YouTube is the leading internet video search engine and it specializes in short home made videos created by viewers. It is incredibly popular, particular with the younger age group, and now viewers are watching more than 100 million videos each day! However it is becoming increasingly unpopular with teachers.
Typically the videos shown on YouTube are two minute videos created by young adults. Some are mind numbingly trite and horribly adolescent, but many are a testament to the excellent computer and design education being given to some children these days. The best are vivacious videos full of humour, energy and vitality. Surprisingly, though young people dominate, the most popular video is made by a 79 year old pensioner from England. This old man gives little anecdotes of life when he was young, and has thousands of young people logging on to learn about his life and times! More typical of YouTube users is secretarial college student Brooke Bradack from the USA who’s humorous computer cam videos have landed her with a full time job with the America’s media giant NBC!
The problems as far as the teachers are concerned are the videos taken in the classroom. Camera cell-phones, and simple editing software have made the production and worldwide transmission of snippets of school events easy and common. In the ‘teacher’ category of YouTube there are over 13000 videos and though most of the clips are of teachers goofing around or performing at school functions, some are far more sinister.
Many show teachers getting angry with children and a few have teachers hitting children. Some have teachers being provoked into getting angry and the children behaving badly with the express purpose of videoing the teacher and broadcasting his or her loss of control around the world. The most infamous of the teacher clips shows a teacher having his trousers pulled down by a student as the teacher attempts to write on the board.
The clips come from schools all around the world and bad behaviour mostly involves male students. The phenomena of Internet humiliation has come to the notice of educationalists in Europe and the UK and articles are being written warning teachers that their intemperate behaviour faces possible worldwide exposure.
We are lucky that in India this inciting behaviour has not yet caught on. Search YouTube for ‘Indian teachers’ and you get video’s of teachers dancing at school functions, or clips of visits to schools from foreigners. However, given the enthusiasm with which our teenagers go about aping the mores and behaviour of their foreign peers, it is not unlikely that before long it happens here.
YouTube and similar sites such as Myspace allow our children amazing opportunities to express themselves to a worldwide audience, and these opportunities are bound to grow. Since springing from out of nowhere late last year, YouTube viewers are now watching more than 100 million videos per day.
The ability to create your own video and publish it to a worldwide audience presents wonderful opportunities. Schools must encourage this - but in the process we must train teachers to be aware of the abuses that can take place, and how to manage the creative processes in a responsible manner.
