In this week’s class, we had a guest speaker, Jesse Miller. In both elementary and high school, Jesse visited to host sessions on internet safety and cyber-bullying. So, I am familiar with his work. Although, it was really interesting to listen to him from an educator’s point of view. He addressed photo consent, which is something I have always been curious about. I follow many teacher accounts on Instagram that post pictures of their children at work and don’t even blur out their faces or put an emoji over them but then I also follow teachers that do. I would often look at their posts and wonder how the consent works for that. What I picked up from Jesse was that it is an individual process and there really isn’t a widespread rule. Some teachers might send out forms to parents to ask for photo consent and if all agree, those children can be posted on Instagram or it could be verbal consent from parents before the pictures are posted.
I also shared my personal experience with the class of a high school teacher including a photo of me in her TED talk without my consent. I remember when I first found out about the video, I just thought to myself how it was weird that I never knew about the video and then I was in it. I didn’t think too much of it until I told my mom and she was furious. When my Mom spoke to the teacher who hosted the TED talk, she told me that I agreed to it when I allowed her to take a quick picture of me observing the bark of a tree behind our school. So, she thought that me saying yes to a quick harmless picture of working meant that she could include it in her TED talk that would be posted for anyone to view.
Looking back on this situation now as a Teacher Candidate, I realize how unethical her actions were. If anything, I think I can grow from this experience and know that I will take consent and the right surrounding technology much more seriously in my future classroom. I really appreciated Jesse coming into our class and found it really engaging.
Thanks for reading,
Lauryn