Surveillance in Our Schools:
Happy Classroom, happier pupils!
SURVEILLANCE IN OUR SCHOOLS
Newswise —
ClassDojo is one of the most popular education apps in the world. Its
company estimates it is used by millions of teachers and children across
180 countries. Beneath its friendly exterior lie disturbing
implications, say researchers.
“Happier Classrooms: the
simple way to build an amazing classroom community.” So reads the
message greeting visitors to ClassDojo’s website. The app is free for
teachers and is widely embraced as an innovative means of encouraging
positive behaviour in students and building harmonious school
environments.
Its interface is colourful and inviting. Each child
in a class or school is assigned an avatar: a smiling, cartoonish
monster that represents them in the app. Based on a student’s behaviour
in different areas, the teacher can assign – with a Pavlovian ding or
harsh buzz – positive, neutral or negative Dojo points to their avatar.
This
gamifies behaviour for students and helps teachers to keep extensive
data on each of them. The app has expanded to become, in many places, a
school-wide social media and content sharing network. Users can sign up
as school leaders, teachers, parents, or students.
In a new paper,
education researchers from the University of South Australia (UniSA)
say that while the technology may be innovative, ClassDojo encourages an
archaic approach to school discipline and neglects a genuinely
educational approach to developing behaviour.
Further, they express concern that the app conditions children to accept rising levels of surveillance and control.
“Class
Dojo can be understood as yet another data-gathering surveillance
technology that is contributing to a culture of surveillance that has
become normalised in schools”, said Jamie Manolev, a doctoral candidate
at UniSA and the study’s lead author.
One of the biggest problems,
he said, is that the app focuses on controlling students rather than
helping them to build a deeper understanding about the why and how of
behaviours in a social setting.
ClassDojo uses Dojo points to
deliver a system of rewards and punishments based on a group of
pre-selected behaviours. The ClassDojo company even recommends that
teachers attach real world prizes to Dojo points. While rewards and
punishments can be effective in the short-term, Manolev said research
shows they can undermine children’s intrinsic motivation for positive
behaviours.
Further, said Mr Manolev, Dojo point scores reduce
students’ behaviour to a number, creating an illusion of simplicity that
does not help teachers understand the factors driving positive or
destructive behaviours. Instead, it creates “a behaviour economy in
which individuals appear as balance sheets of behaviour.”
Each
child’s total Dojo points – whether in the green or the red – are
visible to them, and can be put on display. This too can serve as a
means of control.
“Capable of being broadcast on large classroom
screens to the entire class, visible to anybody who enters, a numbered
ranking of students according to their behaviour fills the screen and
invites a comparison of students, said Mr Manolev.
“The audit-like
nature of this approach promotes competition between students in race
to the top of the rankings while creating a hierarchy that may influence
the way in which students understand themselves.”
Mr Manolev said
the app conditions students to accept “being watched” on an everyday
basis. “The surveillance mechanisms embedded within ClassDojo extend
beyond the walls of the classroom”, he said.
“Through its
digitised communication network ClassDojo provides teachers with the
ability to deliver a child’s behaviour data directly to parents, in real
time, along with continual access to constantly updated behaviour
profiles in the form of student reports.”
“This feature effectively subjects students to a weekly report card of their behaviour delivered directly to a parent’s inbox.”
“If
teachers modify their practice to implement ClassDojo according to
company recommendations, students will be subject to an intensification
of surveillance at school that encroaches into their homes, extending
school-based disciplinary regimes further in the lives of young people.”
As
an alternative to the approach to discipline encouraged by ClassDojo,
the authors argue for a more educational approach to discipline. “Such
an approach would be underpinned by the values of respect, caring, and
dignity, promoting practices that exhibit and develop such qualities in
students.”
“It
would recognise the complexities of behaviour and consider the role of
not only internal, but also external influences on behaviour such as
curriculum, pedagogy, relationships, and student experiences.
“It
would shift away from controlling discipline practices to practices that
engage students with learning, and incorporate student voice.”
Mr
Manolev points to the detrimental aspects of subjecting students to
high levels of surveillance, such as reducing risk taking, creativity,
and trust, while simultaneously increasing anxiety.
Comparison can
also be drawn between ClassDojo and China’s Social Credit System which
works much like a financial credit rating but based on behaviour. Both
systems rely on surveillance, rewards and punishments as behaviour
reinforcements, converting behaviour data into a score, and using those
scores to govern individuals and shape their behaviour.
