Editor’s comment
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Editor’s comment
https://www.tes.com/magazine/archive/editors-comment-252
These, and other incidents, are clearly abusive and intolerable in human terms. But, with mobile phone cameras used in the Hawick and Aberdeen incidents, they also constitute an abuse of technology, which is so pervasive a presence in schools and which, uncannily, was the centre of a storyline in a recent episode of Waterloo Road. We all anticipated that the internet had the potential to change the face of education - for good and ill. Now, it seems, the face of the internet is making an appearance in the form of YouTube - for ill.
Alan Williamson, the rector of Hawick High, could be forgiven for wondering whether a measured and proportionate response to these incidents is the appropriate one: a consensus around the fact that there should be no outright ban on mobile phones in schools but that they should be switched off during school hours - as adults have to do in equivalent circumstances.
To his credit, as he explained to a conference last week - intended, ironically, to enthuse aspiring heads - Mr Williamson is still wedded to his job. Let us hope that is not just the enthusiasm of a 37-year-old who has only been in post for four months.
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