I’ve read a few articles in the last couple of days from different parts of the country all of which have the same basic theme.: A young boy (around 8 or 9 years old) is in a virtual classroom.  Somewhere in the child’s room there’s a toy gun, BB gun or a nerf gun which is in his shot. A teacher sees the gun, kicks the kid out of class (by blocking his Zoom connection) and reports the child to school authorities. In 2 cases the police were called to the home, in another the school wanted to expel the child and settled for suspension and counseling.

This reminds me of a news story from a couple of years back. A teen aged student had a school provided device. One evening, after school hours, this student is sitting in front the machine using it while eating M&Ms. Unknown to the student his Assistant Principal using the remote viewing software to “check up” on his students at night. Seeing his student doing what looked like popping pills, he took a screen shot an confronted the student the next day for his behavior at home.

I have a client who wants all of their staff to be on a video conference call all the hours they are working so management can see and hear what everyone is doing. I have problems with this because my better half and I share a workspace in the apartment. She needs to spend a chunk of her day talking finances with the people at her organization and neither one of us feel it’s appropriate to share her side of the conversation with everyone an my client’s staff.

All this leads to a question:

 In these times when we are merging our personal space with our scholastic / professional space, are we inviting teachers, students and coworkers into our home or are we expanding the class room and office into our homes and as such are subject to school / office rules?