CAN THE CAMERAS

Direct Oversight By School Staff Would Better Deter Bad Behaviour

As if it were not enough that Canadians face surveillance cameras every
time they use a bank machine, buy gasoline or stroll through a shopping
mall, their children are now spied on electronically in some schools. In
Calgary, half a dozen schools have adopted similar systems to those used
elsewhere, to track misbehaviour in the corridors.

Whatever happened to the heavy tread of the vice-principal?

The argument from schools using electronic surveillance is familiar enough.
The schools of today aren't what today's adults grew up with. These days,
the corridors are not safe from casual violence and drug deals. For the
same reasons, it makes sense for students to wear photo ID on school
premises -- another controversial innovation -- it is also desirable to
watch what's going on in the corridors. But, although video cameras are a
cheap way to do it, society is paying a higher price.

At a recent conference, researchers from the University of Alberta
presented a study of the effects of video surveillance on both staff and
students. They concluded two things. First, like adults confronted with
video surveillance at liquor and corner stores, students adjust to what
they cannot change. Some mug for the camera, some don't; some perpetrate
whatever mischief they intended, anyway. In other words, it doesn't make
much difference to what happens. Second, and more serious, the researchers
say the strategy of surveillance undermines citizenship education.

We share the researchers' misgivings on both counts.

First, how effective can a camera be? As the study notes, people get used
to it -- in an adult milieu, it hardly seems to have any deterrent value at
all -- and an inanimate object cannot intervene if a child is being
bullied, or a locker vandalized. All it does is gather evidence for some
future proceeding at which even such a modest penalty as the proverbial
slap on the wrist is now considered unlawful.

As for citizenship, if responsibility is to be taught, trust must be
extended. When somebody is constantly supervised, how is that internal
self-discipline to be learned that causes a person to do right even when
nobody is watching?

So, while the problems besetting the nation's schools are real enough,
there are no automated solutions to them.

Only staff mingling with students will maintain good order and, indeed,
forestall by their very presence most of what the camera might otherwise
record. Whatever prevents staff from carrying out this role should be the
first priority of those charged with improving security in schools.

Meanwhile, if the imagined world of George Orwell is to be taught, let it
be through the prescribed reading of 1984. The world that follows
graduation is soon enough for Canadian youngsters to experience its sadly
prophetic wisdom.