Student Given Detention For Using Firefox [UPDATED]

An anonymous reader writes "Several sites are reporting that a student has been given detention for using Firefox to do his classwork. No, really. The student was in class, working on an assignment that necessitated using a browser. The teacher instructed him to stop using Firefox and to do his classwork, to which the student responded that he was doing his classwork using a 'better' browser (it is unclear whether the computer was the student's own computer or not). The clueless teacher (who called the rogue program 'Firefox.exe') ordered him to detention." Update: 12/17 20:09 by SM One of the school officials was nice enough to contact us and let us know this is a hoax. If you are planning on calling the school please refrain from doing so, I'm sure they have had enough excitement for one day.

Comments

detention for disobedience

[yagu]

It appears the infraction was probably closer to being for disobeying the teacher than for using Firefox. While it exposes an interesting deficiency in the general knowledge of educators about browser technology, it isn't necessarily their specialty. (We don't know if this was some proxy of a teacher who was unaware of options for browsers.)

Without any more information, this is merely a potential story... I wouldn't bother sending e-mails to the school. You may want to consider first:

• did this student have a history of infractions?
• was the student explaining his choice as a better browser as a canard?
• was the assignment specifically geared toward, or requiring of IE?
• was the firefox browser installed as an option and available, or,
• did the student download and install without authorization?

Re:detention for disobedience

[Anonymous Coward]

No surprise here, US schools have become so much about teaching to the test that kids are being taught not to think, but just blindly, mindlessly obey. No wonder there haven't been any sound leaders coming from the US this generation... because no one is learning how to think for themselves, think critically, and do what is right even when it conflicts with doing what you're told. Even Hollywood is in on it - try watching Dead Poet's Society sometime...

Re:detention for disobedience

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

This is an apology for authoritarianism - assuming innocence on the part of authority, and granting benefits of doubt to their actions while also itemising possible hypothitical infractions by the accused.

That is how fascism is apologised.

Re:detention for disobedience

[LWATCDR]

You really need to stop trying to be reasonable.
The Student was told twice to close Firefox and use IE.
He should have just fired up IE.

Re:detention for disobedience

[Alastor187]

I think your points are valid, but since teachers aren't experts on web browsing technology should they just close their mind to anything they don't understand? The bigger question I am asking is, why cannot teachers learn from students everyone once a while? So maybe for the next assignment students could be given the option of using IE or Firefox depending on their comfort level.

Re:detention for disobedience

[Anonymous Coward]

You forget that now "A history of Disobedience" means "The student has thought outside the box". I remember reading a letter sent home by a teacher that basically said "I've given this student detention because I made a mistake in class and the student corrected me" and proceeded to rant about how, despite showing the teacher in the book that they were wrong, the student should have simply "obeyed"

Re:detention for disobedience

[Archangel Michael]

I work at a school district in IT, and I can assure you that some (too many) teachers can barely teach, let alone manage to run a classroom with computers.

I would love to require all teachers who want to use computers have to attend a class on computers in the classroom by someone like me who can explain the technology and what it can do (and not do) in the classroom.

However, I can equally assure you that the Teacher's Union is so high on itself that it wouldn't allow having a non-teacher teaching anything, let alone other teachers. There is this underlying current of elitism in many teachers.

Suffice it to say, I doubt that 85% of the teachers using computers in the classroom know anything more than "Click the Start Menu" type instruction, and if it isn't Microsoft ________ it isn't used. Period. Firefox isn't Microsoft, so it isn't used, and teachers don't know about it.

I don't know if I should blame the teachers or not. However, this teacher was running the classroom properly. The student had no right to change the instruction of the teacher (even if the student was correct). I know that managing a classroom of people is hard enough without having some rogue student thinking they know better. Even if Firefox is a better browser (it is), that doesn't give the student the right to vary from the instruction (use IE).

One last thing, the last thing I want on computers I manage is students downloading and installing whatever programs they think they want onto computers. If they want to use a program they need to request it through the proper channels. If I caught a student installing software on a computer without permission, I'd recommend they be expelled, regardless of what they were installing. Its not their computer.

Re:detention for disobedience

[ArcherB]

his is an apology for authoritarianism - assuming innocence on the part of authority, and granting benefits of doubt to their actions while also itemising possible hypothitical infractions by the accused.

Uh, no. I expect Authority to be... well, in charge. Imagine that. Should the students be allowed to install and run anything they want on school computers? Can you do that at YOUR job?

That is how fascism is apologised.

Blow it out your ass. Just because someone is in charge, in this case a teacher in charge of the classroom, doesn't mean that the school is fascist.

Re:detention for disobedience

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, because using firefox at school is an indicator of leadership material. You are so full of shit. I'm guessing you have a dislike of teachers, and probably authority in general and are bringing it in to an issue completely seperate from what you are talking about.

Odds are using Firefox didn't make any difference in how the kid did his assignment. He was most likely using it because "M$ sux!" This is a case of making waves just to make waves, or the tech savvy kid wanting to show off that he knew something other kids didn't. Your claims of this being a case of squashing critical thinking are ridiculous.

Re:detention for disobedience

[Sciros]

The teacher was under the impression that the student was not doing his work. So the request to 'close the program and resume work' was, well, nonsense. I'm not going to bother entertaining the idea of this being a 'reasonable' request, because the reasoning behind it was faulty to begin with. With this in mind, and with regards to your comment, should there be no issue taken up with teachers enforcing 'unreasonable' requests?

The whole 'punish first, investigate later' mentality of some teachers is the problem here. I have met many of the sort, and they are NOT among the better educators I know.

Your bullet list being what it is, I wonder whether you read the detention letter in the first place.

Re:detention for disobedience

[arose]

Would you say the same if the teacher had ordered to use a fountain pen instead of a ball point?

Re:detention for disobedience

[Archangel Michael]

And you sir, are an apologetic for anarchy - assuming the guilt on the part of the authority. The facts of the case are not in dispute, the student refused to do what the teacher said, which was a reasonable request. The students don't run the classroom, the teachers do (or are supposed to).

Re:detention for disobedience

[MarcoG42]

If I caught a student installing software on a computer without permission, I'd recommend they be expelled, regardless of what they were installing. If I caught you changing lanes without using your turn signal I'd recommend having your driving privileges revoked for life, regardless of the fact that the punishment doesn't fit the crime.

Re:detention for disobedience

[jedidiah]

At least it shows the boy can think for himself and solve his own problems if necessary.

Odd are, not using Firefox would leave him open to all sorts of BS on the web. This is why many of us use it in our corporate lives despite corporate policies to the contrary. Fortunately, we don't have to worry about people with so much time on their hands (like teachers) that we have to worry about it.

He was just foolish for not pretending to be cowed.

Re:detention for disobedience

[MBCook]

Yes. It's a stupid rule, but it's the rule. He can talk to someone (like the principal) about it during another time. You can't just be a scofflaw.

Re:detention for disobedience

[Selfbain]

Let me get this straight... If a student installs something you don't want him to, you'll try and ruin his life in exchange... Ever heard of detention?

Re:detention for disobedience

[plague3106]

I'm guessing you have a dislike of teachers, and probably authority in general and are bringing it in to an issue completely seperate from what you are talking about.

There is much reason to dislike authority, especially when authority is exercised when it shouldn't be, over trivial things. I'm more distrubed by people that blindly bow to authority of them than anyone who questions it. Its our duty as citizens of this nation to always question authority, and if we find said authority over-reaching, to ignore it or remove it.

Re:detention for disobedience

[syntaxeater]

Absolutely. In fact, I remember kids in my class getting in trouble quite often for using mechanical pencils to take scantrons. Seems dumb enough, but like many other people here have said - a lot of the facts were omitted for sensationalism. It could very well be that the school's criteria required IE.

Re:detention for disobedience

[dwandy]

managing a classroom of people is hard enough without having some rogue student thinking

ok, I know I'm dropping vital words to re-context your quote, but this is what's wrong with education today.

In a world where every fact is just a click on the InterTube(tm) away, we don't need kids who have memorized facts without meaning. We need to teach critical thinking and allow the kids to explore the world and find their own path. And sometimes that means they'll find something that the teacher isn't aware of. This kind of behaviour needs to be encouraged, not stifled with detention.

We're so busy protecting our precious IP, while we stifle the very people who we count on to produce tomorrows innovations.

Re:detention for disobedience

[Kevin Stevens]

I agree and just want to chime in.

Until I hear the whole story, including this kid's background, I would not pass judgment on the teacher or the school. This sounds eerily like the stories some kids used to tell along the lines of "I got detention just for sneezing!" which on the surface sounds like some idiot power-crazed teacher wronging a well meaning student. Then you get the back story, he was acting up in class, and being asked to control himself several times, then lets out an over-exaggerated (even if it was a naturally reflexive) sneeze intended to get more attention, which is the last straw to the teacher who then writes him up. But his version of the story is "all I did was sneeze, and I got detention!" which one or two of his buddies will corroborate, and that is what spreads around.

Somehow, it was always the disruptive students with histories of disruption that somehow ended up the victim of such events. I have a feeling this kid circumvented IT policies probably not for the first time, installed Firefox, showed off his 1337 skills to the class, who then caused a distraction by saying "ooh cool" followed up by "can you show me how to do that?!", the teacher then found out, and then said "close that and use IE" to which the student did not comply, probably at least twice, while basking in his badassness and attention from his classmates, then the fed-up teacher finally gave him detention.

Re:detention for disobedience

[mr_matticus]

That's a happy sound bite, but it's utterly moronic here.

This isn't some stand against authority. It's not a principled anything. It's a kid who was given an instruction by someone entitled to do so, and who failed to comply. That's the end of it. It doesn't matter if it's arbitrary that Firefox isn't permitted on the machines. It's not the student's decision to make.

There is no injustice here. This "defy authority" crap is juvenile and pompously self-righteous, but that's par for the course for Slashdot.

If you're asked to print a memo on green paper, print the damn thing on green paper. There is no ground to be taken by questioning the decision. Your adolescent protest notwithstanding, society is hierarchical by design. Deal with it or use it to your advantage, but quit bitching.

Re:detention for disobedience

[paeanblack]

One last thing, the last thing I want on computers I manage is students downloading and installing whatever programs they think they want onto computers. If they want to use a program they need to request it through the proper channels. If I caught a student installing software on a computer without permission, I'd recommend they be expelled, regardless of what they were installing. Its not their computer.

Would you recommend expulsion for a student that brought in some insect to mount on a slide to look at under a microscope? It is, after all, not their equipment to play with as they see fit.

High school lab computers are there for learning and exploration. If you have them locked down like a supermarket checkout kiosk or bank teller terminal, you may as well not have a lab in the first place.

As an IT admin, it's your job to make sure the computers you administer are configured for the role they serve. In this case, it's your job to make sure the students cannot intentionally or inadvertently interfere with the education of other students. Specifically, students should not be able to:
-Disable the machine beyond a point from which it easily restored to a working state by a teacher or other students
-Degrade the network performance to a point that affects other school activities
-Put the school in legal jeopardy

A competent administrator can accomplish all of the above without locking the machine down so far that it is about as educational as a doorstop. Draconian AUPs with dismissal upon first infraction are appropriate in many places, but certainly not in a school.

Re:detention for disobedience

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, expelled for installing software on a computer. Perhaps you over estimate the value of computers in school, but that seems a little over reaching for installing software. I could see revoking computer privileges or monitoring closer, but expulsion seems to not fit the rule they are breaking.

Also, as to the right to vary from instruction, that is what made my time in school so valuable. The teacher would be going over basic typing and allowed me to pursue more interesting areas of computing. But perhaps you are correct, schools these days are often used to teach that students need not question authority, try new and better ways of doing things, but to be instructed on the methods of being a good little factory worker.

Re:detention for disobedience

[WilliamX]

Uh, no. It doens't show that the kid can think for himself and solve his own problems. If he could do those things, he would have complied with the teachers command in situ and then later found time to talk to the teacher when it would not be disruptive to the classroom and made his case. Then the teacher would have more information on which to base their decision and could seek guidance from those in the school or district or can be trusted to provide advice to the teacher on these types of situations.

THAT would have been a great way of showing good problem solving skills. Disobeying during class, just because he didn't see a valid reason for the instruction, only shows that he has no respect for authority, and no sense of how to properly deal with problems and difficult situations.

Yes, I know this whole story is a hoax, but had it been real, the detention would have certainly been valid, and the kid would have hopefully learned a very very important lesson about how to handle those types of situations not only in the rest of his academic life, but in his "real" life as well.

Well, naturally

[timster]

Our schools are supposed to teach discipline, which most people think means following the rules. As Stephen Colbert says, if the rules were logical then they wouldn't be learning respect for the rules, they'd be learning logic.

Re:Well, naturally

[ZeroFactorial]

Absolutely. We should teach or children to blindly respect the rules, even when those rules are illogical.

Yay for communism.

</sarcasm>

so what?

[abigsmurf]

He was told to use IE, didn't, teacher noticed, told him to use firefox, he mouthed off back to the teacher. Got punished. Nothing to see here.

Headline is a bit sensationalist.

Re:so what?

[tannhaus]

Exactly. The issue here wasn't whether Firefox would work or not. The issue here was he was told not to use it and refused to comply.

There really is no difference here between this and a student saying "No, I've decided I'm not going to get on the school bus to go to the field trip. I met this awesome guy in the bathroom of the mall and I'm going with him in his car instead".

Re:so what?

[PhxBlue]

Nothing to see here.

Except maybe why public schools are having such a hard time of it in the first place. A reasonable teacher might have said, "Interesting -- tell me more about it after class, but for now, stick with the other browser." This teacher, in contrast, played a power game and probably did more to undermine his authority in the classroom than reinforce it.

Re:so what?

[Bloater]

According to the teacher's statement the student was not told to use IE, the student was told to do his work - the student explained that he /was/ doing his work and how it was possible with firefox. The teacher did *not* claim that he/she then explained that the coursework must be done using IE - this is not documented in the explanation of the reason for the detention (and since the student would need a clear instruction of what to do before being able to do it, one would think that this should have been the reason).

It seems like this student still hasn't been told what he's in detention for - you'd expect that to be in his letter home. The letter just says he wasn't doing his work... but he was :/

My old mum gave me my brother's lunchbox once, containing a sandwich filler that made me puke on contact and still does 25 years later. The teacher insisted that my mother could never make an error that would cause such an effect on me (even after I said that the lunchboxes were outwardly identical). 30 seconds later I destroyed four peoples meals and made the classroom stink of vomit for the rest of the day.

Don't just assume that because somebody is getting on in years that they are automatically honourable, super-intelligent, and infinitely wise. There is no statutory cull of wankers at 18 so they go on and get jobs and some of them become teachers.

Some teachers are great, though. I got a pat on the back for wrestling in class, knocking tables over and stuff, because the person I was fighting needed somebody to stand up to him :) Still had to go over to the science building to clean tabletops though :)

Re:so what?

[Tsiangkun]

yes, obey, or rebel and accept the punishment.

Student rebelled. Student got punished.

Have you ever waited at a red traffic light, even though you can see there is no traffic coming ?
Why do you obey that stupid light ?

Baaah, I suspect you too are sheep.

Ignorant Teachers = Problems

[corsec67]

It is a problem when the students know more than the teachers.
It isn't clear if this is a "computer class", in which case this is really bad because teachers should know more than the students in the area they are teaching in.

There is much more leeway for an English teacher to not know how to do integrations/derivations, for example. I don't know if this should extend to stuff the teachers use to teach the class, but it probably should. How can you use something effectively to teach if you don't know how it works?

Student Given Detention For Disobedience

[ergo98]

While Firefox is indeed a great browser, it is a largely irrelevant part of this sage -- kid runs unauthorized application, is told not to, disobeys instructions and talks back.

Boring.

Sidenote - Do the editors or the submitter start off the tags these days? This story came fresh with 4 tags...I thought it waited until "democracy" spoke. Wisdom of the masses et al.

Student's Side.

[bigattichouse]

Having worked in education for many years (and having kids), I guarantee that the student's side omits mention of defiance or cockiness. This of course doesn't excuse the idiot teacher, but I imagine there is more to it than presented by the submittor. It is astounding how innocent and respectful they believe they were after the fact. I imagine the kid wanted to use a better browser, the teacher got miffed at the install, and they both proceeded to behave poorly. Most likely the browser was just a catalyst in the childish behavior of both. And I say this strictly as having been the idiot teacher.

Oh no, someone got detention for being an ass

[yotto]

I'm sure the student sat the teacher down and explained the pros and cons of Firefox vs IE in a clear and respectful manner, and didn't say "Shut up, hehe, I'm using Firefox. It's better than your crappy IE!"

If you are a jerk to a teacher, you get detention. I knew this when I was in school. When has it failed to be common knowledge?

I'd also like to know if the computer was the student's own or a school one. If it's a school computer, then all bets are off. If it's the student's, I would have said that I don't have IE.

Disobedience

[Toonol]

The detention was for arguing with the teacher, I'm sure. We all know the school would be better off running Firefox as a matter of course; it would at the least be more secure. But the teacher should be able to, for instance, say "Stop using Word. I want this done in notepad."

It would be stupid, but the teacher can set the parameters of how the kids perform the work.

If the kid wants to promote Firefox, good for him. I'm sure he's sharper than the teacher. But the proper way is to write something up that lists the cost/security benefits and give it to somebody official, not just install and run the software.

(I'm assuming this was the school's machine, not his own computer.)

What I hear:

[nahdude812]

This is what I hear when I read this:

Teacher doesn't know all things about all things, makes request for perfectly reasonable action from child under his/her supervision. Child refuses on the grounds that child knows better than the teacher what the teacher was asking the child to do. Teacher gives child detention for disobedience.

Look, it turns out that teachers are not omniscient. Whether or not the child was correct that he was adhering to the spirit of the request, he was not adhering to the letter of the request, and refusing to do so is still worthwhile grounds for punishment.

Notably lacking from the report is what the kid's attitude was. If the kid copped an attitude, then nothing else would really matter. Also lacking is whether the student installed unauthorized software on the school's hardware. It could be the teacher was cutting the kid a break for a more serious offense by only giving him detention for failure to comply with the request.

There's many unknowns here, and giving the benefit of the doubt, it still breaks down to a student refusing to comply with a reasonable request, and that should be grounds for punishment.

Re:What I hear:

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about respect to the teacher, but it's also about respect to the rest of the class. Interrupting class to discuss the merits of different browsers is inappropriate, and the teacher has a responsibility to keep things moving forward. Having a friendly sit-down chat each time a student interrupts things is what my communications teacher did in high school. Unfortunately there, communications meant "TV and Video Production" and not "having conversations," so we rarely got around to learning anything related to the intended subject matter. I wanted to learn this stuff, and so I had to come in during study halls and teach myself. Most students aren't going to do this, so stopping to have a 2-minute evaluation of the relative merits of each student's interruptions means nothing gets done, and even in my case it meant that time I could have spent learning this subject matter was spent not learning it.

.exe

[yotto]

Considering the teacher reported it as ".exe" that leads me to believe there was some sort of process monitoring going on, and the teacher saw that this one computer, presumably in a lab (else how could they monitor a personal laptop) which leads me to believe that the student DID install Firefox on school property and therefore broke the rules and should be punished.

Any chance that I would be outraged by this, which was quite low to begin with, has faded.

School More Educational Than Originally Thought

[Anonymous Coward]

So, what is the take-away lesson?

1. You probably know more than the authorities do.
2. The authorities don't like it when you challenge them.
3. The authorities have the authority to do things to you that you don't like.
4. The world doesn't care that it isn't fair.

Sounds like an excellent, low-cost (1 detention) life lesson that will serve this kid well.

Re:OSS is evil.

[ArcherB]

The teacher was right.

Well, the teacher was right... and wrong.

First, the teacher was wrong for not knowing what FireFox (FoxFire) is. Any teacher with a computer in the classroom should have AT LEAST that level of knowledge.

Second, the teacher was right in assigning detention. The teacher is in charge and has the right to tell the students what they can and can't run on school computers. If a student is running an application and the teacher tells the student to close it, the student needs to close it, period, end of story. It's no different in the real world. If an IT director tells you shut down Cain&Able, you can get fired if you don't. It doesn't matter that the IT director doesn't know what Cain&Able is.

Re:OSS is evil.

[Archangel Michael]

I work in School District IT, and can assure you that teachers decide what is in the classrooms, not IT. If the Teachers want something, IT is charged with making it happen.

However, teachers aren't absolute in their dictations, as IT is able to make recommendations, and express concerns (support, helpdesk resposibility etc) .

Just more Slashdot sensationalism

[davmoo]

Another day, another non-story.

This is no different than a company telling an employee what software to use on the company's time and company's equipment, and then the employee gets punished for disobeying. If the kid wanted to use something else, he should have done it on his own time and his own computer. "Freedom" doesn't have a damned thing to do with it. There is no story, the teacher is not even the least bit ignorant, stupid, or in the wrong, and I have absolutely zero sympathy for the kid.

And the Slashdot editor(s) responsible for the posting of this sensationalized non-story should also get detention.

Re:OSS is evil.

[morgan_greywolf]

What IT people? Maybe a University has an IT person, but most K-12 institutions in the U.S. have no dedicated IT person. Usually the "IT person" is just a teacher very knowledgeable about computers -- and is usually one of the teachers teaching computer programming classes. There's usually not a lot of formal IT policies, either. But I do know one thing -- the teacher, as a member of the faculty, is a representative of the school. If it was indeed a school-owned computer, the teacher has every right to order the student to run this or that or not run this or that on the school computer.

And the TFA is unclear about whether this was a student-owned computer or a school computer.

Yes, everyone call!

[Megaweapon]

Let's bog down a school with a flood of phone calls from people who have no business calling the school other than to complain about some kid getting a detention for disobedience despite a poorly worded article summary on a geek news site! /sarcasm

Re:Here's his teacher

[Macthorpe]

Anybody with half a brain will tell you that discipline is critical for kids when they're growing up, and here you are telling people to harrass a teacher who dared to punish a disobedient student.

Absolutely pathetic.

That is actually worse

[Per Abrahamsen]

Giving detention for using unauthorized software for school work actually makes some sense, and not knowing FireFox is a lot less outrageous in the real world it would appear to the users of a nerd forum.

However it seemed to me that the kid was trying to rationally justify his decision, and the reason (as you indicate) that the detention was given as a punishment for questioning authority. That is a much more serious problem, especially if you believe one of the goals of primary school is to teach the pupils how to function in a democratic society.

Re:authority figure is a moron

[MBCook]

The kid wasn't ordered to shoot himself in the foot. He was told not to use an un-approved program.

Cut the hyperbole. Your example doesn't apply.

He wasn't being told to do something illegal. He wasn't be told to do something that could cause physical harm to someone. The teacher was in charge, and if he wouldn't stop he deserved what he got. The correct thing to do would be to stop and then talk to someone more powerful (like the principal) about getting that policy changed.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:OSS is evil.

[kdemetter]

If Firefox was installed on the school computers , then i see no reason not to use it .
Unless the teachers is completely blind , he can see the web page the student is looking at , and can judge from that wether or not he is doing his work .

This is like a teacher telling you to copy every file in a folder , and because he only knows how to do that by right click-copy-paste , you get detention for using Ctrl-A - Ctrl-C - Ctrl-V .

It's a silly example , but it's just the same .

Re:authority figure is a moron

[plague3106]

Debating idiocity lends some validity to said idiocity.

No, not wrong.

[khasim]

This is an example of a teacher who may never have encountered FF before and so didn't recognize it as a suitable technology to be used in the assignment.

And when said teacher was informed by the student that it WAS "suitable technology", what did the mature, responsible teacher do?

His/Her actions certainly do NOT fit the criteria for "mature" or "responsible" (nor "teacher" unless you count this as the lesson).

The entire incident could have been a non-issue if the TEACH had acted like an ADULT instead of as an immature child with authority.

Deal with it.

Re:OSS is evil.

[MightyYar]

Some schools are getting rid of art and gym teachers. If it comes down to art vs IT, IT should lose. I'm a pretty big geek, but computers aren't all that integral to elementary education.

Re:authority figure is a moron

[H0p313ss]

So it would then be ok in your book that a police officer tell you to stop driving a Audi and drive only Ford?

Well... only a fool would argue it out with the officer in situ! (While arguing with armed men is an invigorating sport it should be left up to experts... like lawyers...)

The correct approach is to stare in disbelief, say "Yes Sir" and proceed to document the hell out of the situation so you can then take your evidence to the police chief, the mayor, or whatever governmental authority the officer reports to as well as the press.

Yes, the teacher is an ass... how can you supervise an course that somehow involves the web and not know what a web browser is? But arguing the point with the teacher IN FRONT OF THE REST OF THE CLASS is just looking for trouble.

I just remembered... I once had an argument about optics with one of the guys who worked on early semi-conductors... later on he told me I was right and that the only reason I lost the argument was:

• A: He was the teacher and
• B: He was the teacher

In school, the teacher is always right, particularly when they're wrong AND foul tempered.

Re:OSS is evil.

[arth1]

Indeed. It appears that the teacher here is the victim.
Even before seeing this statement from the school district, I believed this to be the case, due to most of the language being in correct English, apart from a few words and phrases with grammatical errors -- and those being the ones describing the teacher's assessment and actions.

If this being a fraud is indeed the case, I expect that the person who altered the detention letter gets expelled permanently, or, if not a student, charged with fraud and impersonation.

Re:authority figure is authority

[ArcherB]

You sound like the classic case of a proletariat. Just do what everyone tells you, even if it is stupid, and you know it's wrong.

First, welcome to the real world.

Second, let's turn your statement around:
Just do whatever you think is best, regardless of what the rules are, because you know what is right and everyone else that disagrees with you is stupid.

Is that the attitude you take at work, on the highways and in your home? We have rules for a reason. Your thinking that they are stupid does not mean it's OK to disobey them. I think it's stupid that I have to wait a red light when there is no traffic coming. Does that mean I should be free to run it? If you have a problem with a rule, challenge the rule, not the person whose job it is to enforce those rules.

In this case, the student should have stopped using Firefox, started using the tools that he was supposed to be using, and then went to the principal or whoever and challenged the use of IE over Firefox.

Despite this being a hoax...

[stubear]

...the student was punished for failing to follow instructions, not for using Firefox. Whether the student was right or not about Firefox being a "better" browser, it appears that there were numerous requests to stop using it, period. Maybe the school had an IT policy in place that prohibits the use of any other browsers then the one provided. We aren't given enough information to come to this or any other conclusion, however, and given the hoax letter all we do know is the student was being an ass. He was instructed to do something and ignored those instructions.

With the rise of "internet justice" it is becoming increasingly more important to improve one's reading comprehension skills and actually note what's being said without interjecting your own biases into the issue. Far too many people read a summary in a blog, the headline of an article or just the first few sentences and are unable to make a reasonable assertion as evidenced by this incident. Too many people want to see Firefox become THE gold standard of web browsers and when they read that some random student is being denied the ability to use said browser, they fly off the handle regardless of having all the facts or not, regardless of understanding the actual complaint or not. if you're going to be a bunch of self-righteous pricks, at least be educated self-righteous pricks.

Re:Despite this being a hoax...

[Anonymous Coward]

With the rise of "internet justice" it is becoming increasingly more important to improve one's reading comprehension skills and actually note what's being said without interjecting your own biases into the issue.

Amen to your post! If I had mod points I'd certainly give you one. Unfortunately it's become all too fashionable to post knee-jerk reactions, to condemn authority figures, and to accept the first bits of information as gospel, especially here on Slashdot. It's a shame, because the Slashdot population should be more intelligent than this.

If this is a hoax...

[night_flyer]

and you want people to refrain from calling the school... you could... you know... remove the story...

Re:authority figure is a moron

[MBCook]

The teacher is the authority. They said "close program X", the kid needed to close program X. The kid tried to prove their point, it didn't work, they need to do what the teacher said. You take the issue up after class with the teacher or the principal. The kid just wasted class time and acted inappropriately.

By the time I write this, we know it's a hoax. But that doesn't matter. If the story was true, the kid still acted wrong because they didn't obey the teacher at that moment. No one was in danger. It wasn't that urgent. He just wanted to look cool or more powerful. He was behaving inappropriately.

Except...

[LWATCDR]

That it was a fraud.
I am surprised that even I fell for it.
1. Why would the teacher call it Firefox.exe? They where smart enough to figure out the name of the executable but don't know what firefox is?
2. Why put down that much detail for a two hour detention? "After being asked twice the student refused to follow the teachers instructions". Or the teacher could have just put down. "Student failed to follow school policy."

We where scammed and will now probably end up on snopes.com.

I find it funny that you think it is reasonable to trust a students opinion on what programs should or should not be installed on a PC? Ever see a computer that is used by a teen? Ever clean the malware off a computer used by the average teen?

Re:authority figure is a moron

[jedidiah]

He was being ordered to do something that could harm/disable the computer.

He was being ordered to do something that might prevent him from finishing the assignment.

He was being ordered to do something that might cause it to appear that he has done something illegal.

When I was a kid, I did stupid stuff like this too

[Theovon]

When I was in high school (graduated in '91), I knew vastly more about computers than the teachers did. That wasn't a major feat considering the time, and I am now aware of how many things I thought I knew but knew wrong at the time. But in any case, because of my "vastly superior" knowledge, I was a total cocky-ass jerk. Because of my (perceived, at least) superior technical knowledge, I was a discipline problem and a disruption in class. I would "correct" what the teacher said and refuse (or at least resist) to do what the teacher told me to do, etc.

I should have gotten my ass beat for this.

Of course, at the time, I was really hard-headed. I'm not sure I would have learned my lesson if I had been punished. I was the sort of person who would get so caught up in being technically correct that I was blind to the concepts of being socially or procedurally or ethically incorrect.

I'm 34 now and in grad school. I took a computational linguistics class where we had to code an Earley parser, which is a dynamic programming approach to human language parsing. I was bothered by the fact that the grammar we were using was, in my opinion, half-assed. I think lexical grammars are a better (if still not very good) model of how humans process language syntactically. But I did not complain. I had a good time chewing the fat with the professor about it during office hours, because it's interesting, but there was no need for me to "complain" about it in any context. After all these years, I'm able to pull my head out of my ass and recognize that we often "simplify" things or make arbitrary choices as a foil for learning something more general. We were not there to learn about lexical grammars. We're there to learn to write parsers, and an Earley parser can be adapted to lexical grammars should I feel inclined to do so. Big picture here!

Let's hope this kid doesn't take as long as I did to learn to see the bigger picture, recognize that life involves judicious compromises, learn to function socially, and not be so self-centered that he makes things harder on other people just for the sake of being "right". (And by "right", I mean that he may have logical support for his hypothesis, but it's technical and the topic can still be debated. I'm NOT talking about moral "right" here, which is a whole other subject matter.)

Re:OSS is evil.

[jedidiah]

Also, you can always get a different boss. It can be hard but it can be done.

You are not required by law to have a boss or a (particular) employer.

High School students are effectively prisoners. They are trapped there
as a matter of law and not allowed to leave or not attend.

Clueless...

[LWATCDR]

"It's as simple as that. Treat them with respect and they'll treat you with respect."
You really think that if you treat EVERY teenager with "respect" they will treat you with respect?
What is worse is that the "teacher" never did a thing wrong! This was a fraud, scam, lie, a work of fiction.

Re:OSS is evil.

[Sgt.Modulus]

I used to use Firefox during high school and during the first year of college. I simply ran it off the USB flash stick. It was the install folder of Firefox. I installed it at my house. Whenever I ran the thing it would bring up the import wizard because it never remembered my settings.

However, as the previous poster mentioned its NOT OK to install/run anything foreign on school computers or at your job unless allowed in the policy. It may seem harmless or can be but should you get caught you can face serious punishment. It is also in the teachers right to dictate what the student may or may not do.

So... I make it a rule for myself to not change any settings, run any of my apps (firefox..others), boot to Linux, connect to servers at home, etc... In school you may get suspension or detention but in real life you can face fines, jailtime and a mark against your record which can hurt future job opportunities...

Thats all I gotta say... Peace!

Re:OSS is evil.

[Sgt.Modulus]

Then it's the schools job to set security policies in Windows to disallow such things. Setting up computer labs and just expecting people not to run any other programs on the computer will be only slightly more effective than dropping money on the street and expecting people not to pick it up. Yeah but when you disallow installation of programs you start to tread in hot water. You can hurt other programs meant to run on the machines from running at all or running properly. Yes... I know its up to schools to set the policies up correctly but it is often not done correctly. I find that high schools tend to be more lax in security or implement such restrictive rules its ridiculous. I'm currently attending college and stay away from using their machines. I do all my work on my own machine. Yes... I know thats not always possible for others.

Re:OSS is evil.

[hedwards]

They updated the story since I posted. Apparently it was a hoax.

But that aside, if a student were given detention for using firefox that is an entirely different thing than being given detention for skirting the firewall policies of a school.

Re:Here's his teacher

[macbigot]

"All I did was link to publicly available information. I didn't do anything further with it myself, what others did with it is up to them. If anyone really did abuse it (and I doubt that they did; any looneys would have looked up the info themselves) they will have to live with the consequences, not me." -VJ42

What you did (despite the lame attempt to cast aside responsibility) is to pretend that you aren't aware of 1) the large percentage of people that will skim across this forum and NOT realize that this teacher does not need thousands of hate-letters, 2) that many readers will not care that despite their mob-mentality -- their chastisement of the teacher would not have changed his/her behavior if he/she HAD done something wrong, and that 3) our legal system has fully vetted the "I didn't kill they guy I just left a bunch of guns around his little brother's room and what the kid does with them is his fault, not mine." -- and found it lacking in sound logic.

You are showing a method of rationalizing a witch trial that you believe in burning someone for, but can't support with your own logic -- so you hope others will anonymously carry out the sentence for you.

Shame on you. Whatever your political strip, civilized society does not value anarchy without reason. When there is a punishment without a crime, the punishment becomes the crime, and the leader of the torch-bearing mob the criminal.

You have branded yourself -- so don't get all upset that some readers here have pointed you out.