Art Education and Modern Panopticism

ART EDUCATION AND MODERN

PANOPTICISM12/5/16

WEIWEI, A., BORTOLOTTI, MAURIZIO, WARD, OSSIAN, ZITELLE, & SANT'ANTONIN. (2014). AI WEIWEI : DISPOSITION. LONDON : NEW YORK: KOENIG BOOKS ; D.A.P./DISTRIBUTED ART [DISTRIBUTOR OUTSIDE EUROPE].

BARNABY, M. (2013, MAY 28). AI WEIWEI: S.A.C.R.E.D. FINANCIAL TIMES RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://PROXY.LIBRARY.VCU.EDU/LOGIN?URL=HTTP://SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM/DOCVIEW/1355749830?ACCOUNTID=14780 The mammoth work now on display in the Church of Sant'Antonin in Venice is the product of the two years that have

passed since he was released. The work is made up of six black shoulder-high iron boxes, each weighing 2.5 tonnes. At first glance, the containers appear to be sealed boxes, or perhaps even lumps of solid iron. There is something viscerally unsettling about their brooding presence in the church, their heaviness and scale.

On closer inspection, the viewer notices that each block contains a letterbox-like viewing slit. Inside, shrunk to three-quarter size, we can see Ai going about his prison routines. In one box he is eating while two guards stand next to him; in another he is showering, with two guards watching his every move. Watching this series of tableaux is nausea-inducing. It is a very simple and incredibly powerful work.

In a phone interview, just before the opening of the Biennale, Ai explained the genesis of the work. "All the time I was in jail, I kept thinking about my father. He was an artist and he went to Paris in the early 1930s to study art. But when he returned to Shanghai in 1932, it was the time of the civil war and he was arrested by the Nationalists. He was in jail for almost three years. Obviously he couldn't paint, so he began to write poetry."

Ai Qing, Ai Weiwei's father, wrote many poems in jail. They were smuggled out, and he became the unofficial poet laureate of the fledgling Communist party. Today the poems that Ai Qing wrote in jail are often quoted by Politburo members in speeches.

"When I was a small boy, my father used to tell me about his time in jail. He almost died of pneumonia but he was always a positive man. I think I felt jealous of him for his experience in jail. It was so important to him: it made him a great poet. And when I suddenly found myself sitting in a cell, I think I was a bit relieved. I thought: 'Now at last, I am like you. I will use this time like you did.' So, I memorised every crack in the ceiling, every mark on the wall. I am an artist and an architect, so I have a good memory for these things."

BENDEL, J. (2014, MAY 16). A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST UNDER HOUSE ARREST. THE EPOCH TIMES RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://PROXY.LIBRARY.VCU.EDU/LOGIN?URL=HTTP://SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM/DOCVIEW/1528145591?ACCOUNTID=14780

It is the product of 81 days of solitary confinement and rough interrogation. Recreating scenes from his ordeal, "S.A.C.R.E.D." is already recognized as one of Ai Weiwei’s masterworks, as well as a devastating critique of the Communist Party’s police state tactics.

At least the regime did its best to prevent any distractions from delaying its completion— by confiscating his passport and placing him under house arrest. The artist’s difficult year spent as a prisoner in his own home-studio (known as 258 FAKE) is documented in Andreas Johnsen’s "Ai Weiwei: The Fake Case.”

Ai Weiwei is one of the most important artists in the world today, as his famous sunflower seed installation at the Tate Modern and the current retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum well attest. However, Ai claims he never initially set out to be a political artist, but was forced down that path by the government’s reaction to his work and activism.

Those who have seen Alison Klayman’s "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" or Ai’s own films, particularly "Disturbing the Peace" and "So Sorry," know the artist as a compulsively outspoken, larger than life figure. It is rather shocking to see the nearly (but not completely) broken Ai Weiwei who emerges from almost three months of illegal detention early in "Fake." As a condition of his so-called parole, Ai Weiwei is forbidden to speak with the media, particularly international reporters. He duly complies, at least for a while.

WEIWEI, A. SURVEILLANCE CAMERA, 2010. MARBLE. 14 X 15-1/2 X 7-1/2 INCHES (35.6 X 39.4 X 19.1 CM).

FOUCAULT, M. (2008). "PANOPTICISM" FROM "DISCIPLINE & PUNISH: THE BIRTH OF THE PRISON" RACE/ETHNICITY: MULTIDISCIPLINARY GLOBAL CONTEXTS, 2(1), 1-12. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://WWW.JSTOR.ORG/STABLE/25594995

Bentham's Panopticon is the architectural figure of this composition. We know the principle on which it was based: at the periphery, an annular building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that open onto the inner side of the ring; the periphery building is divided into cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the other. All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a schoolboy. By the effect of backlighting, one can observe from the tower, standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages, so many small theatres, in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible. The panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to see constantly and to recognize immediately. In short, it reverses the principle of the dungeon; or rather of its three functions, to enclose, to deprive of light, and to hide; it preserves only the first and eliminates the other two. Full lighting and the eye of a supervisor capture better than darkness, which ultimately protected. Visibility is a trap (Foucault, 2008, p. 5).

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25594995

BOGARD, W. (1991). DISCIPLINE AND DETERRENCE: RETHINKING FOUCAULT ON THE QUESTION OF POWER IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY. SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, 28(3), 325.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, panopticism emerges as a response to the problems of control posed by criminal activity, insanity, ignorance and disease in modem urban societies. And since panopticism is valuable as a generalizable strategy of control, its effect is to blur the boundaries that once served to distinguish older mechanisms of control. The prison, the asylum, the school, the hospital: all become, to a greater or lesser degree, surveilling institutions under the image of the plague, all loci of the individualizing (subjugating) effects of power (Bogard, 1991, p. 8)

Despite the great temptation to invoke an analogy between panoptic and televisual systems, Baudrillard insists that the development of television signals the end of panoptic space. As a system of detailed inspection and examination, the panoptic apparatus is perfectly suited to the functions of normalization and individualization, to recording small deviations from an established model of conduct (Bentham, for example, had noted that the Panopticon makes an ideal laboratory for conducting experiments). For Baudrillard, on the other hand, television effectively dispenses with the model, and with it the oppositions between activity and passivity, subjectivity and objectivity, center and periphery, on which panoptic space is grounded. More accurately, television does not transform individuals into passive objects (docile bodies), but, by virtue of its capacity to reproduce images, into their own models, both reversing and cancelling panoptic power and creating a "hyperspace" where it is no longer possible to distinguish between the model and its object. The result, for Baudrillard, is no longer a system of surveillance, but one of deterrence (which, ultimately, signals a dissipation of disciplinary power) (Bogard, 1991, p. 9).

ABC NEWS. (2007, NOVEMBER 19). PARENTS: CYBER BULLYING LED TO TEEN’S SUICIDE. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://ABCNEWS.GO.COM/GMA/STORY?ID=3882520 The parents of a 13-year-old girl who believe their daughter's October 2006 suicide was the result of a cruel cyber hoax are

pushing for measures to protect other children online. Tina and Ron Meier, who are now separated and plan to divorce, have taken up the cause of Internet safety after a bizarre twist in their daughter Megan Meier's death. The mother of a former friend of Megan's allegedly created a fictitious profile in order to gain Megan's trust and learn what Megan was saying about her daughter. But the communication eventually turned hostile. "There needs to be some sort of regulations out there to protect children. Parents can only be in so many places and so many times," Tina Meier said on "Good Morning America Weekend Edition" Sunday. "I wish there were regulations with these forums. There's got to be something.“ The Meiers said they are unsure why someone would do such a thing. "We don't know. How do you get in the mind of somebody? We just have no idea," Tina Meier said. Megan Meier sometimes suffered from low self-esteem and was on medication at the time of her death. But her family said she looked forward to her 14th birthday and having her braces removed.

When a cute boy befriended Megan on the social networking site MySpace, the two formed a quick connection during their more than month-long relationship. "She got this e-mail from this boy named Josh Evans," Tina Meier said. Evans claimed to be a 16-year-old boy who lived nearby and was home schooled. But what began as a promising online friendship soon turned sour, as compliments turned to insults. Evans said he didn't have a phone and so Megan couldn't talk to him. But the two continued their communication online, despite some red flags Tina Meier said she saw. "It was just that nervous mom," Tina Meier said. She called police to find out if they could determine if a MySpace account was real. They couldn't. Still, all seemed to go well between Megan and Josh until an unsettling message started a tragic chain of events. "Megan gets an e-mail, or a message from Josh on her MySpace on Oct. 15, 2006, saying, 'I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I hear you're not nice to your friends,'" Tina Meier said. Someone using Josh's account was sending cruel messages and Megan called her mother, saying electronic bulletins were being posted about her, saying things like, "Megan Meier is a slut. Megan Meier is fat," according to the Associated Press. The cyber exchange devastated Megan, who was unable to understand how and why her friendship unraveled. The stress and frustration was too much for Megan, who had a history of depression. Tina Meier discovered her daughter's body in a bedroom closet on Oct. 16, 2006. Megan had hanged herself and died a day later.

SALO, J. (2016, DECEMBER 1) TEEN BULLIED WITH FAKE SEX PROFILES KILLS HERSELF IN FRONT OF FAMILY. RETRIEVED FROM: HTTP://NYPOST.COM/2016/12/01/TEEN-BULLIED-WITH-FAKE-SEX-PROFILES-KILLS-HERSELF-IN-FRONT-OF-FAMILY/

An 18-year-old girl committed suicide in front of her family at their Texas home after what relatives say were months of relentless torment on social media. Brandy Vela sent an email to her family on Tuesday to let them know she planned to kill herself. They immediately hurried to their Texas City house to find her alive, with a gun pressed to her chest, but they could not convince her to put the firearm down, according to news station KHOU. Vela’s parents and grandparents were at the home when she fatally shot herself. Her father, Raul Vela, broke down as he recounted his blue-eyed daughter’s final moments. “We tried to persuade her to put the gun down but she was determined,” he told KHOU. “She said she’d come too far to turn back. It was very unfortunate that I had to see that. It’s hard when your daughter tells you to turn around. You feel helpless.”Her father said his daughter, who was a high school senior, would often confide in him about the cyber-bullying. She had been bullied for years about her weight, but other students had begun in April to create fake accounts pretending to be her. “[They] set up an account saying she was actually soliciting sex,” he said. Harassing calls led the teenager to change her phone number and file a report with police about the bogus accounts, but the bullying persisted. “[The police] couldn’t do anything because [the suspects] used an app and it wasn’t traceable, and they couldn’t do something until something happened, like they fight,” her sister Jackie Vela told CNN. In a final text to her sister, the 18-year-old wrote: “I love you so much, please remember that, and I’m sorry for everything.”Texas City police are investigating her death as a cyber-bullying crime.

POST STAFF REPORT. (2010, JANUARY 26). 7TH GRADER SUSPENDED FOR FACEBOOK ATTACK ON TEACHER. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://NYPOST.COM/2010/01/26/7TH-GRADER-SUSPENDED-FOR-FACEBOOK-ATTACK-ON-TEACHER/

MATTYDALE, N.Y. — A seventh-grader at a suburban Syracuse middle school has been suspended for setting up a Facebook page that officials say hosted a barrage of libelous, obscene and inappropriate postings about a teacher. Roxboro Road Middle School principal Steve Wolf says another 25 students who signed on as fans of the group have been given three days of detention at the school in Mattydale. The father of one of those students told the North Syracuse school board on Monday he didn’t think it was right to punish his daughter for simply accepting an invitation to join the group. He says he’s disciplining her at home. Wolf says the student suspended last week created the page because she was angry with the teacher. She’s expected to return to school this week.

SMITH, M. L. (2008, JANUARY 8). FACEBOOK PHOTOS LAND EDEN PRAIRIE KIDS IN TROUBLE. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://WWW.STARTRIBUNE.COM/FACEBOOK-PHOTOS-LAND-EDEN-PRAIRIE-KIDS-IN-TROUBLE/13549646/

Eden Prairie High School administrators have reprimanded more than 100 students and suspended some from sports and other extracurricular activities after obtaining Facebook photos of students partying, several students said Tuesday. School administrators and the district's spokeswoman didn't return phone calls, but students called in by their deans over the past two days said they were being reprimanded for the Facebook party photos, which administrators had printed out. It's likely, they said, that other students among the 3,300 who attend Eden Prairie will be questioned throughout the week. Danny O'Leary, a senior who plays lacrosse, said his dean displayed four Facebook photos of O'Leary holding drinks and told him he was in "a bit of trouble." One photo shows him holding a can of Coors beer, another a shot of rum, he said. In yet another, O'Leary is pictured holding his friend's 40-ounce container of beer."I wasn't drinking that night," O'Leary said…

"I'm personally pretty upset and wondering why someone would collect these photos and turn them in," O'Leary said. "A lot of kids' lives are going to be ruined as far as scholarships and sports are concerned.“ O'Leary said the school's actions are likely to put a dent in underage drinking among students but not stop it. Kids will just be smarter about not posting party and drinking photos, he said. "It's dumb to have these pictures up on the Internet," he said, pointing out he has since deleted his Facebook page. Natalie Friedman, a senior who is not part of any sports programs, said she was called in by her dean and scolded about Facebook photos of her behind a bar at a friend's house with drinks visible. She declined to say whether she was drinking, saying that no one can prove there was alcohol in the beverages.

LUSSIER, C. (2015, SEPTEMEBER 3). SCOTLANDVILLE HIGH’S PRINCIPAL SUSPENDED AFTER VIDEO SURFACES SHOWING HIM STRIKING STUDENT ON REAR WITH A STICK. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://WWW.THEADVOCATE.COM/BATON_ROUGE/NEWS/EDUCATION/ARTICLE_07BBEA65-157D-5718-83EE-898B45EC2200.HTML

Calvin Nicholas, who was named Scotlandville High’s principal in June, is on indefinite leave in connection with the fight, which occurred Monday after school, said Adonica Duggan, a spokeswoman for the East Baton Rouge Parish school system. “We received the video yesterday, and there is currently an open investigation,” Duggan said on Wednesday. “This is a personnel matter, so we are limited in what we can discuss”…Carnell Washington, president of the East Baton Rouge Parish Federation of Teachers, said the union urges educators to stay out of active fights and to try to stop the fight verbally and wait for trained help to arrive. “It’s a much better chance for a teacher to get hurt than the child to get hurt,” Washington said. “Teachers are not trained for that kind of combat.” He also said educators need more training on how to handle such situations. He said he’d want to see what kind of training Nicholas had before making a judgment call about what kind of discipline he should get. Washington said schools need to focus on prevention, especially teaching students ways to resolve conflicts on their own rather than resorting to fighting. Teachers who enter fights can lose their job, get sued or worse, he said. “I know a coach who once broke up a fight between two of his players,” Washington recalled. “He woke up in the hospital with partial paralysis all the way down his back.” Washington said he broke up fights years ago, but stopped when two female track athletes of his who were fighting tore up an expensive suit he was wearing. “That was about a $500 fight I ended up breaking up,” he said.

WAFB STAFF. (2015, NOVEMBER 11). JUDGE RULES IN FAVOR OF EBR SCHOOL BOARD IN FIRING OF SCOTLANDVILLE HIGH PRINCIPAL RETRIEVED FROM: HTTP://WWW.WAFB.COM/STORY/30491698/JUDGE-RULES-IN-FAVOR-OF-EBR-SCHOOL-BOARD-IN-FIRING-OF-SCOTLANDVILLE-HIGH-PRINCIPAL

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -A retired judge who served as a hearing officer has ruled in favor of the school board in a hearing that would determine whether a fired principal would get his job back. Dr. Calvin Nicholas, the former principal of Scotlandville Magnet High School, was fired for using a stick to break up a fight. Nicholas said he did use a stick to break up a fight that broke out on August 31 at Scotlandville Magnet High. Video of the incident shows Nicholas using the stick on a student. A hearing, which was fiery at times, was held on November 2. The school board has always said Nicholas violated policy that strictly states no corporal punishment. "The decision to terminate an employee is not one I take lightly," said Superintendent Drake. "I expect our administrators, and staff to model appropriate behavior in our schools at all times. I am saddened by the way the students, staff, and the Scotlandville High School community in general have been publicly characterized. This characterization does not paint an accurate picture of the school or community's environment. I wish Dr. Nicholas and his family well as they move forward.""I did not want him fired. I didn't go to the school board and say fire him. I was never for or against it. I made sure I stayed neutral," said Lakisha Harris, the mother of the boy who was hit with the stick. "The policies are in place for a reason. They never said how to break up a fight. I feel there should be more training on ways to break up a fight, but I don't feel he should have been walking around with a stick."

CBS NEWS. (2010, NOVEMBER 21). $610K SETTLEMENT IN SCHOOL WEBCAM SPY CASE. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://WWW.CBSNEWS.COM/NEWS/610K-SETTLEMENT-IN-SCHOOL-WEBCAM-SPY-CASE/

Holly Robbins, Blake's mother, told CBS News, "I don't feel this school has the right to put cameras inside the kids' home, inside their bedrooms and spy on them”

Blake said the green camera light would sporadically turn on and off. "I would turn all applications to see if there was anything open that was using the camera so it wasn't," he said. "I thought it was probably a technical difficulty and thought nothing of it. Didn't think anyone was spying on me, but ends up they were." Michael Robbins said a photo of him on his son's computer actually ended up on the local news in Philadelphia. Michael recalled, "They said I looked like Gene Simmons without makeup.“ "Early Show" co-anchor Chris Wragge remarked, "Which I'm sure probably really offended you."

For Holly, Blake's mom, the toughest part for her was the initial shock of learning her son was being watched in his bedroom. "I didn't know who else they captured. I have small little children, a 7-year-old son and 8-year-old son and my daughter, also, was being spied on. They were watching her. She's also, was a high school student at the time and they watched her for a week." Holly says she's concerned when she opens a computer now. "I'm even concerned when I walk into a dressing room," she added. "I just always feel the fear of being watched”

As for the $610,000 settlement, a significant portion goes to legal fees. Another student who sued will receive $10,000. But Blake will receive $175,000 in a trust. He will receive $25,000 up front.

ROSENBLATT, K. (2016, OCTOBER, 10). 'I DON'T DESERVE IT!': FRUSTRATED VIRGINIA TEACHER IS CAUGHT ON VIDEO STORMING OUT OF HIS CLASSROOM AFTER LAUGHING STUDENTS 'THREATEN HIM'.’ RETRIEVED FROM: HTTP://WWW.DAILYMAIL.CO.UK/NEWS/ARTICLE-3830959/I-DON-T-DESERVE-FRUSTRATED-VIRGINIA-TEACHER-WALKS-CLASSROOM-HIGH-SCHOOL-STUDENTS-THREATEN-HIM.HTML#IXZZ4RVTANNRO

•Unidentified teacher in Virginia walked out of a classroom full of students •Visibly frustrated teacher said students were threatening and taunting him•Cell phone video shows the man walking out of class and into the hallway•Eventually returns to classroom and screams at the kids about their taunts•Says he 'doesn't come to school to be threatened' and 'doesn't deserve it' •School Board members and parents sympathized with the angry teacher •Kim Gray, a school board member, said threats are linked to gang activity

Students can be heard laughing and seem to be calling the unidentified teacher's name as they follow him out into the hallway. It's unclear if additional students were filming the teacher as he walked away. The teacher walks through the corridor, followed by a group of students before returning to the classroom. A uniformed school resource officer appears to be watching the class for the teacher and stands near the doorway once he returns. Once inside, the teacher seems to snap and begins shouting at the students.

JONES, S. (2016, SEPTEMBER 11). RICHMOND TEACHER REFUSES TO GIVE UP AFTER BEING THREATENED BY STUDENTS. RETRIEVED FROMHTTP://WTVR.COM/2016/11/11/RICHMOND-TEACHER-REFUSES-TO-GIVE-UP-AFTER-BEING-THREATENED-BY-STUDENTS/ As the back and forth continued, the situation escalated. “I was next on their list of people to

fight,” said the Richmond teacher. “They said if you don’t stop talking to me like that… one actually said himself ‘I am going to F… you up.’ I responded by telling them that would be a bad idea,” said Browne. Browne’s emotional outburst was captured on a cell phone camera… That incident happened on a Wednesday. Browne said it was not until the following Monday that he met with school administrators. “They felt bad and they were sorry,” he said. But Browne says this wasn’t the first time that he’s been threatened in the school. “I've been told that I better not be caught going out to my car in the parking lot. I've been told, I better not see you outside of school,” said Browne. Richmond School Board Member Kim Gray says teacher bullying is very frustrating at every level. "We've had many teachers leave because they didn't feel safe in the classroom,” said Gray…

CBS 6 did some digging into the number of student offenses against Central Virginia school staff that did not involve a weapon. In Richmond, Jones found there were 74 reported incidents for this school year, compared to 97 reported the year before. Henrico County Public Schools reported 10 incidents for this school year and last year. Chesterfield County Public Schools had no reported incidents.

MEAD, REBECCA. (2016). LEARN DIFFERENT. THE NEW YORKER, 92(4), 36. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://WWW.NEWYORKER.COM/MAGAZINE/2016/03/07/ALTSCHOOLS-DISRUPTED-EDUCATION

“What is a castle?—that was your starting question today,” the teacher said. After the girl wrote a response, on paper, the teacher snapped a photograph of the page, in order to upload it to the girl’s playlist card.

She might also send it to a parent’s phone, using AltSchool Stream, an app that enables instant communication between home and school. Meanwhile, above the students’ heads, a network of white audio recorders hung from the ceiling, and fish-eye lenses were embedded in the walls. The goal of this surveillance system, AltVideo, is to capture every word, action, and interaction, for potential analysis.

“Does every castle have torture?” the teacher said, her voice sounding sunny, if a bit distracted. “That’s a good starting question for tomorrow” …

“For us to complete our mission, we need to get to the fifty million kids in public school,” he said. So far, AltSchool’s data pool was small, and not particularly “actionable.” But, Mediratta went on, “Raj and I both come from big-data backgrounds. We have this deep belief that, as we start pulling in data, we will be able to find ways to help teachers and improve the system”…

WANG, M. (2014, OCTOBER 15). CHARTER SCHOOL POWER BROKER TURNS PUBLIC EDUCATION INTO PRIVATE PROFITS. RETRIEVED FROM HTTPS://WWW.PROPUBLICA.ORG/ARTICLE/CHARTER-SCHOOL-POWER-BROKER-TURNS-PUBLIC-EDUCATION-INTO-PRIVATE-PROFITS In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation — a group co-founded by the libertarian

billionaire Koch brothers — embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of charter schools, a cornerstone of the group's education agenda. The first — and it turns out, only — stop was Douglass Academy, a new charter school in downtown Wilmington. Douglass Academy was an unusual choice. A few weeks before, the school had been warned by the state about low enrollment. It had just 35 students, roughly half the state's minimum. And a month earlier, a local newspaper had reported that federal regulators were investigating the school's operations. But the school has other attributes that may have appealed to the Koch group.The school's founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the Kochs' free-market ideals. His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased privatization and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits. In that regard, Mitchell, 74, appears to be thriving. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell's chain of four nonprofit charter schools to for-profit companies he controls. The schools buy or lease nearly everything from companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell's charter schools there's no competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts. The schools have all hired the same for-profit management company to run their day-to-day operations. The company, Roger Bacon Academy, is owned by Mitchell. It functions as the schools' administrative arm, taking the lead in hiring and firing school staff. It handles most of the bookkeeping. The treasurer of the nonprofit that controls the four schools is also the chief financial officer of Mitchell's management company. The two organizations even share a bank account. Mitchell's management company was chosen by the schools' nonprofit board, which Mitchell was on at the time — an arrangement that is illegal in many other states…From the "White House," Mitchell and other top administrators could watch teachers in their classrooms via surveillance cameras installed in every classroom, in every school. During a tour of school grounds with this reporter, Mitchell and the school's IT director discussed surveillance software called iSpy. "We need to call it something else," Mitchell offered with a chuckle. "Call it iHelp or something." Mitchell said the cameras give administrators the ability to observe teachers in action and offer them tips and coaching …

WEISS, J. (2007). "EYES ON ME REGARDLESS": YOUTH RESPONSES TO HIGH SCHOOL SURVEILLANCE. EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS, 21(1-2), 47+. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://LINK.GALEGROUP.COM/APPS/DOC/A190851376/OVIC?U=VIVA_VCU&XID=DF8905E8

Surveilling is watching like stalking almost. Like if I was to observe you, I would observe you only for this moment. Surveillance is constant, often. Like if they was to observe me, they would observe the hair, or how my nose is always runny, or something like that. But if they was to be surveilling, they'd find out my habits. I like drawing. I write with a grafitti handstyle or I take the train home. stuff that they're not supposed to know out of observation.

WEISS, J. (2007). "EYES ON ME REGARDLESS": YOUTH RESPONSES TO HIGH SCHOOL SURVEILLANCE. EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS, 21(1-2), 47+. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://LINK.GALEGROUP.COM/APPS/DOC/A190851376/OVIC?U=VIVA_VCU&XID=DF8905E8

The student-organized walkout agitated policymakers and school officials (warranting phone calls home to the parents of every student who walked out) and made the headlines in the local and national news. While it did not remove the metal detectors (it actually increased them), students like Esteban suggest that the walkout's greatest achievement was that it "did create awareness." Though they were disappointed that the protest didn't achieve its aim and that it was not followed up by another protest, (11) student upon student agreed that the walkout "showed to a lot of officials that youth do have a voice." Fernando Carlo, an organizer from Sistas and Brothas United believes that the protest forced adults to take youth more seriously. He explains,

Now all these people see that students understand what's going on; they understand that they [students] do feel uncomfortable--they realize the metal detectors don't help and they create all these other problems and the students know and I think the number one excuse for why students aren't involved in this kind of decision-making is because 'oh, students don't know.' Well, the students are smart enough to realize the metal detectors aren't helping; they're smart enough to get all these other students together and walk off to the region office and get a meeting, so I definitely think it [the walkout] made people jump up on their toes and realize that students know.

And finally, according to one student, the walkout reminded both students and teachers that students have the right to peacefully assemble "against things that we dislike, so we took that into consideration," Rafael reminds us.

DICESARE, E., & EDWARDS, LEIGH. (2010). SURVEILLANCE, INTERACTIVITY, AND REALITY TV: CREATING A SOCIETY OF COMPLIANCE, PROQUEST DISSERTATIONS AND THESES.

With schools violating students‘ right to privacy (as in such instances as suspending them for activities that are being conducting during off school hours), the line between public/and private spaces is diminishing. During school hours teachers, principals and the like are the ones responsible for the welfare of the children in attendance. Once the school day has ended their right to monitor and control the students has ended as well. Schools are removing the right to parent from the actual parents. The surveillance that many schools are engaging in has become shocking and questionable, at best.

AYERS, WILLIAM. (2011). TRUDGE TOWARD FREEDOM: MORAL COMMITMENT AND ETHICAL ACTION IN EDUCATION. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 42, 17-24.

Remember the “two minutes hate” from George Orwell's 1984—the daily period in which party members were required to stare at images of the party's enemies (notably Emmanuel Goldstein) and express their disgust in howling unison, a form of brainwashing and the utter demonization of a manufactured enemy, the attempt to whip people into a frenzy of hatred and loathing, and to distract them from the reality of their own lives. (Even the brilliant George Orwell could not imagine Fox News and its 24/7 exercise in hate.) With Wikileaks the US never addresses the content of the documents, the dark and dirty secrets of the war makers, the cozy don’t ask/don’t tell relationship with the nastiest dictators on earth, stunning violence and the cold rationalization, the murderousness followed by the lies, deception, and coverups, and never faces the most obvious and damning truth of the whole affair: we, too, live in a barricaded, secret society, a garrison state that supports and is supported by a war culture.


Resisting the war culture and the degrading of democracy is a way to sing the dark times, too. War culture is everywhere: at athletic events where everyone is expected to sing ritualistic patriotic songs at the start, and where uniformed and armed people march with flags onto the field of play; at airports where uniformed military people are given a designated waiting area and priority boarding; in our schools where military recruiters have free reign; in our language, where “service” is degraded and distorted to mean time in the uniformed military. Just as a little blue-sky exercise, imagine any bit of the war culture transformed into a peace and love culture: the super bowl opening with thousands of local school kids rushing through the stands distributing their poetry, and then everyone singing “This Land is Your Land” or “Give Peace a Chance,” or “We Shall Overcome”; an airlines clerk saying, “We want to invite any teachers or nurses in the gate area to board first, and we thank you for your service.”

The US spends a trillion dollars a year on war and preparation for war, more than the rest of the world combined. The war culture accepts that as a desire for peace. The US has military bases stretching across the globe, including a base in the Italian Alps, and yet there are no Italian air bases in the Catskills, for example. The war culture sees that as sensible and necessary. The war culture is everywhere, sometimes visible and always lurking in the shadows.


All schools, of course, serve the societies in which they're embedded—an ancient agrarian community apprentices the young for participation in that world, apartheid schools mirror an apartheid society, and so on. In fact, an outsider can learn a lot about any society by simply peeking into its classrooms—the old South Africa had beautiful palaces of learning and small state-of-the-art classes for the white kids and overcrowded, dilapidated, and ill-equipped classes for the African kids. It makes perfect and perverse sense. Conversely, our outside observer could deduce what classrooms must

look like if she could take an accurate measure of the larger community—

knowing what apartheid means and does, she could have guessed the schools looked as they did.


Schools serve society; society is reflected in its schools. And in the modern world we see some differences as well as interesting similarities and noteworthy overlapping goals across systems. School leaders in fascist Germany or communist Albania or medieval Saudi Arabia or apartheid South Africa, for example, all agreed that students should behave well, stay away from drugs and crime, and master the subject matters, so those things don’t differentiate a democratic education from any other. We all want the kids to do well. Practically all schools want their students to study hard and do their homework. Furthermore, schools in fascist Germany produced some excellent scientists and athletes and musicians and so on. They also produced obedience and conformity, moral blindness and easy agreement, obtuse patriotism and a willingness to follow orders right into the furnaces. In a democracy one would expect something different—and this takes us to first principles: democracy is based on a common faith in the incalculable value of every human being, and that means that whatever the wisest and most privileged parents want for their kids is exactly what the community wants as a minimum standard for all of its children.

Arne Duncan as well as the Obama children attended the University ofChicago Laboratory Schools (as did our three sons), where they had small classes, abundant resources, and opportunities to experiment and explore, ask questions and pursue answers to the far limits. Oh, and a respected and unionized teacher corps as well. Good enough for the Obamas and Duncans, good enough for the kids in public schools everywhere.

MONAHAN, T., & TORRES, RODOLFO D. (2010). SCHOOLS UNDER SURVEILLANCE : CULTURES OF CONTROL IN PUBLIC EDUCATION(CRITICAL ISSUES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY). NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.: RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Even a quick look at the grades given to Florida schools under the state’s new rating system found that “no school where less than 10% of the students qualify for free lunch scored below a C, and no school where more than 80% of the students qualify scored above a C.” (2001)

This point raises a profound, fascinating, angering, and comedic point about the assessment logistics and rationales behind the testing campaign. They are, of course, promised as tools of assessment that will compel schools to confront the strengths and weaknesses of their performance as educators… what we know abut standardized tests, test-specific training, and the importance of socioeconomic background in explaining student performance means that for the most part, the NCLB testing regime measure a mix of socioeconomic background and a schools ability to teaching children how to take the test successfully. It is with good reason that America’s classroom teachers are galled by the assertions and impositions of these tests, and it is easy to understand why politicians frequently use and attack on NCLB testing as one of their best applause lines.

John Gilliom, Lying, Cheating, and Teaching to the Test

MONAHAN, T., & TORRES, RODOLFO D. (2010). SCHOOLS UNDER SURVEILLANCE : CULTURES OF CONTROL IN PUBLIC EDUCATION(CRITICAL ISSUES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY). NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.: RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS.

Being watched does not always appear threatening to urban teens. But it is constant. The youth interviewed and observed are sensitive to the Janus face of surveillance. They believe it can protect them in certain circumstances, but in other contexts, the fact of surveillance creeps in and takes something. It unsettles and prods. It observes on the one hand and profiles on the other (215).

Jan Weiss, Scan This

CONCLUSIONS The internet allows private individuals to mimic the functions of the surveillance state. In addition technology has generated new possibilities for creation and documentation of spectacles. This is a modern variant of panopticism which can have deadly consequences when it occurs in schools. Because schools are loci for complex social interactions, they can function as a site for this new form of community self-surveillance. Cell phone photography and videography, in conjunction with social networking, are the mediums which commonly and conveniently facilitate this form of school-mediated panopticism. Art teachers must become conversant in these media, as well as other forms of artmaking, which critique this subject such as much of the work of Ai Weiwei. They can help students investigate how a school community can mimic a government and how the disposition to record, document, and exact retribution found in actors (including students, teachers, parents and guardians, and administrators, among others) at schools resembles the state surveillance apparatus. These activities can have significant beneficial and negative consequences. Therefore, in order to provide high quality instruction, art teachers should encourage students to investigate these new media in an intentional manner which focuses on socially responsible engagement with these novel cultural phenomena.