Blog #5 A watching eye.

A couple of weeks ago we got problems in our school. Some of the pupils had sabotaged the toilets, so it made it impossible to use them or made them so disgusting that no one wanted to go inside. We can all imagine the difficulties and worries that this caused among the pupils during the week this were going on. The frustration was total. We tried to find out what was happening and who did it? And also of course ….why? Many teachers thought that there were more conflicts among pupils, noisier and that the environment in corridors and common places in school had become worse than before. Someone suggested cameras outside the lavatories. Finally, we came to the conclusion that the best thing to do was to discuss this matter in all classes and to try to make them understand the consequeses. In some school they think it´s necessary to put up cameras to make the environment in school more secure and in an attempt to decrease all the damage.

In fact, I can understand that they have to use cameras in schools, as a short- term solution just to try to stop the emergency problems. It´s a hard and rough climate in many schools nowadays, especially in bigger cities. Stuff reductions and increasing grants make the situation even worse. There are lots of pupils who are afraid of moving from one place to another in their school and that´s a huge problem so …..of course something has to be done. In some schools there are places which are difficult to overview. Many people might think that a camera is better than nothing if a pupil feel more secure. It can be the cheapest alternative and an easy way to solve difficult problems.

Nevertheless I believe there must be other ways of solving these problems. I don´t like the idea of using cameras for supervision in school because we can´t replace human beings with a camera. I believe we need more adults in schools today and not only teachers. In our school we used to have a woman working in our cafeteria earlier but she is now replaced by pupils. She was very important for the pupils in many different ways. She also kept an eye on them and they knew it. There were always a lot of teachers sitting among the children at the café and it was nice and quiet. Now it´ has changed and the atmosphere is not the same at all.

Cameras in public places are becoming more common than ever. I accept it and also believe they are good in many cases but when it comes to cameras in our Swedish schools I say: No thanks!