The performance was captured by a student on his camera phone video recorder, and the student subsequently uploaded the video to YouTube. The publicity eventually led to the teacher’s suspension/paid leave while the routine was (and continues to be) played and talked about in the media.

What I find most disgusting and amazing about the whole event has nothing at all to do with the teacher or the performance.

No one seems to care about the student’s behavior: he recorded the instructor without her consent, and unless he had his camera phone in plain view, he most likely violated the law.

If he did violate Arizona law by secretly taping his teacher, the moment he uploaded the video, he violated federal law.

But the student’s misconduct isn’t the issue, right?

Let’s imagine for a moment we were back in the stone ages—you know: that long-ago time before the every-one-has-one cell phone. For this event to have occurred, the same student would have had to carry a video camera to class, take it out, and point it at the teacher—an act that would have been a bit harder to hide even with the smallest of camcorders. And let’s not forget, YouTube was born in February 2005, so as we traveled back in time, the video never makes it to millions of viewers.

I wonder: does Williams Field High School have a student cell-phone policy in place? If they do, I’m willing to bet my last month’s paycheck the student who recorded the teacher violated that policy.

But let’s not worry about the student’s misconduct.

While watching the report, the comments of several parents struck me: in a nutshell, they each said if cheering was what it took to keep the students’ interest, then they were all for it. Yeah Team. By all means, let’s leave it up to the teacher to entertain the children while said children are in the classroom—after all, learning for learning’s sake is just plain boring.

Then there were the students who made comments describing the routine as “a waste of students’ educational time” and “immature,” and several who argued “teachers get paid to teach us [. . .] not to cheer” and who complained students “are here to learn.”

Now, I’m confused.

If the students are all for learning, why do educators have to devise ways to keep them engaged?

If the students are all for learning, why are they playing with their cell phones in the classroom?

One other thing concerns me profoundly, and it’s another issue no one is talking about: the inherent copyright protection for original work and performance.

Just because a teacher delivers a lecture or performance in a classroom does not mean the information and/or performance is unprotected. In many cases, the lectures, performance, handouts, and course materials of an instructor are considered “derivative works” and are copyright protected.

It is entirely possible the recording and posting of the performance in question violates United States copyright laws.

But I’m sure the student didn’t know that.

Let’s go smaller: posting what amounts to the instructor’s original work and performance is a violation of YouTube’s policy (emphasis below added):

6. Your User Submissions and Conduct

B. You shall be solely responsible for your own User Submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with User Submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorize YouTube to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to any and all User Submissions to enable inclusion and use of the User Submissions in the manner contemplated by the Website and these Terms of Service.

I’m going out on a limb here: I don’t think the star of the show gave her okay to be uploaded and featured on YouTube.

My refusal to allow cell phones into my classroom is a subject of much debate among my students: given I would never cheer in my classroom, I wonder what my problem is?

California has a budget—that makes things a bit easier, but the shuffle, bustle, and confusion of the first and second class meetings are always a challenge.

This semester, we’ve changed to a sixteen-week schedule—down from eighteen weeks in the past. In addition, most classes meet only twice each week. (Until this change, classes were traditionally M-W-F or Tu-Th.)

The sixteen weeks, two-days-per-week schedule is supposed to be a better fit all around: students prefer two-days-per-week classes (as do many instructors), and as impacted as the district is, more classes can now be crammed into the same amount of space.

Fridays are now free to hold one-day-per week classes, and like Saturday courses, these are very popular with working adults—not educationally beneficial in most cases, but popular.

The fewer weeks and days also means class meetings have been extended. Previously, M-W-F courses were 50 minutes in length, and Tu-Th classes were 75 minutes in length. Now, courses are 80 minutes long.

As a teacher, I love this: 50 minutes is far too short to do much good. By the time one takes roll, 5 minutes are gone; wrapping up is another 5 minutes, and that leaves only 40 minutes of class time. It’s tough to cover two things well in that amount of time: especially if one of the things is a reading discussion, but it’s a bit too long to use for just one thing. 75 minutes is better: once the 10 minutes of fluff are excised, it leaves just over an hour of class time.

80 minutes means I have those brains for an hour and ten minutes of scholarship: wow—now that is teaching time.

Of course, one of the things I’ve begun to notice when teaching the 75 minute classes is the issue of failing attention spans: students simply can’t sit still and/or focus for more than about 30 minutes of time. Now, I have to figure out a way to get them to stay with me for longer than ever.

I use all of the teaching tricks: breaking things into smaller units of activity, participation versus lecture, calling on people, etc. These are Band-Aids: the clock watching will inevitably begin after the first 20 minutes has passed, and in most modern classrooms (on my campus, anyway), the clocks almost always face the students not the teachers.

If only I were a hottie.

While sums of money too large to comprehend are spent on political campaigns and blowing people up, and those who refuse to solve the budget problem continue to get paid ridiculous salaries, students who have qualified for a variety of education-based assistance haven’t received their money.

This creates a significant problem for instructors: trying to teach classes with students who may or may not be able to afford their books and supplies. There’s no way to tell who’s telling the truth and who’s lying when it comes to situations like this—well, other than the fact that those who really haven’t yet received their money are far less likely to make this fact known than those who are simply using the unresolved budget as an excuse not to spend their money the way their parents intended and/or they way they should.

And let me tell you: having done this for a number of years, my classes will be filled with students who will claim not to be able to buy what they need because they haven’t received their checks.

The amount allotted to community college students is miniscule (approximately $1,500/year) compared to the amount allotted to students at other types of colleges ($6,000 and up/year), but the difference in these figures reflects the difference in cost to attend a community college versus that to attend other types of schools.

Here’s where it gets really neato: at the community college level, tuition for a year costs about $600, and that’s for a full-time student—a rarity in community college. That means of the $1,500 allotted for the year, only $600 of it is to cover tuition: the rest ($900) is for all that other stuff I mentioned above—you know, the stuff one needs to actually sit in a classroom and be productive.

Most schools have tuition waivers in place to solve part of the problem; however, these waivers do not extend to parking passes, textbook purchases, or minimal school supply fees. This seems foolish to me: if you waive tuition fees for someone but do nothing to deal with what is needed in the classroom, what’s the point?

Here’s my guess: waiving tuition guarantees the school gets its money from the government, but the school does not profit from the other stuff, so the other stuff gets no consideration. Lovely.

• I can’t put my class on hold until the budget gets resolved and checks are received.
• I can’t purchase books and supplies for my students.
• I have made an extra copy of each of my textbooks available for short-term use at the library, but this is something I’ve always done.

Maybe instead of essays, I ought to have my students write nasty-grams to their illustrious California politicians: “leaders” whose college-student children are not wanting for anything, I’m certain.

Until then, I’ll get to listen to all of the excuses—the few that are real and the many that are not—and I’ll have no choice but to go on with the show.

Somehow, the state’s inability to do its work will trickle down to me and my obligation to teach at the pace required to complete the semester, and because I have no control over the situation, I’ll be branded insensitive, and unreasonable, and a variety of other pleasant things by some of my students—and most likely Celia and her colleagues who never have issues because they are so darn perfect—and all alone in my evil, black hole, I’ll just remain Pissed Off.