Glory, Glory Hallelujah, Teacher Hit Me with a Rulah

Since my kids are students in the privileged Santa Monica-Malibu school district, I feel that I have to say something about today's article in The Los Angeles Times, "Extracurricular Videos Roil Campus," because the story focuses on cell phone videos posted on YouTube that originated in our local high schools. Apparently, the response of our district is to ban access to YouTube in the schools, even though it can be a legitimate teaching tool, since it provides video essays, historical film clips, and even congressional testimony in a reliably playable form. Furthermore, officials are also considering bans on other portable media devices, in order to prevent harassment of teachers, even though ubiquitous devices for data collection are becoming an integral part of the practices of the broader culture.

As a teacher myself, who once taught high schoolers in the years before graduate school, I have some sympathy for the instructors who are targeted. Speaking as an administrator, I know that even college students can make incredibly inappropriate comments on formal evaluations about physical attractiveness, sexual identity, and even personal grooming, my favorite being in my own case "Does she own an iron?" And certainly when I commemorate my own elementary, middle, or high school teachers online, I do it with what I consider appropriate respect.

Of course, some YouTube teachers get what they deserve, if they consent to be filmed, particularly if they provide inferior distance education which can potentially be substituted for live teaching. Unfortunately the classic "stoned professor" video from the University of Florida has been pulled for copyright reasons.