11th Grader knows more than the teacher, gets punished for it
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Filed in News
We don’t feel bad or look down upon people who aren’t as tech-savvy as the folks who read this site. We actually feel bad for people who, because of their ignorance, actually take it out on those that are savvy. The latest case-in-point is a teacher who gave a student detention for using Firefox instead of the usual Internet Explorer in class. In spite of trying to explain to the teacher that he was doing nothing wrong, the teacher punished him anyway. Make the jump to see the letter that went home to his parents…
The teacher may have demanded the student use IE because that is the only web browsing program he is familiar with. If there were any “problems,” he may not have been able to troubleshoot.
That said, I would trust the kid to troubleshoot just about anything before I would ask the teacher for help.
As for a completely different theory — maybe the kid’s parents are Mac users (or just hate Microsoft) and don’t want him to use IE. If he is used to Safari, then Firefox is the nearest substitute available on a PC.
The point — we don’t really know enough about this to judge who was right or who was wrong. It is not as simple as he should have listened or the teacher should have been more flexible.
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You are all a bunch of dorks. I love how we have all these comments saying “Gee, he was insubordinate. He should’ve been punished to the full extent of school rules.” You were all hair-parted, 4-eyed, rule-following nerds then, and you still are, clearly. We’re supposed to laugh at the reason he got busted, not analyze how just his punishment was.
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Ok, suppose it is a joke. Either the humor is over my head or it’s just not very funny. What am I missing? Is it funny because the alternate browser he chose is Firefox? or because he insisted he was smarter for using firefox? Or that the teacher would get so deranged over a browser choice? Or that all he got was detention?
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seems like we have some teacher fanboys in todays audience.
my conclusion: if youre teaching a class that is based on a computer, or related to a computer- one would assume youre at least somewhat familiar with the current techonlogical advancements and that you have half a brain to use some common sense!
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this teacher is quaite a LAMER i would encourage that kids learnig behavior
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I second chris’ opinion… I love to debate things and hear how people side on topics… Great story and post starter… Great job BGR
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Can anyone here tell me where to download foxfire.exe.
I’d love to give that browser a go! LOL!
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thats bull the kid wasn’t looking at porn so who cares
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I gotta get me some of that FoxFire! Yo Azkanaz, did you get the link yet?
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@ Azkanaz
i cant believe i missed that!
LOL- foxfire.exe has to be worth getting in trouble for!
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You never install software on someone else’s computer without asking permission first. If they tell you to stop then you stop immediately. If this story is true, which apparently according to the school district it is not, the kid deserved to get in trouble.
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The truth comes out:
Kid lies on blog to cover up the fact that he was busted by a teacher while surfing. This student was so lame that he got busted surfing while he was supposed to be working on a resume. In a lame attempt to smear the teacher he has resulted to taking a copy of the original detention slip and using Photoshop to alter the content. If you look closely you can see clearly the different in the pixels on the uploaded scan. I guess this boy wonder is not only unable to write a resume, but he is failing in Photoshop 101 as well. I guess you will always find your share of lame people on blogs, but what a looser.
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Not…………
http://gadgets.boingboing.net/2007/12/17/student-given-detent.html
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Ok, here’s the deal:
It’s called protocol and respect for authority. Period. What the student should’ve done is switch back to IE (shudder) and carry on. Then, after class, approach the teacher and have the discussion. In this way you will have followed instructions and potentially have what you want in the future. What the student will probably get now is a teacher with his defenses up.
This isn’t about teacher’s pet dorks or billy bad@$$ non-conformists….just appropriately navigating authority/politics.
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@sublicon:
you’re a dick. stop trying to analyse what others analyse, we like to post our comments and we like to keep it that way.
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the teacher thinks it’s omnisuperior
and it can command students to eat ???
if you don’t follow, you’ll be in trouble
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Despite the fact that the school will probably just chalk this up to being disobedient to the teacher, what I’m wondering is how can you punish him if he was using school equipment? If the school’s equipment has Firefox on it and the assignment is merely to “go online” to do your work, then the browser you’re using is irrelevant. At that point, that’s just the teacher fearing what she doesn’t know (Firefox) and punishing the student for simply having his own opinion on what he’d like to use.
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If this is legit, maybe they should punish the person that wrote this detention notification letter. The grammar sucks. Someone should call the NEA on this SOB.
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I’m a senior in high school and have gotten in my own fair share of trouble. The fact is, rules are rules. The teacher made multiple warnings before any action is taken. There are good reasons for using a specific browser. The tracking program may only apply to that browser, or specific plug ins needed for the activity may only be installed on IE. How hard is it to follow an easy instruction such as “open IE”? It’s like complaining when you get a speeding ticket. It sucks, but were you breaking the law? yes.
By the way, we run firefox and IE on all of our school computers so I’m glad I wont’ have this issue.
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This is so fake…
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God this is stupid, I don’t see why the school doesn’t have Firefox to begin with. It is the better browser.
Isn’t it because Firefox costs too much…
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Are you serious?
A) Firefox is already way better than Internet Explorer
B) That’s the most retarded punishment ever.
I use firefox at school instead of internet explorer because it’s a lot safer and my school just doesn’t really care i guess.
In my Business Computer class we aren’t allowed on the internet at all anyways, so i mean if he was breaking the rules for that then he should be punished.
but using a program that takes you to the same place is stupid to get punished for.
stupid teachers don’t know whats best.
But if he DOWNLOADED firefox in school on their servers and such, then yeah punish him. thats totally against the rules
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but also if the tracking plug-in doesn’t work for Firefox, just IE then yeah, get a d-hall.
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FAKE! aaaaahahahahahaha. all you peeners who fell for it. voicing your mighty opinions from on high, aaaaaahahahahahahahahahaha. heh.
http://www.bigspring.k12.pa.us/news.php?action=view_article&article_id=2130
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I love Firefox, it just sucks less then IE.
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