Psychological monitoring of students – teachers and even bus drivers

This is another in our series on Social Emotional Learning (S.E.L.).

We came across an article at The American Spectator titled “Even school bus drivers are participating in the psychological evaluation of their young charges” written by KAREN EFFREM, JANE ROBBINS. 

You can read the full article by clicking on the Spectator name above but we’ll take a shot at summarizing the key points for you:

1.    Children, under the guise of S.E.L., are lab rats
2.    An “App” called “Emote” which allows “a wide range of school staff, from bus drivers to teachers, to record and share their observations of when students appear sad, anxious, angry, and frustrated.” The app helpfully supplies a menu of keywords, such as “sad” and “overwhelmed,” and color coding (yellow for anxious, red for angry, etc.).
3.    If the observed behaviors reach a point (who decides?) of requiring intervention the teachers or counselors swing into action
4.    All of the information is kept in a master database and forever attached to the student. Oh..it’s also hackable
5.    Any expectation of privacy is gone
6.    Students can plan on being observed at all times and having their “emotions” reported. (Side note: China is using facial recognition software in classrooms to monitor expressions as a surrogate for emotions and reporting to the teacher/administration so “intervention” can be done to “help the troubled student”.
7.    Schools have moved from teaching to monitoring and acting on emotional signals to prevent any “escalation” in actions that could cause an issue

Please take a closer look at S.E.L. in your school district.

As we get ready to go to press here’s a new story about something happening in the USA…in a public school system…using facial recognition software: https://www.aclu.org/blog/privacy-technology/surveillance-technologies/new-york-school-district-seeks-facial-recognition