How to say no

[OllieDuff]

I realise it might be a bit late (talent night this week...) but posting for future reference:

 

In your place, I'd explain your concerns to the teacher (backed by copies of relevant paperwork and legislation), highlight the particular risks that you are concerned about and suggest appropriate mitigation. Hopefully you can come to a compromise e.g. lower strobe intensity or duration, lasers over the audience not in the audience, etc. For strobes, if you stay well away from certain flash rates then the risk is reduced. Artistically, remember that your super cool snazzy effect loses its impact if you overuse it. Make your case reasonably, be diplomatic ("I think we should do this differently to achieve a similar effect" as opposed to "you can't do it like that!"). If she throws it back in your face...

 

...say you won't do it because you don't want the moral responsibility. Forget who gets sued/eats prison chow, if you set up the laser for crowd scanning without the necessary precautions, or use the strobe excessively and someone gets hurt, you will feel responsible because you didn't take every reasonable step to keep them from harm. Your audience will go to that talent show expecting that they'll be safe from eye injuries and epileptic seizures and you unless you're a sociopath, you don't want to let them down. If the teacher is that wedded to using that particular effect, you don't have the authority to forbid her from doing so, and you can't physically stop her unless there's an immediate danger - e.g. you can see someone seizing so you pull the plug on the strobe - but you can tell her to take the moral responsibility and do it herself. A possible outcome of this is that she'll realise she has no idea how to use the gear, and will come back and ask for your input (I did this successfully on a school show, although I was blessed with a very relaxed and personable head of drama).

 

Others have pointed out that there are people in real life who mistake volume and aggression for good leadership, and that you'll have to deal with them in later life. It's a fair comment but get this - you're at school to learn, not to do tech. Unless you're studying a course in technical theatre and it's part of your curriculum, or you're employed to provide technical services to all shows in that venue, you are NOT obliged to provide ANY technical service to the school any more than they could force you to play in the school band or join the chess team. Obviously if you want to work on that particular gig (or indeed work gigs at your school in general) then you'll have to put up with being yelled at unfairly, doing your best to meet the teacher's exacting demands and so forth, but they don't have the right to tell you to do something you're uncomfortable with just because you help with shows sometimes. You are (I assume) doing tech because it's fun, and if it stops being fun because you're getting shouted at or being asked to take risks that you don't want to take, you can stop. If you're doing it as a lead-in to a career in the industry, then I might suggest you want to look elsewhere (local theatres or other nearby schools) to do your thing.

 

Do you have a particular reason to think that saying no will affect your report or grades? If not, then tell the teacher no, explain why, and see what happens. Fundamentally if your final report is massively out of line with your academic performance during the year then another staff member will notice and raise questions; your parents will definitely notice if you're not doing as well as you should be and you can then get them to talk to the school about it. If your teacher has explicitly told you that your tech work will affect your grade, I would suggest talking to another member of staff or, again, your parents and try to find out if this is true (I'd be surprised), and if it's not then there's a more fundamental problem with the teacher that you should get your parents to raise with the senior staff at your school.

 

Getting chewed out for being late to stuff is a feature of school life, even if it's not fair. Suck it up, buy a planner and check regularly with other people who are in your class/doing your gig/on your sports team. Pretty much the only excuse you can actually get away with is if your teacher specifically told you that you wouldn't be needed at a meeting or rehearsal.

[Boggy]

</Crankypants ON>

I am finding this topic a bit strange.

The original poster was asking for some info on lasers and strobes and what is safe.

Most of the posts indicate that that the OP should go and find the information. Why has not one person supplied any usable information or a link to usable information???

 

I would like to think that in The Next Generation we could provide a little more than "Look it Up yourself"

 

I will start the ball rolling with this Wiki

 

If you can find the make and model of the strobe and laser, you may be able to find the manufacturers website which may have a manual for the device. This may have relavent safety info.

Does anyone else know of a manufacturers website which may have safety related information?

</Crankypants OFF>

[kerry davies]

No, Cable was not seeking info. The questions were A) is this reasonable and B)how do I say no.

 

In this instance it is fairly safe to assume that the teacher in question is ignorant of HS(G)95 and what she suggests would therefore be rendering the school insurance policies and H&S rules invalid.

 

School pupils should have no need to research these things, teachers must, it is their duty of care in law.

 

This is one of my pet bugbears with teachers, they often undertake industrial processes such as WaH, power supply, laser usage and much more with complete disregard for competence assuming they have some sort of dispensation from the law or the consequences of idiocy. They don't.

[alistairhammond]

It's now been two week's since the OP's planned talent show. Perhaps he would like to give us an update of what has happened?

[gnomatron]

I think looking for manufacturer's data isn't a bad idea though; there's quite possible safety recommendations for the kit that run counter to what the teacher wants to do. For example the Martin Atomic's manual states to "Avoid extended periods of continuous flashing, particularly at frequencies of 10 to 20 flashes per second". It's quite vague admittedly but gives a third party source that can't easily be ignored.

[brainwave-generator]

Is this still going on? http://www.blue-room.org.uk/public/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif

 

It's not a technical-industry issue. It's a school issue, nothing more.

 

Teacher asks pupil to do something. Pupil doesn't want to do it as they think it endangers him or somebody else.

 

The ONLY route of action is for the pupil to say "Miss/Sir, I don't want to do this". If necessary, the pupil can tell their form tutor that they feel they are being treated unfairly by the teacher in question and being asked to do something unreasonable.

 

There is no need to go reading books or manuals or anything like that, just telling a form tutor that they're unhappy is sufficient, it is their professional and (by duty of care, legal) responsibility to follow up that complaint.

 

You cannot truly expect <16 year old pupils to undertake independent research and submit a report detailing why an activity is unsafe. That's absurd.

[chelgrian]

The same thing applies to employees who assume they can do or say what they want . If the young people earned the respect they demand, I'd be happy - but they want it as a right not something earned.

 

If older people earned the respect they demand, I'd be happy - but they want it as a right not something earned.

 

Being twenty years beyond of this now and looking back on secondary school there were two perhaps three teachers I had that deserved respect, those were the ones that wanted to transfer their ideas and skills. The rest wanted to impose their will.

 

Sorry but regardless of age my respect of someone is going to be based upon their responses in various situations and their ability to think. That was true then and it's true now.

[Ynot]

Hmmm...

On the whole, when dealing with general life, I'd say that the earning of respect needs to go both ways, and usually works.

 

But in the case of education, it almost goes without saying that, to a point, a teacher should be afforded a certain amount of respect by pupils as a default. That doesn't mean necesarily immediate respect as an individual, but the respect due them because of the psosition they are in. Whether further respect is earned (in both directions) through the school year depends on how both sides behave and react, but at the end of the day the teachers DO have a right to be treated with deference.

 

That doesn't, of course, mean that either side can lose the respect of the other by behaving poorly, but the teacher/student relationship has to have some uncrossable boundaires.

[Just Some Bloke]

Moderation: At this point we moved into an OT discussion about education theory and relationships between teachers and students. THis has now been split off and can be found here

[JCC1996]

I know that this is a bit late, and slightly OT, but I thought that I would say something. A lot of the comments so far seem to be about teachers thinking they know it all and making that obvious! I don't know if its just me, but my performing arts department is brilliant! There are a few teachers that are really knowledgable and I use them in every way I can- they have been doing this for way longer than me so every little tip I can get from them is like gold: from how to wrap up a cable, to mixing techniques, mic placement etc.

 

There are also a few teachers that thought they knew stuff they really didn't. I put up with them for a while when I first started tech, then by being polite and listening to them while I was still at the bottom of the learning curve they got to know that I knew what I was talking about and most of them are happy to leave me to it. There is one tutor who still tries things (like moving the faders or adjusting the EQ while I'm mixing) but I have taken to asking him what he is about to do before he does it and then explaining why I have the board set as it is and the requesting he leave it that way.

 

The point I am making is that until I had the knowledge to justify things, I let them happen, learned from them and, at the end of day, its all knowledge I wouldn't have had if I'd gone in a huff! The other outcome is that by getting to be known as someone who will listen to advise, I have gained the trust of the teachers. They will happily leave me unsupervised to design the sound for school show, safe in the knowledge that I know what I'm doing, and even more importantly, that I will not hesitate to ask for help, advice or opinions if I am unsure about something!

 

During the rehearsals for that show there was a particular incident that I would like to highlight. We had gone in on a Sunday to rehearse and one of the teachers spoke to us in such a horrible way- we asked for a page number of where we were starting from and he flew off the handle- that we threatened to leave. He immediately apologised and told us he appreciated what we were doing, and that he was stressed. The point to come from this is that teachers get stressed too. Perhaps at that rehearsal you got shouted at something else had gone wrong? You have no idea what had just happened before that, it doesn't make it right for her anger to be taken out on you, but it perhaps shows some insight into her motives!

 

Basically, what I am saying is that you should take in every gem of knowledge from everyone in the department, always be polite and tactful- because the teacher that you think doesn't understand strobes and lasers may well be the one that passes on a valuable skill later on!!

 

As for appreciation: myself and the tech crew bought the teachers that helped us out a box of chocolates as a thank you. We went to the staff room to give it to them, and they came out and met us... with trophies. They had bought the tech crew trophies as a thank you for our effort! Stick in, start at the bottom and work your way up: it will be worth it in the end!!

[Boggy]

The ONLY route of action is for the pupil to say "Miss/Sir, I don't want to do this". If necessary, the pupil can tell their form tutor that they feel they are being treated unfairly by the teacher in question and being asked to do something unreasonable.

 

You cannot truly expect <16 year old pupils to undertake independent research and submit a report detailing why an activity is unsafe. That's absurd.

 

I agree that a detailed report is absurd and that is why I am still asking for some basic infomation.

 

I think if a student (or employee) is to say "Miss/Sir, I don't want to do this" I think it is safe to assume they will be asked "Why do you not want to do this?" Great care must be taken in answering this question. If you say that you think the activity is not safe it could be taken that you are accusing the teacher (or your boss) of acting in an unsafe manner. I see this path as a dangerous one that will probably not end well.

 

I would try and get some basic information so that I could then say to the teacher "I have been looking into the operation of lasers and strobe lights and found there are some safety concerns". Hand over one or two sheets of info from internet or indicate that you have been talking to the local hire company. Continue with "Do you have any safety information on these devices or should I operate the laser above the crowd and limit the strobe to 10 seconds?" I would always look concerned and never smug. You want to make it easy for the teacher to choose the right path. Even this strategy may not end well but I think it is the most likely path to getting a safe outcome from the teacher. It is too easy to do the right thing and get in trouble from an ignorant teacher or boss.

 

Edited to improve argument.

[brainwave-generator]

If you say that you think the activity is not safe it could be taken that you are accusing the teacher (or your boss) of acting in an unsafe manner. I see this path as a dangerous one that will probably not end well.

 

 

True, but if you say that you feel uncomfortable in partaking in the activity since you don't feel that your own abilities are sufficient to take on such responsibilities, there is little they can accuse you of.

 

Remember, this is not the commercial world. It's a school. They're not going to have people piling on the pressure if you say you don't want to do something you don't feel comfortable with. They have a duty of care which takes utmost priority, well above playing with lasers in the school production.

[smalljoshua]

They're not going to have people piling on the pressure if you say you don't want to do something you don't feel comfortable with. They have a duty of care which takes utmost priority, well above playing with lasers in the school production.

You'd like to think so wouldn't you.

 

Unfortunately, my experience in both my old secondary and also other schools in the local area, shows this to be very lacking in the performing arts departments. The idea that 'elf and safety will get in the way of a drama teacher's creative vision is one of absurdity in the establishments that I learnt and worked in.

 

Yes, it would be nice if the duty of care came first. But from my recent first hand experience, this is rarely the case.

 

Josh

[brainwave-generator]

They're not going to have people piling on the pressure if you say you don't want to do something you don't feel comfortable with. They have a duty of care which takes utmost priority, well above playing with lasers in the school production.

You'd like to think so wouldn't you.

 

Unfortunately, my experience in both my old secondary and also other schools in the local area, shows this to be very lacking in the performing arts departments. The idea that 'elf and safety will get in the way of a drama teacher's creative vision is one of absurdity in the establishments that I learnt and worked in.

 

Yes, it would be nice if the duty of care came first. But from my recent first hand experience, this is rarely the case.

 

Josh

 

If you feel that your teachers are failing in their duty of care over you, the correct action is to tell your parents; not to start writing legislation-based reports about why your teacher is wrong.

 

Also unlike the workplace, parents have a lot of ability to deal with issues that their children face at school.

 

Bottom line of it all is that at school you are not obliged to do anything apart from what is laid out in the school's regulations, and there will most definitely be a part of those which protects pupils in such a situation.