Is It Normal for Professors to Take Pictures of Their Students?

[sean1234]

I have had two professors over the course of my academic career take a picture of each student to get know each of us, match a face to a name I guess. But both of these professors were kind of odd to begin with and both were male and math teachers. The whole prospect kind of creeps me out because I really wonder happens with those pictures. Anyone else have this happen?

 

[Pengwuino]

I had a professor SAY he was going to take pictures of the whole class... but he never did hehe.

 

[Smurf]

I've never had a professor do that. Or even threaten to like Pengwuino.

 

[Mk]

I really wonder happens with those pictures.

I think we all know. Close your eyes and shake a Yahtzee dice shaker. Open your eyes now. Or grease a pole. Or choke a nun. Or beat up a monkey.

 

[tribdog]

I never had a professor take my picture. My third grade teacher did though, lots of them, but I'll never tell. bastard

 

[Norman]

I had a CS teacher who was doing work in facial/iris recognition have as part of our final exam- that we had to let him take a picture of only our eyes. At the end of the semester though, we couldn't enforce it since there was some ethical conflict making us take part in his research project. The whole class basically volunteered though once the term was done.

When I teach it would be really helpful to take pictures of students to match them up with a name- but that just seems creepy. Never had a teacher do it to me, though.

 

[mattmns]

My high school chemistry/physics teacher did it. I had no problem with it.

 

[Artman]

Sure, but I never did find out why we had to be naked for a picture of our face.

 

[pmb_phy]

I have had two professors over the course of my academic career take a picture of each student to get know each of us, match a face to a name I guess. But both of these professors were kind of odd to begin with and both were male and math teachers. The whole prospect kind of creeps me out because I really wonder happens with those pictures. Anyone else have this happen?

I've never heard of it but it sounds like a great idea. Some profs just seem weird because they're very smart. Such people tend to have extremely bad memories so this doesn't surprise me. It actually sounds like a great idea. Perhaps you've been watching the news too much.

Pete

 

[Chi Meson]

Look, if the picture is a just of the face, I think it is OK. Why male math teachers? Probably because the type of person to get a PhD in math is also the type who want to do something as impressive as memorize their entire class. What numbers of students are we talking about here? 20? 40? 100?

 

[Gale]

my phys labs always take our picture, i hate it.

 

[sean1234]

Obviously exceptions to this, but it seems the ones that are pedophiles, sex offenders, etc are almost always male. Again generally I have found math professors to be less socially competent. Certainly, they are quite skilled at their profession and might consider social matters to be petty nonetheless, which might give others the impression of weirdness. The last class I had this done was linear algebra with about 80 people.

I had a history professor learn the names of everone in class of probably 70 people(no camera ). At the beginning of the year he would go down a row of desks and learn all the names. Eventually after a few days he finished all of the rows and names everyone in the room which he did almost perfectly.

 

[enigma]

My university gives the professors a sheet with pictures of all of their students from the photographs they took to give us our student IDs.

 

[Kalimaa23]

I had to do this for my Freshman Chemistry lab as well.

 

[tribdog]

My teacher took my picture all the time, but I was home schooled.

 

[pmb_phy]

Look, if the picture is a just of the face, I think it is OK. Why male math teachers? Probably because the type of person to get a PhD in math is also the type who want to do something as impressive as memorize their entire class. What numbers of students are we talking about here? 20? 40? 100?

One of my majors was math but my memory is horrible.

Pete

 

[tribdog]

if your other major was poetry you could have said, One of my majors was math but my memory is miserable.

 

[hypatia]

I had a teacher once tell me if I let him take photos he would give me a A...the problem, it was a easy A class anyways. But I think he did find someone, cause this dumb as a rock girl got a A.

 

[Moonbear]

My university gives the professors a sheet with pictures of all of their students from the photographs they took to give us our student IDs.

The university I'm working at now does this as well. It's actually incredibly helpful when you're teaching only one or two classes and have to grade on class participation before you've learned the names of the participants...it's a lot easier to remember faces you've just seen for an hour than to learn all the names you only heard once at the beginning of the class.