Should the people involved be videoed?

While it is indeed true that videotaping such controversial incidents may serve well to shed light on certain actions which may be deemed unacceptable, it will also direct the person in question to unnecessary and biased criticisms and comments. As Jessie puts, this incident may have been one-off, and more importantly, the viewers of this video have not been at the scene at that moment of time and would not have been able to understand why and how it even happened. The problem with top schools such as HCJC and RIJC is that whatever happens that has to be with anyone from there would be blown up and exaggerated. Readers and viewers would not realize what they are seeing or reading is in fact, to an extent true yet false, and are blinded by the outrage from the biased POV. When such happens, it seems almost unfair to whoever is in the video that he or she is subject to insults and criticisms when it may not have been that big a deal.

Who is at fault?

Perhaps both the person who took the video and the teacher scolding the student could be considered at fault.

No one likes their privacy invaded, and I think if the person videotaping the incident was videotaped videotaping the incident, it would have been an extremely different story. Even if the student was videotaping for his own pleasure, to share with his close friends, the moment the video starts to circulate, it will slowly but surely find its way onto the mass media. The person who videotaped it may not have had the intention to put it online, but videotaping the incident would have increased the chances of it being exposed to the world. I am reminded of the “Tammy Sex Scandal”, where the person who videotaped the video had no intention to put it on the Net, yet someone who found the phone had done so. In such a case, it seems that the person who uploaded the video is the one who is most at fault.

But of course, for the teacher scolding the student, she could be considered at fault too, for scolding the student so badly and making herself vulnerable to be filmed and then attacked. It may have been one-off or exaggerated, but even so, one mistake is enough to turn your life upside down. For example, the principal who had hit a student with a book was immediately disapproved by the public and had to step down from his job. He may have been the nicest guy in the school for years, but that one mistake was enough to change his life.

What should not be done?

Since there are people considered at fault, they should then be considered not to have done what they did. Perhaps in the case of the teacher, she should have scolded the student (some students do need scolding -_-), but not so viciously as that might seriously damage the student’s ego and self esteem.

-yijiao Howled at 12:32 AM