In a lot of ways it’s easier than ever for students to cheat on exams. Many students now have small handheld devices that we can use to access pretty much the whole of human knowledge–I’m talking about smartphones, of course. Smartphones have been banned from our classrooms, particularly during exam time, since they became popular. But now schools are trying to keep up by banning the latest form of mobile technology: smartwatches. For some schools, the easiest way to do that is to ban watches altogether.

Right now, the bans on watches seem to be catching on in the United Kingdom, with the University of London and London’s City University both banning the accessory.

It makes total sense that a school would want to ban smartwatches. They could obviously be used to store notes or cheat sheets that could be pulled up with just a flick of the finger. But it goes further than that–the whole idea of the technology is that it acts as a sort of extension of a smartphone. You can set them up so they give you certain notifications–for example, emails, or text messages. So, you could have a friend text you information at a particular time. Or, more simply, set up a timed email or message to send you information at a particular time during your test. Depending on what watch you have, you could also look up information during the test itself.

Some schools have banned the smartwatches themselves. Weber State University, for example, a college in Utah, has banned smartwatches during tests. It’s not just colleges, either. The College Board, the organization that runs SAT testing, has already banned them as well.

Why would schools ban all wrist watches though, in the hopes of catching just a few students who have smartwatches and hope to use them to cheat? Well, smartwatches look pretty snazzy, pretty much like real watches. If you’re not familiar with a smartwatch, as some professors may not be, it would be difficult to figure it out by just glancing at the device. It would also be a tough task for professors who teach large lecture halls with hundreds of students, and end up being a waste of time.

That being said, I think there are definitely downsides to a ban on watches as well. For one, it’s a pretty common accessory–it would be easy to forget to take off a watch the day of an exam. Secondly, any classrooms that banned watches would basically have to ensure that a clock is present in the classroom. Being able to manage time effectively is an important testing skill–many professors design tests that will take up more time than the class is allotted, if you aren’t careful. While banning watches may prevent incidental cases of cheating, it’s simpler said than done.

This is yet another example of the ways in which technology, while great, can run straight into commonsense rules. While smartwatches certainly are a threat to the integrity of our classrooms, schools will have to be very careful when it comes to figuring out the right way to mitigate that danger.

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

The post Smartwatch Scare: Will Schools Ban Watches to Prevent Cheating? appeared first on Law Street.

Hey y’all!

Remember the days when you felt safe at school? Yeah. I don’t either. Ever since the shooting at Columbine High School in 1999 there has been a sense of uneasiness that goes along with walking into a school. I was only in eighth grade when Columbine occurred but it seems to me that event was a catalyst for even more shootings at schools. I always took it from the perspective as a student and not ever thinking about the teachers. They are adults, they will know what to do to keep us out of harm’s way. Unfortunately it is part of their job. I may not have always liked my teachers but I always respected them.

Respect for teachers has gone out the window. Of course, I could make a bad joke about all of the female teachers who have been arrested for praying on students for sexual purposes and the lack of respect these women have for themselves and their profession, but I won’t. What is frightening now is that teachers are being attacked by students. Physically attacked by students for the dumbest reasons.

Last week a New Jersey student attacked a teacher. No, I’m sorry this kid did not just attack a teacher, he body slammed the teacher to the floor and it was all caught on video by another student. I wouldn’t say it was a full on, aggressive body slam but this kid picked up the teacher and put him on the ground. In the video you can also hear a faint smack which leads me to believe that the student hit the teacher.

The reason for the assault? The teacher confiscated the student’s phone during class. Is a cell phone that important that you want to get yourself into a situation where you physically harm a teacher? I think not. The teacher is a 62-year-old man just trying to do his job. The student is a 16-year-old freshman who has been suspended from school and was arrested and charged with third-degree aggravated assault.

John F. Kennedy High School in Patterson, New Jersey is where the assault took place. The school district filed a formal complaint against the student and suspended him. The Patterson Police Department arrested and charged the student with assault.

I don’t blame the physics teacher for taking away a student’s cell phone. I will ask again, was losing your phone for the length of a class period worth harming a teacher? I still don’t think so. The lack of respect that kids have for authority these days is insane.

I blame parents. Respect starts at home, keeping your hands to yourself starts at home. I strongly believe that the parents should be punished for their child’s bad behavior as well until they hit the age of 18.

Teachers walk into classrooms every day with the mission of guiding young minds, filling them with knowledge to make themselves and society a better place. Teachers have a job to do, they shouldn’t have to worry about whether or not they are going to have to physically defend themselves from their students. Many people have commented that they were surprised that the teacher in this tragic assault did not defend himself. I think he made the right decision; had he tried to defend himself he very well could have lost his job, but also could have been put into a more dangerous situation. The teacher remained as calm as possible while making sure that he kept some composure and held his body stiff so as not to do any more bodily harm.

I applaud this teacher for doing his job and not allowing some 16-year-old punk to destroy his life. Once that teacher lays a hand, in self defense or otherwise, he would have to live with those consequences for the rest of his life. Just like this 16-year-old kid will.

Allison Dawson

Allison Dawson was born in Germany and raised in Mississippi and Texas. A graduate of Texas Tech University and Arizona State University, she’s currently dedicating her life to studying for the LSAT. Twitter junkie. Conservative. Get in touch with Allison at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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In a small outer suburb of Boston, MA, a town named Danvers is reeling after the discovery of a young math teacher’s murder by one of her students, a fourteen-year-old named Philip Chism.

Twenty-four year old Colleen Ritzer taught math at Danvers High School, about 20 miles north of Boston. She was beloved by her students. In an interview with CBS News, one of her freshmen students Riley Doyle described Ritzer as “always really upbeat and positive and excited about math. She made every lesson like you wanted to learn it. For the first time, math became one of my favorite classes.” Ritzer was originally from Massachusetts, she had attended Andover High School and Assumption College. She was also well known at Danvers High School for being accessible to her students and a pioneer in using technology to connect with her students—for example, she updated her Twitter with their homework each evening.

The mystery began on Tuesday night, when Ritzer did not return home from work. A search for her yielded blood in the 2^nd floor bathroom of Danvers High School, and officials eventually discovered her body in the woods behind the school.  According to police, she was stabbed by a box cutter and may have been beaten.

A student from Danvers High School named Philip Chism was arrested on Wednesday and during an arraignment on Wednesday afternoon, charged with first degree murder and is being held without bail. He is being charged as an adult, pending a mental health evaluation. Philip Chism is 14 years old and originally from Tennessee. Chism was also reported missing the same night as Ritzer, but was later found walking along the side of the road.

Surveillance cameras at the high school show that Chism assaulted Ritzer, and then put her in a recycling bin that he dragged out into the woods and dispersed of the body. Before being found by the police, he was last seen running away from the soccer field and telling classmates that he needed to go take care of something. According to the police, after disposing of the body, he went to the movies and saw Blue Jasmine.

Chism has been described by classmates as nice, but quiet and reserved. He was a talented soccer player—the 6’2” freshman was a top scorer on the JV team. In an interview with Huffington Post, one of his teammates said about Chism, “he wasn’t violent at all. He was really the opposite of aggressive.”   When he was reported missing on Tuesday, his classmates actually spread messages through Twitter in an attempt to find him.

A probable cause hearing for Chism’s case has been set for November 22^nd. As of yet, police have not disclosed a motive. Ritzer is the second teacher to die a violent death at the hands of a student this week—Mike Landsberry, a math teacher at Sparks Middle School in Nevada was shot by a student earlier this week.

Teaching is a noble, tough, and thoroughly underappreciated profession. In the past few years, we’ve heard story after story about violent incidents occurring at schools of every grade level—from Newtown to Columbine to Virginia Tech. But what is almost most disturbing about Chism’s case is that it seems so normal and yet so abnormal at the same time. He was not a young man that came in with a weapon hoping to hurt a large number of people. His case is in many ways a straightforward murder. Often in mass murders that occur in schools, such as Adam Lanza in Newtown, the explanation deals with severe mental illness. But Chism might be different. He took pains to hide the body, and talked to classmates as he left. He, presumably, was wandering down the road to in an attempt to avoid the police. He seems in some ways more human than the school shooters to which we’ve become so utterly desensitized. His mental health will be determined in weeks to come, and hopefully Ritzer’s family will receive some answers and closure.

[Huffington Post]

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Featured image courty of [Joshua Mayer via Flickr]

Anneliese Mahoney

Anneliese Mahoney is Managing Editor at Law Street and a Connecticut transplant to Washington D.C. She has a Bachelor’s degree in International Affairs from the George Washington University, and a passion for law, politics, and social issues. Contact Anneliese at amahoney@LawStreetMedia.com.

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