Hey kids, Big Brother may soon be watching you every second of your day in school. The Gates Foundations says it’s for your own good. Of course, Big Brother would never spy on you, abuse the data, or use it in deceptive, illegal, or punitive ways. Because that would just be wrong.
Bill Gates says putting cameras in all classrooms so observers can give feedback to teachers would improve teaching. The observers are supposed to be impartial, but just exactly how would that work? Who judges what “impartial” is and what are the criteria for determining who is a good teacher? What happens to the data and who has access to it?
Worse of all, the whole trend here is to robotize teaching so students can pass standardized tests. The schools get their funding and the students become “loyal, plastic robots for a world that doesn’t care,” as Frank Zappa put it. There’s no room for creativity here or for any nail that dares to stand up. No, it must all be flattened out so the tests will be passed. But this isn’t education. It doesn’t teach students how to think but certainly does train them to be passive,scared observers who know they are always being watched.