How to get an entire class of students to rebel against you...

[fireheart]

No, not my class. I prefer to rebel on the Internets :P

This came secondhand from a couple of buddies at uni who are studying secondary teacher degrees. They share a few classes with us primary teaching folk, but this class is just for the secondary students.

Therefore, I present to you:

How to get your class to rebel against you:

1. Whenever students step outside for a loo break/emergency phone call/other unrelated issue, openly criticise them and make negative statements about them. (For instance, "Gee she leaves the classroom all the time doesn't she?"

2. Fail to provide a topic handbook and instead hand them a list of assignments and the statement of assessment methods. (the latter is required for ALL topics and basically lists the requirements to pass said topic, assignments and when they are due. It does NOT give any further information about the actual assignments themselves)

3. Make fun of students who are absent frequently for legitimate reasons.

4. When students are doing an oral presentation, fail to inform them that you can't make it (she'd known about this a couple of days in advance) and instead that you will be filming them. Do not give students the opportunity to do their presentations sans camera.**

5. Finally, annoy your class to the point where they all just up and leave.

Several of the students went and got the Dean when #5 happened. Dean talks to the person in charge of said class. Students are allowed to give their presentations without being filmed and the dean has a long "conversation" with the person in question.

That person is now no longer allowed to teach Masters students. Instead, they were relegated to teaching the lower-year classes, but in those cases, they were topics that ALL the students (primary/secondary/special ed) were required to take. (meaning that if students were uncomfortable with said teacher, they could switch to another class)

**-short version is that unless the students film themselves and send it to their tutor, or their tutor asks them to sign a consent form (even if over 18), students cannot be filmed by their tutors, even with prior notice.

[Seshat]

Cultural side note: Fireheart is in Australia.

Many Australian native cultures believe that imagery of a person can trap their soul and prevent it from moving on after death.* This is one of the reasons that their artwork involves handprints or abstract images of people; and never clear depictions of faces, nor charicatures of people.

So if the class Fireheart is talking about includes any children from one of those cultures, requiring them to allow themselves to be filmed is so inherently against their cultural and religious practices it's .... ridiculous.


* it gets a lot more complex than that and has all sorts of reasons behind it, but that's the relevant part for this story.

[fireheart]

So if the class Fireheart is talking about includes any children from one of those cultures, requiring them to allow themselves to be filmed is so inherently against their cultural and religious practices it's .... ridiculous.


* it gets a lot more complex than that and has all sorts of reasons behind it, but that's the relevant part for this story.

Adults. this was at uni

[Pagan]

Cultural side note: Fireheart is in Australia.

Many Australian native cultures believe that imagery of a person can trap their soul and prevent it from moving on after death.*

Some Native American tribes have the belief that photographs steal the soul and don't allow photography on the rez (reservation). The Rail Runner (train) goes through the Isleta (Tiwa), Kewa (Keres), and Sandia (Tiwa) Pueblos. I know there's an announcement when it goes through Sandia to please not take pictures. I don't remember hearing one for Kewa and it goes through Isleta before I get on, so I don't know about that one.

I can't remember which of the pueblos do and don't allow photography. But that's easy to solve by asking, like a normal, thoughtful person. Besides, if you don't ask and just start taking pictures, and they don't like it, you could get kicked off the rez.

[Deserted]

Besides, if you don't ask and just start taking pictures, and they don't like it, you could get kicked off the rez.

...along with your camera confiscated and the film (and possibly the camera) destroyed in front of you.

[fireheart]

Up at Uluru they have similar rules about photography, but not necessarily for the reasons mentioned up here. It's mainly due to the fact that there are certain areas that are sacred to particular genders to the point where the opposite sex can't even LOOK at those areas. They don't want someone to take a photo of said sacred site, sell it to a magazine and then someone from the opposite sex viewing a photo of said area.

I'll have to ask my great-aunt about that, she lived near there.

[Soulstealer]

Even without cultural reasons there are also some people where cameras triggers their anxiety. There's plenty of reasons why cameras aren't a good idea, they really should be made clear on the syllabus at the start so students have a chance to get dispensation or switch classes without that requirement.

[fireheart]

Even without cultural reasons there are also some people where cameras triggers their anxiety. There's plenty of reasons why cameras aren't a good idea, they really should be made clear on the syllabus at the start so students have a chance to get dispensation or switch classes without that requirement.

For teaching degrees, generally that's not an option. The university is generally willing to work around students who aren't comfortable being filmed (ie they give the presentation to their tutor/s directly with or without students present).

The only times that I've been filmed for class assignments have been as follows:

-My English curriculum studies project required us to tell stories using 3 different methods (big book, no book and puppet/lap book*), film ourselves on all 3 and then submit ONE of those to the tutor, along with why we chose that one. We were given plenty of warning in advance, the filming was done with a small group of our peers and if we weren't comfortable on one day, we just didn't film it. The tutor also made it clear that the videos would only be seen by ourselves and him.

-For an Arts class, we had to do a small media assignment which involved a video. We were required to sign a release form, but the tutor made it clear why and gave us notice. The reason was that she was going to use our videos as examples for next year's groups. Our group did a video poking fun of the fact that men don't have to wait in line for the toilets (complete with the Benny Hill theme being played on our rush to the toilet)

-Finally, for our overall Arts project, we were required to put together a short play around whatever theme we wanted, then develop a unit plan around one of the arts methods (dance, drama, music, art or digital media), pick a lesson from that and present it to a group of students. The topic coordinator, while very airheaded, did explain that she would play them back at a big wrap party for the term and also that some of the footage would be used for the following years. If we were uncomfortable about being filmed, we raised it with the coordinator. While I didn't have a problem being filmed, I coordinated the media aspects for our group.

As a result, our play was shown this year to the next crop of Arts students.

*-lap book just means your average picture book. Big book refers to a book about A2+ size that is usually used by younger classes to help put oral and spoken words together.

[Teskeria]

*-lap book just means your average picture book. Big book refers to a book about A2+ size that is usually used by younger classes to help put oral and spoken words together.

Doesn't Oral mean spoken when referring to words. Did you mean to put Visual and Spoken words together? Or am I having an off week?

[fireheart]

Doesn't Oral mean spoken when referring to words. Did you mean to put Visual and Spoken words together? Or am I having an off week?

Oops. Derp.

I plead late-night study and no coffee

(and yes, I meant visual/spoken)

[Kit-Ginevra]

Cultural side note: Fireheart is in Australia.

Many Australian native cultures believe that imagery of a person can trap their soul and prevent it from moving on after death.* This is one of the reasons that their artwork involves handprints or abstract images of people; and never clear depictions of faces, nor charicatures of people.

So if the class Fireheart is talking about includes any children from one of those cultures, requiring them to allow themselves to be filmed is so inherently against their cultural and religious practices it's .... ridiculous.

Just out of curiosity,how does this affect getting ID?Is there a special passport or ID you can get without having a picture in to identify you?

[emax4]

Back on topic, was the icing on the cake the part where the students filmed the instructor getting demoted, then teasing him about it?

[fireheart]

Back on topic, was the icing on the cake the part where the students filmed the instructor getting demoted, then teasing him about it?

She and I have no idea. I should've asked

[Sapphire Silk]

Even without cultural reasons there are also some people where cameras triggers their anxiety. There's plenty of reasons why cameras aren't a good idea, they really should be made clear on the syllabus at the start so students have a chance to get dispensation or switch classes without that requirement.

There are also plenty of reasons why cameras ARE a good idea. For example, I teach Physical Assessment online. The only way I can evaluate how students are doing their assessments is to observe what they do on a video. A friend of mine who got his PhD in Psychology online, videoed sessions where he interviewed me as a "patient."

One of my colleagues has the students video themselves practicing therapeutic communication. By watching yourself in action, you can learn a lot about what you're actually doing when you communicate with someone. We also video our high fidelity Simulation sessions so students can watch the impact of what they actually do (I only make the student watch the video if they don't have self insight into major errors).

The difference between these situations and the OP's situation is that the students were not told at the beginning of the semester that videos would be done, and given a different option for legit reasons, which would include: culture/religion or a previously diagnosed anxiety disorder documented with disAbility Services.

What the teacher in that class should have done was to change the date of the presentations to a LATER (not earlier) date if a scheduling conflict meant she would not be there, or to get another instructor to be present for the presentations if she could not be there (I've done both options).

Just out of curiosity,how does this affect getting ID?Is there a special passport or ID you can get without having a picture in to identify you?

I think it's pretty obvious if someone is an Australian aboriginal or not. They have very distinct features. However, I imagine that they probably have tribal ID cards, like the Native Americans do here in the US.

[thatcrazyredhead]

This sounds a lot like a teacher we had in eighth grade. He was our literature teacher, so thankfully we only had to deal with him for one hour a day. He had a rule that he would only answer three questions per class period. He would get the three questions in the beginning of class and then wouldn't answer anymore until the next day. One day, the sweetest girl in class told him that she had a question about the homework and asked if hers could be one of the questions he answered, and he said yes. He didn't get to her question, and when she tried to ask it anyway, he flatly refused to answer her. He made her cry. After filming us without our parents' knowledge or permission (which may or may not have been legal, but we were sure it wasn't), placing the entire class except for me on "Step One" (basically making everybody face the wall and not talk) and calling the principal down to see what unruly students we were, and just generally being an enormous asshole, this was the last straw. The entire class (roughly 35 of us) marched into the office and demanded he be fired. He was.