Monday, November 27, 2006

Shooting The Messenger

Coming to a town near you...

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.
I don't know whether or not most U.S. public schools already ban recording devices or not but if they don't, they'll start soon.

Of course they don't want their incompetence exposed so they'll do what they can to suppress any attempts at making them look bad. I'm sure none of this comes as a shock really but punishing dissent is something government tends to be very good at. There are laws to protect whistle blowers but I doubt those protections will ever extend to students. I recall seeing other cases where students have been suspended for writing negative things about teachers or students on their own MySpace pages.

Remember, they are the government and they're not there to help.