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Ruben Scott, shown here teaching in his Malibu classroom, was recorded without his knowledge for a YouTube posting. |
When you least expect it, one of your students takes out his cell phone and secretly records you. The next thing you know, the video is posted on YouTube and the world is watching.
It happened to Ruben Scott, a Malibu High School teacher, last October. Fortunately it was a rather innocuous 15-second moment, featuring him sitting in a chair telling a student, “Oh, I like that, I like that.”
What happened next was bizarre. The local newspaper got him mixed up with a substitute teacher at the school who was also recorded and posted in a YouTube video called “The Angry Teacher.” Soon everyone assumed it was Scott who had lost his temper in that video clip.
“I’ve had my moments in class, but there was no videotape of me losing it,” says Scott, who teaches math, AVID and a class on Law and Society. The newspaper eventually issued a retraction. However, if anyone Googles “The Angry Teacher,” Scott’s name still pops up. Scott fears he will forever be “that teacher” in cyberspace.
A member of the Santa Monica-Malibu Classroom Teachers Association, Scott handled the situation with grace. He’s not angry about the actual incident, since he found nothing objectionable in the footage. However, he’s angry “in principle” because when he’s teaching, he expects to be viewed only by his students and not the world at large.
“It was supposed to be a joke,” he says. “The kid who did it is one of the sweetest kids I know, and he would never have done it at all if he thought it would injure me. He was astounded by the whole thing getting so out of hand. He never anticipated all the publicity.”
Most people probably expected Scott to sue since he practiced law for 20 years before he went into teaching. But instead he’d rather forget about it, except for discussion purposes in his Law and Society class where students debate the morals, ethics and legality of what occurred.
“No, it’s not okay and it’s illegal without
a teacher’s consent,” comments Brandon Needle.
“It’s not legal and it’s not moral,” adds Jonathon Constanza.
For Jon Dreksler, however, it depends upon the “light” the person being recorded is portrayed in. “If it’s in a positive light, it’s okay. If it’s harmful to one’s reputation, it’s not.”
Not all teachers who have been put on YouTube by students without their consent have minded. Sandra Jung, a teacher at Arroyo High School in El Monte, was shown performing a swing dance at a local fundraiser — as well as doing acrobatics while hanging from a rope in her school’s talent show.
“When students posted these tapes, it was kind of a fun surprise,” she says.
However, other teachers have suffered ill effects after being surreptitiously recorded. One Southern California teacher was so traumatized he declined to discuss the incident — even anonymously. The white-haired teacher was depicted walking around the school with a cane to the tune of the Bee Gees’ “Staying Alive.”
Other teachers have reportedly taken stress leave after being publicly humiliated on YouTube.
Some schools, in response to such incidents, have banned cell phones in class and blocked access to sites such as YouTube. However, it doesn’t stop students from accessing them from home. In England, schools are attempting to address the issue of “teacher-baiting,” where students taunt a teacher and record the reaction on their cell phones for use on YouTube.
“Students and teachers are all learning at the same time how to handle new technology, and we have to be very careful,” says Scott. “We don’t want to discourage the use of technology.”
“If used properly, YouTube is a good thing,” he adds. He’s a big proponent of teaching students ethics before things get out of hand. The student who recorded him “didn’t know it was against the law without my consent or that it was an invasion of my privacy.”
The sites too should assume some responsibility. “There needs to be some filter so that not just anything can be posted online by anyone with a cell phone.”