As the teacher screamed at his students repeatedly in anger, they sat and watched, as did the rest of the world via YouTube.

“So this is not a disciplinary plan I would advocate,” John Dively said Wednesday at “Essential Legal Concepts for PK-12 Teachers.”

At the event, a part of Teachers Tame the Prairie, Dively, chair of the Educational Leadership Department, gave students and faculty insight of legal concepts while teaching.

The YouTube video Dively showed titled “Screaming Teacher,” was an example of how teachers are always being watched.

“Teachers have no expectation of privacy in the classroom,” Dively said.

“Although the video was made without the teacher’s knowledge, deeming it illegal, a school board can still use knowledge of the video against the teacher,” said Dively

In the age of YouTube and Facebook, Dively said what a teacher puts on the web could possibly cost them their job.

“There are teachers that get canned all the time for this,” Dively said.

Although Facebook is separate from school, Dively said action can be taken against teachers who create posts that interfere with their ability to do their job.

At the beginning of the event, packets of a 55 true or false questions test were passed out for attendees to complete.

One statement in the packet read: It is best practice for teachers to “friend” their students on social networking sites?

This statement was false.

“They’re not your friends,” Dively said. “They’re students, you’re the teacher.”

Other statements in the packet dealt with proper conduct in and out of the classroom.

In some of situations in the packet, being a tenured teacher could make a difference between employed and unemployed.

Sabrina Pripusich, a senior elementary education major, was surprised to learn that as an untenured teacher, having an opinion could hurt their job.

During his presentation, Dively spoke on how taking an opinion on something, such as peace and no war, can put an untenured teacher at the risk of not getting renewed.

“It just opens up the ideas about the laws that are out there,” Pripusich said.

Dani Bates, a senior education major, said the event was helpful, but did not allow for enough time to cover everything.

After watching the YouTube video, Bates learned teachers have to be more careful with what they do in the classroom.

“Basically anything that you do, you can be held accountable for and you can always be videotaped,” she said.

Sam Bohne can be reached at 581-7942 or shbohne@eiu.edu.