The internet allows private individuals to mimic the functions of the surveillance state. In addition technology has generated new possibilities for creation and documentation of spectacles. This is a modern variant of panopticism which can have deadly consequences when it occurs in schools. Because schools are loci for complex social interactions, they can function as a site for this new form of community self-surveillance. Cell phone photography and videography, in conjunction with social networking, are the mediums which commonly and conveniently facilitate this form of school-mediated panopticism. Art teachers must become conversant in these media, as well as other forms of artmaking, which critique this subject such as much of the work of Ai Weiwei. They can help students investigate how a school community can mimic a government and how the disposition to record, document, and exact retribution found in actors (including students, teachers, parents and guardians, and administrators, among others) at schools resembles the state surveillance apparatus. These activities can have significant beneficial and negative consequences. Therefore, in order to provide high quality instruction, art teachers should encourage students to investigate these new media in an intentional manner which focuses on socially responsible engagement with these novel cultural phenomena.

1. ART EDUCATION AND
MODERN PANOPTICISM
12/5/16

2. WEIWEI, A.,
BORTOLOTTI,
MAURIZIO, WARD,
OSSIAN, ZITELLE, &
SANT'ANTONIN.
(2014). AI WEIWEI :
DISPOSITION.
LONDON : NEW
YORK: KOENIG
BOOKS ;
D.A.P./DISTRIBUTED
ART [DISTRIBUTOR
OUTSIDE EUROPE].

3. BARNABY, M. (2013, MAY 28). AI WEIWEI: S.A.C.R.E.D. FINANCIAL TIMES RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://PROXY.LIBRARY.VCU.EDU/LOGIN?URL=HTTP://SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM/DOCVIEW/135
5749830?ACCOUNTID=14780
The mammoth work now on display in the Church of Sant'Antonin in Venice is the product of the
two years that have passed since he was released. The work is made up of six black shoulder-high
iron boxes, each weighing 2.5 tonnes. At first glance, the containers appear to be sealed boxes, or
perhaps even lumps of solid iron. There is something viscerally unsettling about their brooding
presence in the church, their heaviness and scale.
On closer inspection, the viewer notices that each block contains a letterbox-like viewing slit.
Inside, shrunk to three-quarter size, we can see Ai going about his prison routines. In one box he
is eating while two guards stand next to him; in another he is showering, with two guards
watching his every move. Watching this series of tableaux is nausea-inducing. It is a very simple
and incredibly powerful work.
In a phone interview, just before the opening of the Biennale, Ai explained the genesis of the work.
"All the time I was in jail, I kept thinking about my father. He was an artist and he went to Paris in
the early 1930s to study art. But when he returned to Shanghai in 1932, it was the time of the civil
war and he was arrested by the Nationalists. He was in jail for almost three years. Obviously he
couldn't paint, so he began to write poetry."
Ai Qing, Ai Weiwei's father, wrote many poems in jail. They were smuggled out, and he became the
unofficial poet laureate of the fledgling Communist party. Today the poems that Ai Qing wrote in
jail are often quoted by Politburo members in speeches.
"When I was a small boy, my father used to tell me about his time in jail. He almost died of
pneumonia but he was always a positive man. I think I felt jealous of him for his experience in jail.
It was so important to him: it made him a great poet. And when I suddenly found myself sitting in

4. BENDEL, J. (2014, MAY 16). A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST UNDER HOUSE ARREST. THE
EPOCH TIMES RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://PROXY.LIBRARY.VCU.EDU/LOGIN?URL=HTTP://SEARCH.PROQUEST.COM/DOCVI
EW/1528145591?ACCOUNTID=14780
It is the product of 81 days of solitary confinement and rough interrogation. Recreating scenes
from his ordeal, "S.A.C.R.E.D." is already recognized as one of Ai Weiwei’s masterworks, as well
as a devastating critique of the Communist Party’s police state tactics.
At least the regime did its best to prevent any distractions from delaying its completion— by
confiscating his passport and placing him under house arrest. The artist’s difficult year spent as
a prisoner in his own home-studio (known as 258 FAKE) is documented in Andreas Johnsen’s "Ai
Weiwei: The Fake Case.”
Ai Weiwei is one of the most important artists in the world today, as his famous sunflower seed
installation at the Tate Modern and the current retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum well attest.
However, Ai claims he never initially set out to be a political artist, but was forced down that
path by the government’s reaction to his work and activism.
Those who have seen Alison Klayman’s "Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry" or Ai’s own films, particularly
"Disturbing the Peace" and "So Sorry," know the artist as a compulsively outspoken, larger than
life figure. It is rather shocking to see the nearly (but not completely) broken Ai Weiwei who
emerges from almost three months of illegal detention early in "Fake." As a condition of his so-

5. WEIWEI, A. SURVEILLANCE CAMERA, 2010. MARBLE.
14 X 15-1/2 X 7-1/2 INCHES (35.6 X 39.4 X 19.1 CM).

6. FOUCAULT, M. (2008). "PANOPTICISM" FROM "DISCIPLINE & PUNISH: THE BIRTH OF THE
PRISON" RACE/ETHNICITY: MULTIDISCIPLINARY GLOBAL CONTEXTS, 2(1), 1-12. RETRIEVED
FROM HTTP://WWW.JSTOR.ORG/STABLE/25594995
Bentham's Panopticon is the architectural figure of this composition. We
know the principle on which it was based: at the periphery, an annular
building; at the centre, a tower; this tower is pierced with wide windows that
open onto the inner side of the ring; the periphery building is divided into
cells, each of which extends the whole width of the building; they have two
windows, one on the inside, corresponding to the windows of the tower; the
other, on the outside, allows the light to cross the cell from one end to the
other. All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and
to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or
a schoolboy. By the effect of backlighting, one can observe from the tower,
standing out precisely against the light, the small captive shadows in the
cells of the periphery. They are like so many cages, so many small theatres,
in which each actor is alone, perfectly individualized and constantly visible.
The panoptic mechanism arranges spatial unities that make it possible to
see constantly and to recognize immediately. In short, it reverses the
principle of the dungeon; or rather of its three functions, to enclose, to
deprive of light, and to hide; it preserves only the first and eliminates the
other two. Full lighting and the eye of a supervisor capture better than

7. BOGARD, W. (1991). DISCIPLINE AND DETERRENCE: RETHINKING FOUCAULT ON THE
QUESTION OF POWER IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY. SOCIAL SCIENCE JOURNAL, 28(3), 325.
In the late 18th and early 19th century, panopticism emerges as a response to the problems of
control posed by criminal activity, insanity, ignorance and disease in modem urban societies.
And since panopticism is valuable as a generalizable strategy of control, its effect is to blur the
boundaries that once served to distinguish older mechanisms of control. The prison, the asylum,
the school, the hospital: all become, to a greater or lesser degree, surveilling institutions under
the image of the plague, all loci of the individualizing (subjugating) effects of power (Bogard,
1991, p. 8)
Despite the great temptation to invoke an analogy between panoptic and televisual systems,
Baudrillard insists that the development of television signals the end of panoptic space. As a
system of detailed inspection and examination, the panoptic apparatus is perfectly suited to the
functions of normalization and individualization, to recording small deviations from an
established model of conduct (Bentham, for example, had noted that the Panopticon makes an
ideal laboratory for conducting experiments). For Baudrillard, on the other hand, television
effectively dispenses with the model, and with it the oppositions between activity and passivity,
subjectivity and objectivity, center and periphery, on which panoptic space is grounded. More
accurately, television does not transform individuals into passive objects (docile bodies), but, by
virtue of its capacity to reproduce images, into their own models, both reversing and cancelling
panoptic power and creating a "hyperspace" where it is no longer possible to distinguish
between the model and its object. The result, for Baudrillard, is no longer a system of
surveillance, but one of deterrence (which, ultimately, signals a dissipation of disciplinary power)

8. ABC NEWS. (2007, NOVEMBER 19). PARENTS: CYBER BULLYING LED TO TEEN’S SUICIDE.
RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://ABCNEWS.GO.COM/GMA/STORY?ID=3882520
The parents of a 13-year-old girl who believe their daughter's October 2006 suicide was the result of a
cruel cyber hoax are pushing for measures to protect other children online. Tina and Ron Meier, who are
now separated and plan to divorce, have taken up the cause of Internet safety after a bizarre twist in their
daughter Megan Meier's death. The mother of a former friend of Megan's allegedly created a fictitious
profile in order to gain Megan's trust and learn what Megan was saying about her daughter. But the
communication eventually turned hostile. "There needs to be some sort of regulations out there to
protect children. Parents can only be in so many places and so many times," Tina Meier said on "Good
Morning America Weekend Edition" Sunday. "I wish there were regulations with these forums. There's got
to be something.“ The Meiers said they are unsure why someone would do such a thing. "We don't know.
How do you get in the mind of somebody? We just have no idea," Tina Meier said. Megan Meier sometimes
suffered from low self-esteem and was on medication at the time of her death. But her family said she
looked forward to her 14th birthday and having her braces removed.
When a cute boy befriended Megan on the social networking site MySpace, the two formed a quick
connection during their more than month-long relationship. "She got this e-mail from this boy named
Josh Evans," Tina Meier said. Evans claimed to be a 16-year-old boy who lived nearby and was home
schooled. But what began as a promising online friendship soon turned sour, as compliments turned to
insults. Evans said he didn't have a phone and so Megan couldn't talk to him. But the two continued their
communication online, despite some red flags Tina Meier said she saw. "It was just that nervous mom,"
Tina Meier said. She called police to find out if they could determine if a MySpace account was real. They
couldn't. Still, all seemed to go well between Megan and Josh until an unsettling message started a tragic
chain of events. "Megan gets an e-mail, or a message from Josh on her MySpace on Oct. 15, 2006, saying,
'I don't know if I want to be friends with you any longer because I hear you're not nice to your friends,'"
Tina Meier said. Someone using Josh's account was sending cruel messages and Megan called her mother,
saying electronic bulletins were being posted about her, saying things like, "Megan Meier is a slut. Megan
Meier is fat," according to the Associated Press. The cyber exchange devastated Megan, who was unable to
understand how and why her friendship unraveled. The stress and frustration was too much for Megan,

9. SALO, J. (2016, DECEMBER 1) TEEN BULLIED WITH FAKE SEX PROFILES KILLS HERSELF IN
FRONT OF FAMILY. RETRIEVED FROM: HTTP://NYPOST.COM/2016/12/01/TEEN-BULLIED-WITH-
FAKE-SEX-PROFILES-KILLS-HERSELF-IN-FRONT-OF-FAMILY/
An 18-year-old girl committed suicide in front of her family at their Texas home
after what relatives say were months of relentless torment on social media. Brandy
Vela sent an email to her family on Tuesday to let them know she planned to kill
herself. They immediately hurried to their Texas City house to find her alive, with a
gun pressed to her chest, but they could not convince her to put the firearm down,
according to news station KHOU. Vela’s parents and grandparents were at the home
when she fatally shot herself. Her father, Raul Vela, broke down as he recounted his
blue-eyed daughter’s final moments. “We tried to persuade her to put the gun
down but she was determined,” he told KHOU. “She said she’d come too far to turn
back. It was very unfortunate that I had to see that. It’s hard when your daughter
tells you to turn around. You feel helpless.”Her father said his daughter, who was a
high school senior, would often confide in him about the cyber-bullying. She had
been bullied for years about her weight, but other students had begun in April to
create fake accounts pretending to be her. “[They] set up an account saying she was
actually soliciting sex,” he said. Harassing calls led the teenager to change her
phone number and file a report with police about the bogus accounts, but the
bullying persisted. “[The police] couldn’t do anything because [the suspects] used
an app and it wasn’t traceable, and they couldn’t do something until something

10. POST STAFF REPORT. (2010, JANUARY 26). 7TH GRADER SUSPENDED FOR FACEBOOK
ATTACK ON TEACHER. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://NYPOST.COM/2010/01/26/7TH-GRADER-
SUSPENDED-FOR-FACEBOOK-ATTACK-ON-TEACHER/
MATTYDALE, N.Y. — A seventh-grader at a suburban Syracuse
middle school has been suspended for setting up a Facebook
page that officials say hosted a barrage of libelous, obscene
and inappropriate postings about a teacher. Roxboro Road
Middle School principal Steve Wolf says another 25 students
who signed on as fans of the group have been given three days
of detention at the school in Mattydale. The father of one of
those students told the North Syracuse school board on
Monday he didn’t think it was right to punish his daughter for
simply accepting an invitation to join the group. He says he’s
disciplining her at home. Wolf says the student suspended last
week created the page because she was angry with the teacher.

11. SMITH, M. L. (2008, JANUARY 8). FACEBOOK PHOTOS LAND EDEN PRAIRIE KIDS IN
TROUBLE. RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://WWW.STARTRIBUNE.COM/FACEBOOK-PHOTOS-LAND-
EDEN-PRAIRIE-KIDS-IN-TROUBLE/13549646/
Eden Prairie High School administrators have reprimanded more than 100 students and
suspended some from sports and other extracurricular activities after obtaining Facebook
photos of students partying, several students said Tuesday. School administrators and the
district's spokeswoman didn't return phone calls, but students called in by their deans over the
past two days said they were being reprimanded for the Facebook party photos, which
administrators had printed out. It's likely, they said, that other students among the 3,300 who
attend Eden Prairie will be questioned throughout the week. Danny O'Leary, a senior who plays
lacrosse, said his dean displayed four Facebook photos of O'Leary holding drinks and told him
he was in "a bit of trouble." One photo shows him holding a can of Coors beer, another a shot of
rum, he said. In yet another, O'Leary is pictured holding his friend's 40-ounce container of
beer."I wasn't drinking that night," O'Leary said…
"I'm personally pretty upset and wondering why someone would collect these photos and turn
them in," O'Leary said. "A lot of kids' lives are going to be ruined as far as scholarships and
sports are concerned.“ O'Leary said the school's actions are likely to put a dent in underage
drinking among students but not stop it. Kids will just be smarter about not posting party and
drinking photos, he said. "It's dumb to have these pictures up on the Internet," he said, pointing
out he has since deleted his Facebook page. Natalie Friedman, a senior who is not part of any

12. LUSSIER, C. (2015, SEPTEMEBER 3). SCOTLANDVILLE HIGH’S PRINCIPAL SUSPENDED
AFTER VIDEO SURFACES SHOWING HIM STRIKING STUDENT ON REAR WITH A STICK.
RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://WWW.THEADVOCATE.COM/BATON_ROUGE/NEWS/EDUCATION/ARTICLE_07BBEA65-
157D-5718-83EE-898B45EC2200.HTML
Calvin Nicholas, who was named Scotlandville High’s principal in June, is on indefinite
leave in connection with the fight, which occurred Monday after school, said Adonica
Duggan, a spokeswoman for the East Baton Rouge Parish school system. “We received
the video yesterday, and there is currently an open investigation,” Duggan said on
Wednesday. “This is a personnel matter, so we are limited in what we can discuss”…
Carnell Washington, president of the East Baton Rouge Parish Federation of Teachers,
said the union urges educators to stay out of active fights and to try to stop the fight
verbally and wait for trained help to arrive. “It’s a much better chance for a teacher to
get hurt than the child to get hurt,” Washington said. “Teachers are not trained for that
kind of combat.” He also said educators need more training on how to handle such
situations. He said he’d want to see what kind of training Nicholas had before making a
judgment call about what kind of discipline he should get. Washington said schools
need to focus on prevention, especially teaching students ways to resolve conflicts on
their own rather than resorting to fighting. Teachers who enter fights can lose their job,
get sued or worse, he said. “I know a coach who once broke up a fight between two of
his players,” Washington recalled. “He woke up in the hospital with partial paralysis all
the way down his back.” Washington said he broke up fights years ago, but stopped

13. WAFB STAFF. (2015, NOVEMBER 11). JUDGE RULES IN FAVOR OF EBR SCHOOL BOARD IN
FIRING OF SCOTLANDVILLE HIGH PRINCIPAL RETRIEVED FROM:
HTTP://WWW.WAFB.COM/STORY/30491698/JUDGE-RULES-IN-FAVOR-OF-EBR-SCHOOL-BOARD-
IN-FIRING-OF-SCOTLANDVILLE-HIGH-PRINCIPAL
BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -A retired judge who served as a hearing officer has ruled in
favor of the school board in a hearing that would determine whether a fired principal
would get his job back. Dr. Calvin Nicholas, the former principal of Scotlandville Magnet
High School, was fired for using a stick to break up a fight. Nicholas said he did use a
stick to break up a fight that broke out on August 31 at Scotlandville Magnet High.
Video of the incident shows Nicholas using the stick on a student. A hearing, which was
fiery at times, was held on November 2. The school board has always said Nicholas
violated policy that strictly states no corporal punishment.
"The decision to terminate an employee is not one I take lightly," said Superintendent
Drake. "I expect our administrators, and staff to model appropriate behavior in our
schools at all times. I am saddened by the way the students, staff, and the Scotlandville
High School community in general have been publicly characterized. This
characterization does not paint an accurate picture of the school or community's
environment. I wish Dr. Nicholas and his family well as they move forward."
"I did not want him fired. I didn't go to the school board and say fire him. I was never for
or against it. I made sure I stayed neutral," said Lakisha Harris, the mother of the boy

14. CBS NEWS. (2010, NOVEMBER 21). $610K SETTLEMENT IN SCHOOL WEBCAM SPY CASE.
RETRIEVED FROM HTTP://WWW.CBSNEWS.COM/NEWS/610K-SETTLEMENT-IN-SCHOOL-
WEBCAM-SPY-CASE/
Holly Robbins, Blake's mother, told CBS News, "I don't feel this school has the right to
put cameras inside the kids' home, inside their bedrooms and spy on them”
Blake said the green camera light would sporadically turn on and off. "I would turn all
applications to see if there was anything open that was using the camera so it wasn't,"
he said. "I thought it was probably a technical difficulty and thought nothing of it. Didn't
think anyone was spying on me, but ends up they were." Michael Robbins said a photo
of him on his son's computer actually ended up on the local news in Philadelphia.
Michael recalled, "They said I looked like Gene Simmons without makeup.“ "Early Show"
co-anchor Chris Wragge remarked, "Which I'm sure probably really offended you."
For Holly, Blake's mom, the toughest part for her was the initial shock of learning her
son was being watched in his bedroom. "I didn't know who else they captured. I have
small little children, a 7-year-old son and 8-year-old son and my daughter, also, was
being spied on. They were watching her. She's also, was a high school student at the
time and they watched her for a week." Holly says she's concerned when she opens a
computer now. "I'm even concerned when I walk into a dressing room," she added. "I
just always feel the fear of being watched”

15. ROSENBLATT, K. (2016, OCTOBER, 10). 'I DON'T DESERVE IT!': FRUSTRATED VIRGINIA TEACHER IS
CAUGHT ON VIDEO STORMING OUT OF HIS CLASSROOM AFTER LAUGHING STUDENTS 'THREATEN
HIM'.’ RETRIEVED FROM: HTTP://WWW.DAILYMAIL.CO.UK/NEWS/ARTICLE-3830959/I-DON-T-DESERVE-
FRUSTRATED-VIRGINIA-TEACHER-WALKS-CLASSROOM-HIGH-SCHOOL-STUDENTS-THREATEN-
HIM.HTML#IXZZ4RVTANNRO
•Unidentified teacher in Virginia walked out of a classroom full of students
•Visibly frustrated teacher said students were threatening and taunting him
•Cell phone video shows the man walking out of class and into the hallway
•Eventually returns to classroom and screams at the kids about their taunts
•Says he 'doesn't come to school to be threatened' and 'doesn't deserve it'
•School Board members and parents sympathized with the angry teacher
•Kim Gray, a school board member, said threats are linked to gang activity
Students can be heard laughing and seem to be calling the unidentified teacher's name
as they follow him out into the hallway. It's unclear if additional students were filming
the teacher as he walked away. The teacher walks through the corridor, followed by a
group of students before returning to the classroom. A uniformed school resource
officer appears to be watching the class for the teacher and stands near the doorway
once he returns. Once inside, the teacher seems to snap and begins shouting at the

16. JONES, S. (2016, SEPTEMBER 11). RICHMOND TEACHER REFUSES TO GIVE UP AFTER BEING
THREATENED BY STUDENTS. RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://WTVR.COM/2016/11/11/RICHMOND-TEACHER-REFUSES-TO-GIVE-UP-AFTER-BEING-
THREATENED-BY-STUDENTS/
As the back and forth continued, the situation escalated. “I was next on their list of
people to fight,” said the Richmond teacher. “They said if you don’t stop talking to me
like that… one actually said himself ‘I am going to F… you up.’ I responded by telling
them that would be a bad idea,” said Browne. Browne’s emotional outburst was
captured on a cell phone camera…
That incident happened on a Wednesday. Browne said it was not until the following
Monday that he met with school administrators. “They felt bad and they were sorry,” he
said. But Browne says this wasn’t the first time that he’s been threatened in the school.
“I've been told that I better not be caught going out to my car in the parking lot. I've
been told, I better not see you outside of school,” said Browne. Richmond School Board
Member Kim Gray says teacher bullying is very frustrating at every level. "We've had
many teachers leave because they didn't feel safe in the classroom,” said Gray…
CBS 6 did some digging into the number of student offenses against Central Virginia
school staff that did not involve a weapon. In Richmond, Jones found there were 74
reported incidents for this school year, compared to 97 reported the year before.

17. MEAD, REBECCA. (2016). LEARN DIFFERENT. THE NEW YORKER, 92(4), 36. RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://WWW.NEWYORKER.COM/MAGAZINE/2016/03/07/ALTSCHOOLS-DISRUPTED-EDUCATION
“What is a castle?—that was your starting question today,” the teacher said. After the
girl wrote a response, on paper, the teacher snapped a photograph of the page, in order
to upload it to the girl’s playlist card.
She might also send it to a parent’s phone, using AltSchool Stream, an app that enables
instant communication between home and school. Meanwhile, above the students’
heads, a network of white audio recorders hung from the ceiling, and fish-eye lenses
were embedded in the walls. The goal of this surveillance system, AltVideo, is to
capture every word, action, and interaction, for potential analysis.
“Does every castle have torture?” the teacher said, her voice sounding sunny, if a bit
distracted. “That’s a good starting question for tomorrow” …
“For us to complete our mission, we need to get to the fifty million kids in public
school,” he said. So far, AltSchool’s data pool was small, and not particularly
“actionable.” But, Mediratta went on, “Raj and I both come from big-data backgrounds.
We have this deep belief that, as we start pulling in data, we will be able to find ways to

18. WANG, M. (2014, OCTOBER 15). CHARTER SCHOOL POWER BROKER TURNS PUBLIC
EDUCATION INTO PRIVATE PROFITS. RETRIEVED FROM
HTTPS://WWW.PROPUBLICA.ORG/ARTICLE/CHARTER-SCHOOL-POWER-BROKER-TURNS-
PUBLIC-EDUCATION-INTO-PRIVATE-PROFITS
In late February, the North Carolina chapter of the Americans for Prosperity Foundation — a group co-
founded by the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers — embarked on what it billed as a statewide tour of
charter schools, a cornerstone of the group's education agenda. The first — and it turns out, only — stop
was Douglass Academy, a new charter school in downtown Wilmington. Douglass Academy was an unusual
choice. A few weeks before, the school had been warned by the state about low enrollment. It had just 35
students, roughly half the state's minimum. And a month earlier, a local newspaper had reported that
federal regulators were investigating the school's operations. But the school has other attributes that may
have appealed to the Koch group.
The school's founder, a politically active North Carolina businessman named Baker Mitchell, shares the
Kochs' free-market ideals. His model for success embraces decreased government regulation, increased
privatization and, if all goes well, healthy corporate profits. In that regard, Mitchell, 74, appears to be
thriving. Every year, millions of public education dollars flow through Mitchell's chain of four nonprofit
charter schools to for-profit companies he controls. The schools buy or lease nearly everything from
companies owned by Mitchell. Their desks. Their computers. The training they provide to teachers. Most of
the land and buildings. Unlike with traditional school districts, at Mitchell's charter schools there's no
competitive bidding. No evidence of haggling over rent or contracts. The schools have all hired the same
for-profit management company to run their day-to-day operations. The company, Roger Bacon Academy,
is owned by Mitchell. It functions as the schools' administrative arm, taking the lead in hiring and firing
school staff. It handles most of the bookkeeping. The treasurer of the nonprofit that controls the four
schools is also the chief financial officer of Mitchell's management company. The two organizations even
share a bank account. Mitchell's management company was chosen by the schools' nonprofit board, which
Mitchell was on at the time — an arrangement that is illegal in many other states…
From the "White House," Mitchell and other top administrators could watch teachers in their classrooms via
surveillance cameras installed in every classroom, in every school. During a tour of school grounds with this

19. WEISS, J. (2007). "EYES ON ME REGARDLESS": YOUTH RESPONSES TO HIGH SCHOOL
SURVEILLANCE. EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS, 21(1-2), 47+. RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://LINK.GALEGROUP.COM/APPS/DOC/A190851376/OVIC?U=VIVA_VCU&XID=DF8905E8
Surveilling is watching like stalking almost. Like if I was to
observe you, I would observe you only for this moment.
Surveillance is constant, often. Like if they was to observe me,
they would observe the hair, or how my nose is always runny,
or something like that. But if they was to be surveilling, they'd
find out my habits. I like drawing. I write with a grafitti
handstyle or I take the train home. stuff that they're not
supposed to know out of observation.

20. WEISS, J. (2007). "EYES ON ME REGARDLESS": YOUTH RESPONSES TO HIGH SCHOOL
SURVEILLANCE. EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS, 21(1-2), 47+. RETRIEVED FROM
HTTP://LINK.GALEGROUP.COM/APPS/DOC/A190851376/OVIC?U=VIVA_VCU&XID=DF8905E8
The student-organized walkout agitated policymakers and school officials (warranting phone
calls home to the parents of every student who walked out) and made the headlines in the local
and national news. While it did not remove the metal detectors (it actually increased them),
students like Esteban suggest that the walkout's greatest achievement was that it "did create
awareness." Though they were disappointed that the protest didn't achieve its aim and that it
was not followed up by another protest, (11) student upon student agreed that the walkout
"showed to a lot of officials that youth do have a voice." Fernando Carlo, an organizer from Sistas
and Brothas United believes that the protest forced adults to take youth more seriously. He
explains,
Now all these people see that students understand what's going on; they understand that they
[students] do feel uncomfortable--they realize the metal detectors don't help and they create all
these other problems and the students know and I think the number one excuse for why
students aren't involved in this kind of decision-making is because 'oh, students don't know.'
Well, the students are smart enough to realize the metal detectors aren't helping; they're smart
enough to get all these other students together and walk off to the region office and get a
meeting, so I definitely think it [the walkout] made people jump up on their toes and realize that
students know.
And finally, according to one student, the walkout reminded both students and teachers that

21. DICESARE, E., & EDWARDS, LEIGH. (2010). SURVEILLANCE, INTERACTIVITY, AND REALITY
TV: CREATING A SOCIETY OF COMPLIANCE, PROQUEST DISSERTATIONS AND THESES.
With schools violating students‘ right to privacy (as in
such instances as suspending them for activities that
are being conducting during off school hours), the
line between public/and private spaces is
diminishing. During school hours teachers, principals
and the like are the ones responsible for the welfare
of the children in attendance. Once the school day
has ended their right to monitor and control the
students has ended as well. Schools are removing the
right to parent from the actual parents. The
surveillance that many schools are engaging in has
become shocking and questionable, at best.

22. AYERS, WILLIAM. (2011). TRUDGE TOWARD FREEDOM: MORAL COMMITMENT AND ETHICAL
ACTION IN EDUCATION. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 42, 17-24.
Remember the “two minutes hate” from George Orwell's 1984—the daily period
in which party members were required to stare at images of the party's enemies
(notably Emmanuel Goldstein) and express their disgust in howling unison, a
form of brainwashing and the utter demonization of a manufactured enemy, the
attempt to whip people into a frenzy of hatred and loathing, and to distract
them from the reality of their own lives. (Even the brilliant George Orwell could
not imagine Fox News and its 24/7 exercise in hate.) With Wikileaks the US
never addresses the content of the documents, the dark and dirty secrets of the
war makers, the cozy don’t ask/don’t tell relationship with the nastiest dictators
on earth, stunning violence and the cold rationalization, the murderousness
followed by the lies, deception, and coverups, and never faces the most obvious
and damning truth of the whole affair: we, too, live in a barricaded, secret
society, a garrison state that supports and is supported by a war culture.

23. AYERS, WILLIAM. (2011). TRUDGE TOWARD FREEDOM: MORAL COMMITMENT AND ETHICAL
ACTION IN EDUCATION. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 42, 17-24.
Resisting the war culture and the degrading of democracy is a way to sing the dark
times, too. War culture is everywhere: at athletic events where everyone is expected to
sing ritualistic patriotic songs at the start, and where uniformed and armed people
march with flags onto the field of play; at airports where uniformed military people are
given a designated waiting area and priority boarding; in our schools where military
recruiters have free reign; in our language, where “service” is degraded and distorted to
mean time in the uniformed military. Just as a little blue-sky exercise, imagine any bit
of the war culture transformed into a peace and love culture: the super bowl opening
with thousands of local school kids rushing through the stands distributing their
poetry, and then everyone singing “This Land is Your Land” or “Give Peace a Chance,” or
“We Shall Overcome”; an airlines clerk saying, “We want to invite any teachers or nurses
in the gate area to board first, and we thank you for your service.”
The US spends a trillion dollars a year on war and preparation for war, more than the
rest of the world combined. The war culture accepts that as a desire for peace. The US
has military bases stretching across the globe, including a base in the Italian Alps, and
yet there are no Italian air bases in the Catskills, for example. The war culture sees that
as sensible and necessary. The war culture is everywhere, sometimes visible and always

24. AYERS, WILLIAM. (2011). TRUDGE TOWARD FREEDOM: MORAL COMMITMENT AND ETHICAL
ACTION IN EDUCATION. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 42, 17-24.
All schools, of course, serve the societies in which they're
embedded—an ancient agrarian community apprentices the
young for
participation in that world, apartheid schools mirror an apartheid
society, and
so on. In fact, an outsider can learn a lot about any society by
simply peeking
into its classrooms—the old South Africa had beautiful palaces of
learning and
small state-of-the-art classes for the white kids and
overcrowded, dilapidated,
and ill-equipped classes for the African kids. It makes perfect
and perverse
sense. Conversely, our outside observer could deduce what
classrooms must

25. AYERS, WILLIAM. (2011). TRUDGE TOWARD FREEDOM: MORAL COMMITMENT AND ETHICAL
ACTION IN EDUCATION. PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES IN EDUCATION, 42, 17-24.
Schools serve society; society is reflected in its schools. And in the modern world we see some
differences as well as interesting similarities and noteworthy overlapping goals across systems.
School leaders in fascist Germany or communist Albania or medieval Saudi Arabia or apartheid
South Africa, for example, all agreed that students should behave well, stay away from drugs and
crime, and master the subject matters, so those things don’t differentiate a democratic
education from any other. We all want the kids to do well. Practically all schools want their
students to study hard and do their homework. Furthermore, schools in fascist Germany
produced some excellent scientists and athletes and musicians and so on. They also produced
obedience and conformity, moral blindness and easy agreement, obtuse patriotism and a
willingness to follow orders right into the furnaces. In a democracy one would expect something
different—and this takes us to first principles: democracy is based on a common faith in the
incalculable value of every human being, and that means that whatever the wisest and most
privileged parents want for their kids is exactly what the community wants as a minimum
standard for all of its children.
Arne Duncan as well as the Obama children attended the University ofChicago Laboratory
Schools (as did our three sons), where they had small classes, abundant resources, and

26. MONAHAN, T., & TORRES, RODOLFO D. (2010). SCHOOLS UNDER SURVEILLANCE :
CULTURES OF CONTROL IN PUBLIC EDUCATION(CRITICAL ISSUES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY).
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.: RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Even a quick look at the grades given to Florida schools under the state’s new rating
system found that “no school where less than 10% of the students qualify for free lunch
scored below a C, and no school where more than 80% of the students qualify scored
above a C.” (2001)
This point raises a profound, fascinating, angering, and comedic point about the
assessment logistics and rationales behind the testing campaign. They are, of course,
promised as tools of assessment that will compel schools to confront the strengths and
weaknesses of their performance as educators… what we know abut standardized tests,
test-specific training, and the importance of socioeconomic background in explaining
student performance means that for the most part, the NCLB testing regime measure a
mix of socioeconomic background and a schools ability to teaching children how to
take the test successfully. It is with good reason that America’s classroom teachers are
galled by the assertions and impositions of these tests, and it is easy to understand why
politicians frequently use and attack on NCLB testing as one of their best applause

27. MONAHAN, T., & TORRES, RODOLFO D. (2010). SCHOOLS UNDER SURVEILLANCE :
CULTURES OF CONTROL IN PUBLIC EDUCATION(CRITICAL ISSUES IN CRIME AND SOCIETY).
NEW BRUNSWICK, N.J.: RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS.
Being watched does not always appear threatening
to urban teens. But it is constant. The youth
interviewed and observed are sensitive to the Janus
face of surveillance. They believe it can protect
them in certain circumstances, but in other
contexts, the fact of surveillance creeps in and
takes something. It unsettles and prods. It
observes on the one hand and profiles on the other
(215).
Jan Weiss, Scan This

28. CONCLUSIONS
The internet allows private individuals to mimic the functions of the surveillance
state. In addition technology has generated new possibilities for creation and
documentation of spectacles. This is a modern variant of panopticism which can
have deadly consequences when it occurs in schools. Because schools are loci for
complex social interactions, they can function as a site for this new form of
community self-surveillance. Cell phone photography and videography, in
conjunction with social networking, are the mediums which commonly and
conveniently facilitate this form of school-mediated panopticism. Art teachers must
become conversant in these media, as well as other forms of artmaking, which
critique this subject such as much of the work of Ai Weiwei. They can help students
investigate how a school community can mimic a government and how the
disposition to record, document, and exact retribution found in actors (including
students, teachers, parents and guardians, and administrators, among others) at
schools resembles the state surveillance apparatus. These activities can have
significant beneficial and negative consequences. Therefore, in order to provide
high quality instruction, art teachers should encourage students to investigate these
new media in an intentional manner which focuses on socially responsible