Many parents are finally calling for greater transparency in the classroom, and more control over what sorts of things their children are taught. If that s the goal, and it should be, then why aren t there cameras in every classroom in the country documenting everything that teachers do and say to their students? Also, The Media, including the media, marks the six-month anniversary of January 6th. As we get further and further away from that day, their retelling of it gets more and more dramatic and absurd. Andrew Cuomo also declares gun violence a public health emergency, and Joe Biden wants to go door-to-door to get people vaccinated. That s not creepy at all.
00:00:00.000Today on The Matt Wall Show, many parents are finally calling for greater transparency in the classroom and more control over what sorts of things their children are taught.
00:00:08.260If that's the goal, and it should be, then why aren't there cameras in every classroom in the country documenting everything that teachers do and say to their students?
00:00:15.600We'll talk about that today. Also, five headlines, including the media, marks the six-month anniversary of January 6th.
00:00:21.300As we get further and further away from that event, their retelling of it gets more and more dramatic and absurd.
00:00:26.660Andrew Cuomo also declares gun violence a public health emergency.
00:00:30.140And Joe Biden wants to go door-to-door to get people vaccinated. That's not creepy at all.
00:00:34.580In our Daily Cancellation, we'll discuss the orgy of ungrateful whining and complaining that accompanied July 4th this year.
00:00:40.900All of that and much more today on The Matt Wall Show.
00:00:43.020You know, if you're someone of an advanced age like myself at 35, or if you're older than like my kids,
00:01:00.260then you probably have many memories from your childhood that are documented on antiquated technology, camcorder tapes, physical pictures, those sorts of things.
00:01:11.660And the problem is that those kinds of memories, the memories fade, and the things that you're storing them on also can be destroyed and lost and left in boxes and all kinds of things.
00:01:20.960That's why you've got to rescue them and bring them into the 21st century, and Legacy Box can help you do that.
00:01:25.380Legacy Box is an effortless way to have your outdated media preserved in a modern format.
00:01:29.520And right now, they're offering 40% off so you can ensure your memories are safe for generations.
00:01:34.320Legacy Box is a way for you to easily and affordably digitally preserve your past.
00:01:37.300The process is so easy from start to finish.
00:02:13.600Before we get started, just want to remind you that, you know, the best thing that you can do today to help me,
00:02:19.720and really to help yourself, is if you're watching this on YouTube, remember to hit like and subscribe.
00:02:24.860And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, remember to subscribe, but also to leave a five-star review if you like the show.
00:02:32.820And even if you don't like it, still leave the five-star review because it makes me feel good about myself.
00:02:36.480But more importantly, it helps the algorithms and all that kind of stuff.
00:02:39.620And that is, again, it's the most important thing you can do today.
00:02:42.460The other most important thing is you can listen to what we're going to talk about to start the show.
00:02:47.100You know, if you want to take a trip, let's say, and you can't bring your precious poodle along for the journey,
00:02:54.400you can always hand them over to your local dog boarding facility.
00:02:57.720Here in Nashville, for example, one fine option is a place called Camp Bow Wow.
00:03:02.160And if you go to Camp Bow Wow, unpaid endorsement here, you'll find a feature on the website that has become nearly ubiquitous at these sorts of places, a live webcam.
00:03:12.040And through this function, a customer is able to tune in anytime and see how their pooch is being treated and cared for by the staff.
00:03:19.980They also might just be curious to know what little Fido or whatever is up to and how he's getting along with all the other hairy, mangy, slobbering beasts.
00:03:27.280There are many potential reasons why a dog owner might want to have this kind of access.
00:03:32.800And it's hard to imagine any real downside to it.
00:03:36.060What's the, we can imagine some advantages to having the webcam.
00:03:42.640Everyone agrees that there is probably too much surveillance going on in our society today.
00:03:48.000But most of the bad sort of surveillance is the kind where we are being watched, often without our knowledge, by people who have no right or reason to be watching us.
00:03:57.640Most of us agree, though, that surveillance can be good and has a place when it enables us to see what's happening with and to something we care about, like our dogs or our money, which is why nobody complains about bank tellers being closely monitored.
00:04:14.360Bank tellers today have cameras all over the place focused on every little thing they're doing.
00:04:21.660Daycares, human daycares, I mean, also have cameras for this same reason oftentimes.
00:04:25.520It's not that we actively distrust the staff at the dog boarding place or the bank or the daycare.
00:04:31.380If we actively distrusted them, we wouldn't be sending our dog there or our money there or our kid there.
00:04:37.360It's just that these people are handling very precious cargo and transparency and accountability are therefore urgently important.
00:04:46.740You would certainly be quite suspicious of a dog boarder who steadfastly refused to put up cameras.
00:04:52.460I mean, it's one thing if they couldn't afford it, but if they could afford it and said, no, we absolutely refuse to do that on principle, you probably wouldn't send your dog there.
00:05:03.060You know, imagine a daycare facility that said that it wanted, you know, we don't want cameras because we want our staff to have more privacy as they care for your toddler.
00:05:10.760You don't need to see what's happening here.
00:05:33.760They create greater accountability for police officers, which is good because they are agents of the state who necessarily wield unique power and authority.
00:05:43.140But they also potentially protect cops from any false claims made against them.
00:05:46.440Just think about where the cop in the Micaiah Bryant shooting would be today if he hadn't been wearing his body camera.
00:05:52.540Remember, witnesses and media reports claimed that a racist cop had randomly murdered a helpless, unarmed child.
00:05:59.640It was only because of his camera that we quickly discovered the truth, which is the unarmed child was a teenager armed with a knife and was in the process of trying to stab another teenager to death when the officer fired, saving the victim's life.
00:06:13.400This is why, though police shootings themselves are often controversial, the body cameras allowing us to see these incidents generally are not anymore.
00:06:22.380In the aftermath of any shooting caught on camera, you rarely hear anyone, cop or citizen, say that they wish we were not able to see it.
00:06:35.200Something happens and there's no body camera and we all say, well, I wish we could just see this.
00:06:40.260But nobody ever says, after something like Micaiah Bryant is caught on camera, no one ever says, oh, man, I wish there was no video of this.
00:06:49.520If almost everyone agrees that we should have cameras to see what dog boarders and bank tellers and cops and daycare workers are doing, why don't we have cameras to see what public school teachers are doing?
00:07:04.660If you would not send your dog away for a few hours or a few days without the ability to check in and see for yourself what's happening with him, why shouldn't you have the same sort of access to your own child?
00:07:19.380If you want this level of accountability and transparency for people who watch our pets and handle our money and care for our toddlers and enforce our laws, why shouldn't we want it?
00:07:29.080Why don't we want it for the people teaching our kids?
00:07:33.660The current and, of course, well-warranted backlash against critical race theory in schools represents, I think, something of an awakening for many parents.
00:07:41.480They finally seem to realize that the school system cannot be implicitly and absolutely trusted to teach children whatever it sees fit to teach them.
00:07:50.240Parents have a right to know what is being taught and to have a say in what is being taught.
00:08:14.600Public school teachers are government employees entrusted to perform a particular task.
00:08:19.360They do not have the right to deviate from that task whenever and however they like.
00:08:26.980They don't have the right to stand on their perch as teachers and assume the additional roles of counselor, psychiatrist, parent, spiritual guru.
00:08:37.960Their job is important, but it's limited.
00:08:43.560And parents ought to know whether and how that job is being performed.
00:08:47.400Cameras are not the only way to accomplish this task, but they are an important tool.
00:08:54.420And though we use them to this end in so many other facets of life, we seem to have exempted public schools entirely.
00:09:19.720And one common refrain was that cameras would infringe on privacy and freedom in the classroom.
00:09:28.440Now, I understand the privacy objection as it pertains to the kids.
00:09:32.860As a parent, now, I don't send my kids to public school at all.
00:09:35.780But if I did, I certainly wouldn't want a live classroom webcam that any person could use to monitor my children.
00:09:43.920You know, I don't want a random Joe Schmo down the street who doesn't even have kids in the classroom watching the classroom webcam for whatever his reasons might be.
00:09:59.220But there are easy and obvious ways around this problem.
00:10:03.720The cameras could be password protected.
00:10:05.820Only parents with custody of their children are given the code to access the cameras.
00:10:11.520Also, the cameras, here's a really easy thing, could just focus on the front of the room capturing just the teacher.
00:10:17.160Perhaps only the audio would be accessible to parents under normal circumstances with the video being released whenever there's an incident or a controversy like we do with police body cameras.
00:10:28.520There's also face-blurring technology that could be utilized to protect the privacy of children even more.
00:10:33.700There are dozens of workarounds which immediately present themselves if the concern is over the privacy of the students in the class.
00:10:41.780That's a reasonable concern, but we can deal with that.
00:10:49.980The thing is, though, for most critics of the camera and the classroom idea, the concern seems to be equally, if not primarily, the privacy and freedom of the teachers.
00:11:02.380And I have no workarounds for that because public school teachers, in their capacity as public school teachers, should have no privacy.
00:11:12.740Or I will say, only as much privacy as we grant bank tellers, and for the same reason.
00:11:19.180Now, we're not going to follow them into the bathroom or even the break room with cameras, but when they're on the clock performing the task for which they are paid, they should be monitored closely.
00:11:31.020If our money is too important to simply trust that the nice lady at PNC will be honest in her handling of it, then how much more important are our children?
00:11:39.420Of course, the main thing we're looking to guard against is the psychological abuse and exploitation of students through ideological and political indoctrination.
00:11:49.740Which is an epidemic, and it's going on in every single school in the country.
00:11:55.400And that's one of the primary things that the camera could guard against.
00:12:01.900I mean, keep in mind that according to the Department of Education's own study in 2004, this again I emphasize, the Department of Education commissioned this study in 2004.
00:12:12.400And they found that nearly 10% of students are victims of sexual misconduct by educators.
00:12:19.360Now, that amounts to like 3 or 4 million victims at any given time.
00:12:24.120All the more reason for greater surveillance.
00:12:28.320And like police body cameras, the protection goes both ways.
00:12:33.520Teachers who are falsely accused of inappropriate actions in the classroom, which happens, can simply point to the tape.
00:12:41.040Teachers stuck in parent-teacher conferences trying to convince oblivious parents that their little angel is actually a demon-possessed terrorist in the classroom will now have video evidence to prove it.
00:12:51.680Oh, my little junior would never act like that.
00:15:03.340You will never be rid of me ever again.
00:15:06.000Two things, two quick notes from, not really from the trip.
00:15:10.140Well, I had another long marathon drive of a thousand miles that I did over the course of the last two days.
00:15:15.020And two just things that I saw that I have to mention to you because to me they were notable.
00:15:21.720Um, the first and the main thing is I guess a shout out I want to give to the town of, I think it was Woodstock, Virginia, right off of, um, right off of, of, uh, of 81.
00:15:34.980And I was going through this town and I saw, and I hadn't, I hadn't, it's been years since I've seen this.
00:15:41.620I saw a radio shack, a real live radio shack, not a, not a museum.
00:15:47.040It was like a real one with, with people inside it.
00:15:50.320And, uh, it was right next to, I kid you not, a video rental store in Woodstock, Virginia.
00:15:58.040If you don't believe me, you can go, um, I'll send tourists now to Woodstock.
00:38:19.920Nicole Hannah-Jones, who passed up a position at UNC, who will be teaching the Elk Road at Howard.
00:38:25.280She said this morning that it took protest, the threat of legal action, all this just to get to a 9-4 vote.
00:38:32.520What does Biden make of the UNC process and her decision?
00:38:36.340And is this an example of the systemic racism that he promised to heal?
00:38:39.920Well, I have not spoken with the president about the decision on tenure by the institution in North Carolina.
00:38:46.600I will say that the students at Howard are quite lucky to have her as a professor and in their family.
00:38:52.280But I think there's no question that there continues to be systemic racism in our country.
00:38:58.360We see that in a range of sectors, including in some learning institutions.
00:39:02.300But the president, that's why the president is continuing to make racial equity and addressing racial equity as a central priority and crisis that he would like to address and focus on as president.
00:40:09.040And Jen Psaki's response to that is that this is somehow systemic racism, and there's still systemic racism in the education system,
00:40:16.660which, of course, we have to say again, she's right.
00:40:20.780There is systemic racism in the education system, and it's systemic racism that leads to a situation where, you know, a white student who is more qualified than a black student might not make it in,
00:40:36.400and instead the black student will be in there because of racial discrimination against the white person.
00:40:41.780So there is systemic racism in education, but it is anti-white and also anti-Asian racism.
00:40:48.860Well, we always have to clarify that because you hear conservatives sometimes say, oh, systemic racism in education, that doesn't exist.
00:40:55.100And I probably say that sometimes when, you know, when you get a little, when you're not being specific enough.