Video Killed the Faculty Star

For this blog post, I read Video Killed the Faculty Star Inside Higher Ed. This article had some interesting points. Before I read the article in its entirety, I tried to find all of the videos that are discussed in it. Unfortunately, I was only able to find the video of the professor from Cornell who became angry with a student who was loudly yawning. The video seemed absolutely plausible to me. I did not notice any editing or breaks in the video. It seemed as if the professor was genuinely very angry at the student for yawning. If I were that student, I would definitely not fess up. I know that there is one camp--most likely other college professors--who would agree that this video was edited or taken out of context. However, there is probably another camp--most likely students--who would agree that the video was 100% real. I think that I belong to the camp of students. I am well aware of the capability of video editing but I cannot wrap my head around why the professor would say any of the things he said. Edited or not, the professor did say all of those things and that just seems outrageous to me. 

The matter of the article, however, is that this kind of "TMZ-ification"(Inside Higher Ed) is becoming a huge issue in higher education programs across the nation. The videos could simply be the result of an angry student trying to sabotage his professor or they could indicate something more serious. Everybody knows that feeling that comes about halfway through the semester...we all--students and professors alike--start to lose our minds a little bit. It seems as if there are a million papers to write, tests to take, or presentations to give and as difficult as all of that is for the student, the teacher is the one that has to grade all of that multiplied by hundreds of students. That being said, I understand why the Cornell professor would be easily agitated. Aren't we all when we're under a significant amount of stress? Even though I understand where the outburst could have come from, it does not change the fact that the professor lashed out in an inappropriate way and someone just so happened to catch it on tape.