Friday, June 15, 2012

“Hysteria” about the Galvanic Response Skin Bracelet? « Diane Ravitch's blog

“Hysteria” about the Galvanic Response Skin Bracelet? « Diane Ravitch's blog:


“Hysteria” about the Galvanic Response Skin Bracelet?

Here is an education professor in Kentucky who thinks that I reacted “hysterically” to the Gates-funded galvanic response skin bracelet.
He describes me as a defender of the “status quo” because I have a distrust of people from on high telling teachers how to teach and punishing them when they can’t produce higher test scores every year. Also I do have an attachment to public schools as opposed to handing public dollars over to the private sector. I have this deep-seated preference for helping people when they need help instead of punishing them.
But I ask readers: Do you think that it is “hysterical” to worry about the use of devices to monitor the physiological reactions of students? I happen to think that it is a step towards “brave new world” thinking, this idea that school officials or teachers or government or anyone else has the power to watch us whether we like it