Film School

‘LOOK on in wonder as the board rubber sails across the room and makes impressive contact with the wall behind young Armani’s head.

Here it is again. This time we’ve downloaded it onto a PC and are playing it back in super slow motion.

And there are more videos like this. As the Times reports, the latest craze is filming your teachers in class. The paper says that some teachers are being goaded by their pupils to lose their rag and so become the stars of mobile phone shows.

Such images are then manipulated for “playground amusement”. And this is far from funny, big or clever.

“It is psychological assault on a teacher to use their image, voice or pretend to make a statement on their behalf by pupils,” Andy Brown, the head of theatre studies and drama at Ballymena Academy in Co Antrim, tells the Times.

He continues: “If I were to take a picture of a pupil and place it on an unsavoury image, I’d expect to be arrested. So what gives anyone the right to do that to teachers?”

Well, we could begin by saying that they are children and that taking the rise out of miss and sir is all part of school life. We could argue that such pictures and movies are the modern equivalents of graffiti in the toilets.

But to do so would be to do a disservice to these educators who put up with such terrible abuse. So, as the paper says, the Association of Teachers and Lecturers will debate the issue at the union’s annual conference in Gateshead today.

And the matter will be discussed again when the National Association of Schoolmasters and Union of Women Teachers (NASUWT) convenes later this week.

This is clearly a big deal for teachers. It’s time to throw the book at these unruly pupils – and the board rubber…’

Posted: 11th, April 2006 | In: Uncategorized Comment | TrackBack | Permalink