Critical Incident:
Information privacy online
Watching the video about publishing material online made me recall an incident when I took a class of children for a cultural dance performance. The young children were very excited about their performance being videoed and we made a copy of the video to put on CD's for the children. A teacher from another class added her video as did another so that we all had our classes on the CD which we sold for $1. Unbeknown to us one of the children who frequently soiled himself or wet his pants had had an accident during the dance which was being videoed and not told anyone. We thought the CD was great and sent out a note to the parents to see if they wanted to purchase a copy. Most replied yes they did and the money rolled in.
Violation of the code
When the parent saw her son she immediately noticed the wet patch and rang the school demanding we stop the sale of the videos and recall any that had gone out. We complied with her request and edited the video to delete the photo of her child.
Negative consequences for the teacher, the child and the school community
Ethically she said that it was a violation of her son's rights and for ever after anyone who watched the video could see her son's humiliation. Fortunately for us none of the children had noticed or mentioned it which they would have if they'd seen it and the parents who sent back the videos probably had not seen the wet patch either. We certainly hadn't noticed it or would not have included that moment in the video.
Positive outcome and proactive measures
We told them there was some other error that made us recall the CD and no one besides the mother ever knew why we recalled them.
Erlich et al (2011) would say this is a societal or community incident where an individual's and his significant others right was being violated and ethically it was inappropriate to allow the sale of videos with a child portrayed in a state which breeched his rights. Our problem was getting all the CD's back and making sure no one made any comment about the real reason in order for us to protect the child. We were very surprised that it had slipped past us and also embarrassed that it had gone out without us noticing anything.
Reflection
We publish photos all the time now using learning stories and adding them to Seesaw accounts. I was reminded of this incident when a colleague mentioned that she had taken videos during swimming but luckily checked them before putting them on the big screen for all to see. There was a girl with a togs issue and the teacher could have so easily missed the shot and put it up for her class, causing the child ongoing embarrassment. We need to be very aware of children's rights and thankfully we avoided the child in our class being humiliated due to a vigilant parent. It is a reminder for all of us that we must make sure before we post photos and videos that the stakeholders rights are protected.
References
Erhich,L.C., Kimber,M.,Millwater,j. &Cranston,N.(2011).Ethical dilemnas; a model to understand teacher practice,Teachers and Teaching: theory and practice, 17:2,173-185, DOI:10.1080/13540602.2011.539794
Source: Cinelearning. (2016, August 17). Teacher Ethics Video - Social Media Dilemma. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGQbLSEPN5w
