an Australian investment firm for 50 years. [url]
Universities in Australia have several strategic options available to them in the future. However, the “old model” of broad-based teaching and research might not be a viable direction. [url]