A professional educator enjoys a coffee in a red mug while she scrolls through social media on her own smartphone.
The woman depicted is unrelated to the story.
Each state, district, and school has its own policies when it comes to how teachers should interact with their students online. Most of them ban teachers from interacting with students at all. And almost all school districts ban teachers from posting the faces of their students online. Usually, schools have to get permission slips in general to show the faces of their students, even if it is for a school-specific publication.
However, this principal is not technically posting these students; she is “stitching” the videos the students have already posted. For example, her For You page showed her a video of a group of her students throwing a shared supplies box in the middle of a classroom. She stitched the video, calling out the students and dishing out punishments. She even included the teachers who were allegedly out of the classroom for 30 minutes, which is what gave these kids a chance to misbehave. And if we remember adolescence at all, we know that a teen will take any chance to be rebellious.
Is this okay for a principal to do?
"Hey, Josiah. I bet you didn't think your little stunt would make it to this side of the internet, did you?
You know what? It amazes me how many students don't realize their principals also have social media. Because guess who showed up on my feed? You somersaulting the shared supply bin in slow motion.
"I'm actually gonna try something new and give you a break. You're not gonna get a pass to my office because your dad has already agreed to spend the entire day with you tomorrow. He informed me that, and I quote, 'I have set aside matching outfits for our Father/son Sunday.' He mentioned something about some overalls.
But I will say, cameraman Damien. Yes, I do know your voice. And, Herman, because you're sitting there without your Chromebook doing no work again, you both will receive a pass to my office tomorrow.
"Oh, and one more thing, Mr. Cook, weren't you told time and time again to stop leaving your classroom unattended while you make copies? Little Mia did inform us that you came by her classroom asking her teacher to keep an eye on your students. You were gone for 30 minutes. That is completely unacceptable. You too will receive a pass to my office tomorrow."
Teenagers are supposed to be rebellious; their brains are literally wired to take risks. Dr. Luna, a developmental neuroscientist, studied the adolescent brain and found that risk-taking behavior is important specifically to teenagers because it is how they mature and grow up to be independent of their parents.
“We believe that what’s occurring is that the adolescent brain is actively exploring its environment: ‘Let me try it this way. Oh, now let me try this way. Oh, wait a minute, I think it worked better here.’ Eventually, after much experience, the brain says, ‘OK. You know what, this is the optimal way, so we’re going to myelinate this circuitry.’ That is like insulating the tracts, so signals are going faster, and you’re not losing so much signal on the way. But it’s also cementing it, preventing it from changing. That’s what provides the stability, and the reliability of being able to engage executive function.”
So, after knowing that risky behavior is an integral part of teenagers' cognitive development, does that change your view on how you should discipline them? As you can see, if you yell at them, they are going to know that behavior is risky and want to do it again… So what should you do? Obviously, this route is up to the parents and is going to be unique to every teen. So is this form of public shaming a good route for a principal to take or not? The comment section on the video is split; however, it is possible that it is also flooded by students on the app as well. So the verdict is still out there.
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