Big Brother is Watching

Along with clocks that actually tell the correct time, my school recently installed an intercom system that's supposed to also work. Finally the annoying, ahem, informative morning announcements can finally resume taking the first 10-15 minutes out of my day. They've been testing out the system for a while now, but apparently they're ready to start using it for real. Today I got a taste of some of the new system's cool new features.

The day was almost over when I heard the intercom spark to life with static and my AP's voice filled the room. "Mr. B, Mr. B, if you can hear this announcement please switch your intercom to talk." So I stop the lesson and flip the switch.

"Okay, Mr. B I hope you are the one who touched the button, because you're students are legally not allowed to touch it, so uh, please be sure to expand on that with them. Mr. B can you hear me?"

At this point all my students shouted out they could hear him. He settled them down over the intercom and explained it was a conversation just between me and him and then asked me some pointless question about whether I had kids in the after-school tennis program. So what was the point? I guess I had the intercom set to privacy so they couldn't get audio from my classroom. The whole thing made me feel very uncomfortable, knowing that my administration wants to be able to listen in on my classroom whenever they can.

Comments

Alex said…
Hi Ruben,

I just wanted to make sure that you were invited to our education "Blogger Summit". We hope you can make it and feel free to share this invitation with any other bloggers in the area that might be interested. The invitation is attached below.

Alex
ED In '08 Blogger Summit

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Strong American Schools is excited to announce the ED in '08 Blogger Summit. Conference details are as follows:

May 14th - 15th
Palomar Hotel, Washington DC
Registration is Free!

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