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11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School
alphadogg points out a story about 11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left. Penn provides technical support, selects software, and teaches his classmates about computers. From NetworkWorld:
"The first thing Jon found as he leapt into the role of network manager was that he had to map out the network to find out what was on it. He bought some tools for this at CompUSA and realized there was an ungodly amount of computer viruses and spam, so he pressed the school to invest in filtering and antivirus protection. 'These computers are so old they don't support all antivirus programs,' Penn says. The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000."
No, he says he's too mature.
They always play on the 'boy genius' BS. He's just a normal kid making inexperienced mistakes along the way.
BTW, couldn't he have just downloaded some free Windows or Linux based A/V rather than buying crap at CompUSA?
"The school took advantage of a Microsoft effort called Fresh Start that offers free software upgrades for schools with donated computers, switching from Windows 98 to Windows 2000."
Either this is an old story just reported or MS is really taking the whole Vista damage limitation thing seriously.
-1 not first post
... was 12. He was ready for a career change after so long in IT.
I do not respond to cowards. Especially anonymous ones.
Good for him, though comments like "technical people must have 'integrity and character,' and should use their skills for beneficial, not malicious purposes" and "It's his job to fight the bad guys" make his parents sound a bit loony.
That if you give kids responsibility early on, they'll step up. My last crop of interns at work were college juniors, and couldn't be trusted to make copies, much less administer anything.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
Translation: his mother works at the school, and his dad's a civil engineer, no surprise that they'd have something to do with this. Child prodigy stories always gloss over the part you'd really want to know about, like how anyone in the administration figured it would be ok to have a minor sign contracts. Obviously he's not really the admin, his mom is, and he's just doing the work or something like that. An 11-year old isn't legal to work, there are these pesky child labor laws in this country (duh).
stuff |
If any of our clients ever see this article, they're going to start hiring 11-year-olds and pay in comic books.
There are only 10 types of people in the world: Those who understand binary, and those who don't.
This headline had my interest until I read the summary. If the kid is so damned smart, why wasn't he using any of the many free online/ported tools instead of buying off the shelf crap at CompUSA? A move from Win98 to Win2k? Get real! There is nothing to see here except that the school is using child labor, and perhaps that the child is MORE qualified than the person they paid before him. That last part comes as no surprise, but it also doesn't say much.
Moving on.
He should have used open source and free software instead of going out and buying things. Norton and McAffee and other commercial anti-viruses are a nightmare. I've been using AVG Free for a long time, and it's top notch. http://free.grisoft.com/doc/download-free-anti-virus/us/frt/0
Glad to see that precocious geekery hasn't died out with this generation. Kudos to you, kid!
First rule of trauma: Bleeding always stops.
This either means he is smart, or there are a ton of people out there who are overpaid (probably the latter).
All through my current school (started at 11, now 16) I've been outsmarting my school's team of 5 dedicated IT technicians managing 400 computers, all of whom are highly qualified and stringent.
The kind of things I do aren't highly technical, but its all done from a different point of view from a young mind. They all sit up in their room of servers and look down on the network, but I wriggle up through the restrictions on my student user account and find vulnerabilities in practice rather than theory.
Now I have uncensored access to the net using the school's own gateway server, remote shutdown power on all computers (haven't tried it on the servers), administrator passwords and vnc access to all computers and servers, blah blah blah.
So probably an intelligent 11 year old does have a good perspective on it all.
If the systems work well, I'd want to see his resume as soon as he's legal to employ. He'd beat the tar out of a lot of MCSE's I've seen in the last 5 years.
Has anyone offered to send the school a box of Ubuntu live CD's, just to ease this young man's workload of maintaining Windows boxes?
Nepotism-tastic.
I'm not much older than him, and I've started ~3 open source projects, and contributed to several, I know around 5 programming languages, and I set up/configured my 6 computer home network when I was 8. "We spent $2,158," Why not go do everything for *free*, and save money in the future for not being trapped to antivirus subscriptions?
I'm not that impressed. I was maintaining a lab of 16 Atari 800's when I was roughly his age. If he were smart, he'd switch to a less virus-resistant platform - I mean, we never had any problems.
Way to screw up a Feel Good story with the facts, Sherlock! I'm surprised you didn't home in on the Microsoft Solution and bleat about Linux.
I bet this kid gets shoved into so many lockers for being a suck-up to the administration when NetworkWorld isn't writing articles about him.
I remember this kid when I was in school. He was not a popular kid.
ShortFormBlog: Writing a little. Saying a lot.
Well, you know how it is - get them while they're young. Worked for the Hitler Youth with the current pope ...
11-Year-Old Becomes Network Admin for Alabama School
...Thus saving the school from hiring an actual qualified professional, while bordering on
violation of child labor laws.
Clap.
Clap.
Clap.
Way to teach the snowflakes about capitalism, comrades...
Poor kid. The Wesley Crusher similarities are horrifying. "Wesley, go to your room!"
>north
You're an immobile computer, remember?
This situation might be somewhat extreme due to his age, but doesn't every school have a go-to student which actually ends up fixing most the screwed up crap anyway? I know that when I was in middle school and high school they used me as the unofficial tech due to the school district only having so real techs backing up the whole system. Hell I got to be on TV about "hacking" because of it.
:)
Oh and we used to take over the systems with back orface! Oh man those were the days. Posting anon now
So fucking sad to have 11 year olds waste time fighting viruses and other things that I haven't had to bother with since I said Windows goodbye something like 11 years ago. So sad...
0x or or snor perron?!
I thought you can't get security updates for win2000 any more? If so that's a BAD upgrade path.
An 11-year old isn't legal to work, there are these pesky child labor laws in this country (duh).
The child labor laws don't stop you from hiring children.(tho your insurance might complain) They limit the types of jobs and the hours they can work. I have a 17 year old working for me at my store when she started she was 16 just above the cutoff point but still regulated as to what kinds of jobs she could do. She only works weekends for a few hours a day but it gets her use to the idea of getting to work on time and doing her job (well when she's not being a giggly teenage girl).
You can find the rules here:
http://www.dol.gov/dol/topic/youthlabor/
not many 'grownups' to set any for them. let yOUR conscience be yOUR guide. you can be more helpful than you might have imagined. there are still some choices. if they do not suit you, consider the likely results of continuing to follow the corepirate nazi hypenosys story LIEn, whereas anything of relevance is replaced almost instantly with pr ?firm? scriptdead mindphuking propaganda or 'celebrity' trivia 'foam'. meanwhile; don't forget to get a little more oxygen on yOUR brain, & look up in the sky from time to time, starting early in the day. there's lots going on up there.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071229/ap_on_sc/ye_climate_records;_ylt=A0WTcVgednZHP2gB9wms0NUE
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080108/ts_alt_afp/ushealthfrancemortality;_ylt=A9G_RngbRIVHsYAAfCas0NUE
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/31/opinion/31mon1.html?em&ex=1199336400&en=c4b5414371631707&ei=5087%0A
is it time to get real yet? A LOT of energy is being squandered in attempts to keep US in the dark. in the end (give or take a few 1000 years), the creators will prevail (world without end, etc...), as it has always been. the process of gaining yOUR release from the current hostage situation may not be what you might think it is. butt of course, most of US don't know, or care what a precarious/fatal situation we're in. for example; the insidious attempts by the felonious corepirate nazi execrable to block the suns' light, interfering with a requirement (sunlight) for us to stay healthy/alive. it's likely not good for yOUR health/memories 'else they'd be bragging about it? we're intending for the whoreabully deceptive (they'll do ANYTHING for a bit more monIE/power) felons to give up/fail even further, in attempting to control the 'weather', as well as a # of other things/events.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&q=video+cloud+spraying
dictator style micro management has never worked (for very long). it's an illness. tie that with life0cidal aggression & softwar gangster style bullying, & what do we have? a greed/fear/ego based recipe for disaster. meanwhile, you can help to stop the bleeding (loss of life & limb);
http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/12/28/vermont.banning.bush.ap/index.html
the bleeding must be stopped before any healing can begin. jailing a couple of corepirate nazi hired goons would send a clear message to the rest of the world from US. any truthful look at the 'scorecard' would reveal that we are a society in decline/deep doo-doo, despite all of the scriptdead pr ?firm? generated drum beating & flag waving propaganda that we are constantly bombarded with. is it time to get real yet? please consider carefully ALL of yOUR other 'options'. the creators will prevail. as it has always been.
corepirate nazi execrable costs outweigh benefits
(Score:-)mynuts won, the king is a fink)
by ourselves on everyday 24/7
as there are no benefits, just more&more death/debt & disruption. fortunately there's an 'army' of light bringers, coming yOUR way. the little ones/innocents must/will be protected. after the big flash, ALL of yOUR imaginary 'borders' may blur a bit? for each of the creators' innocents harmed in any way, there is a debt that must/will be repaid by you/us, as the perpetrators/minions of unprecedented evile, will not be available. 'vote' with (what's left in) yOUR wallet, & by your behaviors. help bring an end to unprecedented evile's manifestation through yOUR owned felonious corepirate nazi glowbull warmong
One word: experience. He might be a genius and doing this all on his own merits, but a 200 IQ doesn't make up for never having seen things go bad.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
I didn't even have to click on the article to read the comments to know that this would be a flame the guy for MS software
Well guys - no offense - BUT
I agree that linux is free
I agree that linux is probably better in some types of environments
I agree that MS software has it's problems
However unless you are willing to go door to door and convince the local business to ditch their software first, then somehow convince the textbook companies to change their textbooks over to open source, and then you might be getting somewhere.
Until the local businesses (which dictate what many of the educational institutions teach as far as applications are concerned) and the textbooks that have to be used can be changed this isn't gonna happen.
I have always said they should teach THEORY instead of application specific skills. But sadly no one listens to me on that.
I hope he does not get outsourced!
I was more competent with computers than any friends I had back in the C64/Apple ][ days, and yeah I was about 12. Schools didn't have them, but I was running my school's networks as soon as they *had* networks when I was about 16ish, and the rest is history.
Honestly I really miss the days before "IT" was an industry and before these damned cert's. Now, every weenie and his brother after quick cash goes and reads a few books and gets their MCSE and despite not truly understanding subnet masks, masquerading, latency, or collisions, gets a job building networks that I, or someone else with clue, eventually comes along and fixes.
I'd take a natural 12-year old geek over a "thoroughly-trained" MCSE any day.
I'm also a little distressed that this kid is called a network admin when it seems that his main accomplishment is cleaning up M$'s piece-of-crap operating systems.
Who wishes to take over his spot next year?....yep thought so..
Got Code?
So they got some noob who wasted money instead of using free tools.
Get him some books or training courses. Not in CS, but in Economics. He is already good enough at buying stuff at compusa. Now it is time to learn how to save stuff.
The article doesn't say, and if I had to guess, it would be no... so your comment may not be too far off the mark. Shoe string budget indeed. I wonder how often they pull him out of classes and interrupt his education to rescue the network. Child prodigy or child slave labor?
Yeah, hate to tell you, most slashdotters *were* this kid. If you weren't, consider for a moment that you spent way too much time being popular and not nearly enough time burning your hands with soldering irons and reading Radio Shack's electronics books- go read wired instead.
First the kid's mom works for the school. I'm sure he's considered a "computer whiz" because he's able to keep the computer at home running, he's able to google up which services are necessary and unnecessary to keep Windows secure and configure confusing and abstract concepts such as IP addresses.
Had the kid set up a headless BSD box as a gateway and firewall then cleaned the computers and network with a purchased, proprietary point-and-click software package then I would've been impressed with the feat.
All he did was google stuff, buy stuff and take advantage of Microsoft's generosity, selected a few radio buttons and clicked "Finish". Just surprising that an eight year old wasn't able to do this.
I think they got the title mixed up.
Wow, an 11 year-old kid goes out of the way to do some good for his school, including scoring his IT department free-as-in-beer software, and you act like a jackass because you don't like his methods.
This might actually be a new low for you.
Of course it's legal - if they don't pay him! They merely treat it as any other unpaid student-held post, like Yearbook Editor or Class Secretary.
> An 11-year old isn't legal to work
At least the school isn't bound by any of the contracts he's signed with Microsoft!
Kids can't work in *some* places until they are like 18, but work in general, nope, totally legal. I started working at 8 doing lawns and snow shoveling, at 9 full time-that would be full as in long ass days- on farms in the summers, at 15 full time in a car wash on the weekends and at 16 full time after school 3 pm right after school to 11 pm every night mon-fri at an ice cream shop. It's mostly to do with osha standards and still being able to go to school where limitations are and it varies state to state with some fed regulations, but there are zero outright bans on kids working, not in the US anyway. Tons of kids work, from chump change to millionaire kids who are actors or entrepreneurs and run their own businesses. They may need a trustee to help handle financial affairs, but they can work. Heck, look at all the kids who work as cashiers/stock clerks/burger joints, etc.
Is he administrating a network? Yes. Then he's a network administrator.
Just because you require more from an administrator doesn't mean he isn't one. Don't piss on the kid's parade.
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
It's not just about an 11-year-old who took over a network admin job. Note the parts of the story about updating the computers, updating the (much needed) virus protection, and getting a gateway appliance to make sure that didn't happen again.
It's about an 11-year-old who took over a network admin job and immediately started off doing a better job than his predecessor. Kind of makes you wonder who that sad sack was, doesn't it?
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.
I'm a fifteen-year-old freshman; I've been reading /. since I was nine; I regularly beat seniors at computer science competitions; I've been my teachers' unofficial tech support since kindergarten; I downloaded, burned, and installed my first Linux distribution when I was 10 (Debian woody); I first used IRC when I was eight; I've been making PowerPoints since second grade; I ran a server off my laptop for a while when I was thirteen; and hell if I have a Slashdot article. Although, maybe I'm just jealous and trying to reinflate my busted ego. :(
Wait until the PHBs hear about this one.
Network Admin: My job is hard; I want a raise. ...sputters incoherently...
PHB: Why? Your job is so easy, an 11-year old can handle it!
Network Admin:
Every IT manager will have to live with this nightmare, until the Jedi really start getting a headache.
Never confuse movement with action. --Hemingway
All well and good for him, but at a minimum, all I see coming out of this is another bloated and exaggerated resume. "Network Manager|Network Administrator" my ass. Note how the article dismisses the previous employee as "IT systems overseer", yet in a few days he is a "Network Administrator" Had I known that was all it took to become a network administrator I would have qualified when I was young too. Pfff. Of course he knows nothing about content filtering required for schools, HIPAA, CIPA, Title programs, and the myriad of other privacy, security, and student management issues involved access to student information(e.g. IEPs) in schools. I can't wait for the school to be sued into the ground, and his life turned to shit for the rest of his life just for violating any one of many state and federal laws if he hasn't already. Adolescent criminal records never get expunged like the police like you to think. Good luck getting a job after this, anywhere. The shortest IT career in history!
oh come on, this is /.
a large proportion of us were all tech kids and geeks at young ages and did this sort of thing - thought for me it was on a Commodore Pet, and then BBC B's at school.
but, never, not once would I of considered blocked my entire school from MySpace - I bet he gets a wedgie once an hour for that. dear god, he may be smart with computers but he's nothing about getting on with the other kids.
"This is kind of a small school, and I'm known as the computer whiz," - gad! he even sounds like an insufferable little whiny, snot.
I'm not knocking him for getting on with stuff, sorting out the network and helping the stupid teachers out, I'm knocking him because nobody likes a smart ass little kid.
Still, if it gets him into college and looks help gets him his first real job then I guess the last laugh is on him.
Obviously he's not really the admin, his mom is
That's a very odd defintion of "real". My definition of a real administrator would be someone who acts as the adminisrator. Titles be damned. I'd say someone who "select and install a gateway security appliance largely by himself." and "maps out the network to find out what was on it." and "is now the technical support much of the time on everything from printer jams to setting up an external drive to backing up the school's most important server. " is acting as the administrator.
like how anyone in the administration figured it would be ok to have a minor sign contracts
An 11-year old isn't legal to work
Who said that? I'm sure his parents signed the contract (assuming they've made this all nice and legal, which I hope they have). As someone already pointed out, it's perfectly legal to have children work. There's just special rules to protect them. Did you think all those child actors were breaking the law?
AccountKiller
I spent plenty of time burning my hands on soldering irons, but I was more of an art geek overall. Besides, I was smart enough to beat the shit out of anyone who thought of bullying me. No sympathy should be rewarded to those that are stuffed into lockers, even if they do block access to something as horrid as MySpace.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Well i have seen 13 year olds working in malls before... they might have just looked 13, but people can lie about their age when they're hard up for cash because one of their working parents gets sick... hard to tell, but of course i don't live in the big city in question, but i've gone shopping there often enough to wonder at the ages of quite a few workers...
if the kid is being driven to work by an older sibling, or is withing walking distance, it's hard to really tell what age they might claim to be (no Driver license, birth certificates can be forged easily enough if they even bother with proof of age etc..)
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Dmitri is from the Bay Area who has been contributing to the Drupal project and maintaining some modules.
The funny and amazing part is that he is 12 years old, and was 10 years old when he started with the community. The co-maintainers of the modules did not know he was that young when he started contributing patches and gave him CVS access to their modules, based on what patches he contributed already.
When Google started the Google Highly Open Participation (GHOP) for high school students, he was too young to qualify, so instead he was mentoring the 15 year old high school kids!
He even presented a session at DrupalCon Boston.
When I saw Dmitri, I felt happy and humbled. I just did not think he is so short!
See also:
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
I think this sort of thing is somewhat common among poorer schools.
I was my high schools computer/network admin for 2 years. They had hired a guy, but he quit midway through my sophomore year for more money elsewhere.
We had an outside contracted company that kept our cisco gear and T1 connection going, but I took care of the file servers, any small network hiccups, and fixing the desktops for the teachers. In return I was given 2 free periods a day to do this and/or goof off.
I wasn't exactly the best of kids either, and got in trouble quite often. However I made it clear that if they suspended me, I would quit doing the work for free and just enroll in wood shop or something instead. Never got suspended or detentions, generally just a slap on the wrist after that.
That's nothing, by the time I was 11 I had already been running all the networks in my district for 5 years, *and* I had Slackware on all school machines by 7! It wasn't until 12 that I began consulting for the Federal Reserve, although in retrospect I should have taken the NASA gig instead.
I would have started my career sooner, but for most of my Kindergarten year I was under contract to the NSA.
have you been seen on slash?
welcome to the actual real world!
the social forces: cronyism, nepotism and patronism
...(and I know I'm going to get it for this), but doesn't it say a lot about the Adult Network Admin in Alabama?
FLR
Comic books?
Where do I sign up?
I've already got peanuts, now I can have comic books, too!
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They may not prevent you from hiring children, but there are indeed restrictions. Children under the age of 14 aren't allowed to do most jobs and I'm almost positive that network administration is not one of the exceptions to this.
http://www.victorybaptistschool.net/15001.html So.. this kids parents have to pay $3000/yr, with lots of extra fees, so their kid can save the school the cost of a computer admin, and they only give him computers running win98 that are too old to run any software. And then on top of it, their obviously talented son is subjected to a 10th rate science and math curriculum (http://www.abeka.com/Distinctives.html).
And that's the scariest thing. When system administration just comes down to understanding the interface and not having to understand what you are doing or how you are doing it. Should that interface not be able to accomplish the task or freeze you out, you aru paralyzed in your ability to do your job.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Get rid of Windows and all the other Microsoft dreck. There are many more intelligent options. Start making the world a better place. :-)
you had me at #!
I'm sure they will give you that same job.
Of course it's legal - if they don't pay him!
Why do so many people think employing children is illegal? Do you all think the television and movie studios should be in jail for employing Gary Coleman? (That annoying red-haired kid who played his adoptive brother I'd say a resounding YES, but for different reasons of course).
They merely treat it as any other unpaid student-held post, like Yearbook Editor or Class Secretary
You might want to check your local employment laws. I wouldn't be surprised if it's illegal to not pay someone for actual work (like done by a network administrator) rather than something purely educational like Yearbook editor, or Class Secretary).
AccountKiller
"... Don't piss on the kid's parade."
I concur.
IF - you're (you, Windows/Linux hotshots) truly concerned, jet an email to him, and- or, mail him a care package with some old RAM, NICs, cables, hell, that old server - stuff you have laying around - yeah THAT stuff over there in a pile.
http://www.victorymillbrook.com/contact.html
Parade that knowledge you have to give him a hand, I have a brother (way back when) that was like this - THIS - is an opportunity.
Contribute more than a comment, this could be really cool.
~hylas
The answer to that and similar situations is documentation. Processes and documentation are required for a system of any size, whether it's free software or not. If the commercial/payfor software *comes* with documentation, that's an argument for it, but it still needs to be findable, and people need to have read it and understand it *before* an emergency happens.
creation science book
That pretty much says it all. He's as old as the network.
In high school, a bunch of my friends were helping out on the computer network, either for credit as an independent study, or just to learn it. Everything from making cables to desktop support. I befriended the network administrator, who let me do some supervised work on the servers... I used the experience to take and pass the MCSE exams. When looking for part time work as a college student, it was a lot easier to make beer money as a network guy than a lab rat, the 5x page didn't hurt
He is getting experience, and he's learning some basic skills. I'm sure the school will bring in someone experienced when they need to do something real, but what's wrong with this student stepping up and learning a bit. The school gets the network kept going cheaply, he gets valuable experience. It may not be much now, but in 3 years, he'll have plenty of experience to get a good after school job, instead of a crappy one.
Circumcision is child abuse.
Good for him. There are a lot of things that kids and teens can do if they are given support. As for being a network/systems administrator, I believe that he is one by definition. Almost anyone can be a network/systems administrator. What is hard to find are good skilled administrators with tons of experience. However, he definitely is not a network engineer (Hey, listen to all of the mechanical, civil, etc. Engineers scream in unison that only THEY are engineers). Network engineering requires a much higher skill level, one that takes into account the entire infrastructure and a large range of experience with all types of systems and devices. David BTW: Can we dispense with the MCSE bashing? If there were no MCSE program, there would be just as many unskilled people applying for technical positions. Also remember, and I am guilty of this too, not everyone has the experience or institutional knowledge (which brings a greater insight to problem solving) as you do. The question is, how quickly do they learn and do they repeat the same mistakes.
'These computers are so old they don't support all antivirus programs,' Penn says.
The computers are too old to support all antivirus programs? What does that even mean? To be fair, brand new computers do not support all antivirus programs either, since there are incompatibilities between various Windows releases.
Letting an 11y/o provide support and give advice for a network of any importance, regardless of how smart he is, will lead to many critical mistakes. The statement I quoted is a good example of this. The kid went to CompUSA, talked to an employee, and then came back to repeat what the employee told him. This isn't news.
You call up your MS rep. or IT support. They will bring in a contractor, who will bring in a subcontractor. This guy might bring in a subcontractor, who will push the reset button. Which will result in lost data, but that will require another MS rep/support call, and from past experience you know the new sub-sub contractor will confirm your data is lost.
Don't worry, the company pays for this, and the rate was already part of the contract you initially signed.
When I was a young 12-year old, debugging tiny (20 boxes, maybe a server) networks, older folks were impressed by my work ethic and cheerfulness, and kept saying things like "when you're eighteen give me a call, I could use a smart fella like you!". Two points I'd like to make:
first, running anti-viral software on a bunch of shit systems is not nearly as large responsibility as it sounds. Other commenters have challenged the actual effectiveness of his "network administration". When I was a kid I did this shit and thought I was king of the world. Got my own article in the local paper, too. didn't save the clipping, it looked like shit. so, he's young and doing stuff that should be left to idiotic 22 year olds/college dropouts
second, this is no indication of his future performance. myself, i was naive, eager to please, and oh so exploitable. i am currently so not the kind of dude you want fucking around on your network. i bet in a few years, this kid won't be, either. maybe he'll go to college, accrue tens of thousands in loans and pay them off in a dead end job. maybe he'll be a genius and invent internet 3.2 or whatever. probably not.
tl;dr = DO NOT JUDGE SOMEONE'S POTENTIAL BASED OFF UNUSUAL SHIT THEY DO WHEN THEY ARE ELEVEN.
unless they're making bombs.
In all likelyhood, he probably either hasn't heard of Linux, he isn't allowed to install Linux or other FOSS, or the computers are so bad that windows 2000 probably actually runs better on the machines. I live in Alabama, and did the same thing for my teacher's assistant period, albeit while in the 7th and 8th grade. Depending on the county he lives in, he's probably adminining machines with an average spec of: AMD K6 series or Intel Pentium 2/3 series processors, 128 MB RAM, integrated video, 4-10 GB HDD,CD ROM drive. Maybe (hopefully)he has something better to work with. In my county (Morgan), the majority of the computers we had to work with were donations (throwaways) from Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville. As far as FOSS goes, his county likely has a mandate that his school install McAfee AV (oh the horror) on every computer in the school, networked or not. FOSS, including Firefox, was simply not allowed on the machines. The only way to get permission to use FOSS would be to climb the bureaucratic chain all the way to the county Superintendent of Education, who likely doesn't know a whit about computers and is likely to view anything free (as in beer) with suspicion.
"We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security." Dwight Eisenhower
Sweet! Now maybe I'll have someone to trade pokemon with! Errr, I mean, must be a really smart kid! ....
"Quote me as saying I was mis-quoted." -Groucho Marx
My high school, due to a "budget crisis", fired all the IT staff and hired 2 IT people for the entire school district a week before school started. Yes, you heard me right: these 2 people were responsible for maintaining not only the computers for a high school with 2,000 kids in it, but also the 16 other elementary, middle, and high schools in the district. Basically, the main domain for the district is in the high school, and all the other domain controllers in the other schools connect via VPN to the high school.
They were horribly over-worked, and often the students suffered. For instance, they recently installed a new server, which required them to take down the old server and copy all the files to it... during the school day because the district couldn't afford to pay them overtime. So for a week we had NO COMPUTERS because the server was being fixed. And, whenever an issue were to happen at another school, the IT people would have to run over there, leaving no one to fix the problem they were working on before.
So many of the things the school makes them do causes all the issues. Like the Group Policy settings that restrict EVERYTHING imaginable, from the File menu to the Task Manager. This causes major headaches because students and teachers have to call them down to fix something because the Group Policy blocks them from fixing it themselves, like switching printers and program shortcuts, taking more time away from them.
I think he listened to me about the Group Policy though, one day they were less restrictive (although they were still very annoying, you could at least use Task Manager to end processes, which is very important because programs crash on those computers every day).
But if I were an IT person like that 11 year old, things would be different. Linux would be used instead, no expensive office programs or tutoring software, just open-source stuff that does everything the current expensive programs do, and decent support.
Sometimes the over-workness shows. For instance, in my middle school, I noticed that there were no security permissions on everyone's files, so anyone who knew how to load the Finder on the Mac computers and navigate to the servers (like me) could get access to EVERYTHING on them. I told the IT person about the issue, she fixed it in a day. But God only knows how long those files were accessible...
With kids learning more about computers (I learned basic computer stuff when I was 6, older programming languages like QBasic and Visual Basic when I was 10, Linux when I was 12, and C++ right now), why not give the kids who can be trusted these responsibilities?
Two things. One, You are absolutely correct. The story should read. "11-year old has parents who got him special treatment!"
That being said. Big whoop if the kid is a network admin. It's not that hard. Is it really doubtful that an 11 year old can install an OS, install some software, and help a few people with their computers? How many of us started programming younger than that? How money of us cut our teeth on computers in the 80's? These machines were harder to use than a network is to run today. Especially when you have someone to step in when you run into something you can't handle.
As for the 11 year old being legal to work. There are a couple of things. First, there are all sorts of exemptions for various jobs like acting, modeling, and whatnot, but at least here in California, but for all intents and purposes it is illegal to hire anyone under 12 for most jobs. Network administrator would definitely fall into that category.
Exceptions that the school could be using is the "self-employed" exemption. This is questionable though, as it is likely that the school dictates where and when he does the job, so he may not legally be self employed. The other "exemption" is that schools have never followed child labor laws themselves. Child labor has traditionally been a method of punishment in public schools. Children are often put to work underage, outside of legal work hours, and without compensation. I have never heard of a state stepping in and stopping this behavior. It is just one of those lawless aspects of our public school system. I know when I was in school, I always wondered how the public schools could get away with what is for all intents and purposes slavery. If a school can force students to perform janitorial services with no compensation, we cannot expect anyone to stop them from allowing a student to perform IT services.
Really, though this comes story boils down to the fact that it is just not that impressive that someone 11 years old can do the job of network administrator. For most of human history, this person would have been on the cusp of adulthood. 11 only sounds young because we artificially retard our population so that most never learn to function until much later.
Um... yay. That's Much faster than the five minutes it takes to tweak a config file on Linux. Who do I make a check out to?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Why is this scary? It's a school with only 60 computers, it's not a big deal if the computers go down or data gets lost especially given that it is not a high school.
In that situation I'd say using software that is simple enough for an 11 year old to figure out is perfectly sensible. It speaks great volumes about the simplicity of the interface and illustrates quite nicely what the strength of Windows is.
That said, if the kid thinks he knows everything about administration because he can just point and click then he or the company he employs would likely be sorry when they begin to rely on these systems to make money. When downtime is a big issue you need better and more sophisticated management which is more than just point and click.
Of course I was 13 when I administered the middle school I was attending, I did it until I was 17, at that time I was helping 4 other schools too. It was all netware so it worked once you got it going. Little annoyed I didn't get an article when I was a kid. Oh well, the kid is on the right track, in 10 years he will probably have a pretty impressive skill-set at his disposal. Assuming he doesn't get lazy and doesn't think everything is as easy as creating a user in Active Directory.
Well i have seen 13 year olds working in malls before.
Shit... the first time I read it as "balls"... I think I need help.
BTW, for you and GP, pictures of it didn't happen.
Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
I'am an intern at my towns IT department at 16 and we are short staffed so we do about everything.
It's hard to take someone who determines that upgrading to Windows 2000 and buying thousands of dollars worth of antivirus software is better than the countless superior options out there today seriously.
Honestly, Ubuntu 8.04 would have been a much more cost effective and modern solution for only 60 computers, and with Wine, they probably could have run most of the Windows software they require. Right off the bat they would have saved thousands of dollars in antivirus software, and they would have gotten free and long term updates as well. Upgrading would be a cinch.
Even Windows XP would be a better solution - at least it's supported for a few more years. This kid's solution is an administrative disaster, and some competent admin in the future will be wondering who was foolish enough to spend money upgrading to an antiquated operating system like Windows 2000. It was good at the time, but now, it's increasingly vulnerable to viruses as it remains unpatched, as as technology progresses, applications will become increasingly incompatible.
I got my first "real" hourly semi-daily job a week after I turned 14. In Michigan, there are some subsets of jobs such as working as a caddy that you can start at 11 or 12 I believe, but it's 14 for a regular job. You have to get a card signed by your school but I never knew anyone who wasn't able to get one. There were some limitations on the total amount of hours a week, but I was working 3 or 4 5-8 hour shifts a day starting at age 14.
How many fulltime jobs can one man have?
Through middle school and high school, I was as big a nerd as any of you. I loved video games, I played D&D, if my face wasn't right in front of a computer screen it was in a book, and I for all intents and purposes ran the fine arts department's "digital media lab". I was also about 100lbs. and didn't break 5' tall until 11th grade. And you know what, I didn't get my ass kicked once, I didn't get bullied, I didn't even really get harassed.
What was my secret? I didn't resent all of the "jocks" and the "cool kids". I wasn't particularly social, but I went to the occasional event, just to see if I'd like it. I tried participating in pick-up games after class. I wasn't always successful, sometimes I just embarrassed myself, but I laughed it off which let everyone else laugh and I just tried harder. And even teenagers respond to that.
Occasionally there'd be a guy who just wanted to be a dick, but I had made enough friendships within pretty much all of the different social groups at the school that there'd usually be someone around to make sure it didn't get out of hand. It always seemed to me that the "nerd" group had just as many issues as everyone else, and even though we shared more interests, they weren't necessarily better people or even better to hang out with.
I went to a public middle school and a private high school. It wasn't inner city or anything like that, so your milage may vary. But I always found that for me personally, if I approached people with a little confidence for myself, and a basic respect for them, then they'd usually be friendly, or at worst, decide to just let me be.
If this kid is a little dick head who struts around presenting himself as the smartest guy ever, then yeah he might have some problems. If he realizes that he's just another kid, with a few different opportunities for learning than some of his other classmates, then he'll probably be fine.
One time I threw a brick at a duck.
Victory Baptist School has about 150 students in the elementary grades,
60 in high school.
Thirty people on staff, full or part time.
You are looking at a small - closely knit - church and school in a middle class suburb northeast of Montgomery, population 10-15,000.
Families that have likely known each other for decades.
The first rule of being a Network Admin is not to let others know that an 11 year old could do it.
https://www.microsoft.com/Education/Freshstart/FSSplash.aspx
Take a look at the Fresh Start program for yourself. Surprisingly enough, nothing seems overtly evil. Weird.
... for a year, I'm pretty familiar with the available pool of intellectual talent. Thus, this article surprises me very little.
Wow, I thought at a certain point they'd just let you out of the fourth grade with an exception...
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Lets subsidize a private school that can't be bothered to hire a proper technician.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I wouldn't be surprised if it's illegal to not pay someone for actual work (like done by a network administrator) rather than something purely educational like Yearbook editor, or Class Secretary).
I'm willing to bet that he's getting far more education from his IT services than the Yearbook Editor is getting for theirs!
That's exactly what my high school did. The primary admin was a contracted 3rd party, but to save the school money there were 3 of us (students) dealing with hardware, network admin, etc.
At the end of the year they gave each of us an award for being "helpful" with some cash attached to it. At the time it as equivalent to what I was earning for two hours of (IT related) work after school.
It did get us out of Phys. Ed. and other ungraded classes and I got some worthwhile experience/knowledge from it, so it didn't really feel like exploitation at the time.
16 is not the same as 11.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
Happens there . . .
During my time in high school in the 90's, I got a phone call on a saturday from our school librarian (recently turned network admin), freaking out after having misplaced her login information for the schools novell setup. She must've been really desperate to be calling me, since she only knew I used the computers on a regular basis at my lunch break.
Luckily for her, I had learned a thing or two about getting around the novell interface to get direct access to the OS itself and managed to walk her through the process of hacking the network enough to modify whatever it was she needed it to do.
Granted, hacking in this case is perhaps a bit liberal, since back then, you could simply interrupt the novell stuff by requesting a task, followed by a CTRL-C combination immediately after, forcing a drop out to an unprotected DOS prompt. (I think later versions eventually managed to trap it, but included an option to manually leave the exploit active for emergencies...)
8==8 Bones 8==8
Another child lost to the dark side.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Yeah, I have a bunch of 16-year-old girls "working" for me too. Perv.
no we can't, you forgot to leave us your name
the significance of a signature is insignificant
In Capitalist America, only young people maintain school networks!
hapo
I had to laugh when I saw that this was Victory Baptist. I went to high school in Millbrook, not at the school from the article, but the public school in this town. Millbrook is currently ranked as the fastest growing city in Alabama, last I checked. Most of the kids that got kicked out of public school had to go to Victory.
They have computers in Alabama! That's the real story!
How long will it be before the Principal outsources the kid's job to India thinking it'll be cheaper...
.....that only THEY are engineers......
You mean you don't know that REAL engineers run big engines, train engines that is? In days gone by, real engineers also ran BIG steam shovels, steam power stations, ships and other gigantic steam driven machinery. Even nowadays people called engineers drive trains, albeit diesel or electric ones.
All theory is gray
That's a poor example. From wikipedia: However, some quick math shows he was 10 when he started Different Strokes and 18 when the show ended.
The particular situation situation isn't scary. As you noticed and eventually agreed with me, the eventual outcome of relying upon an interface to do your administration is not really administration at all. And should that be the eventual eveloution of a monopolized IT economy, what would happen when that interface was comprimised? Scary is it not?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
This might actually be a new low for you. Ok, so let's look at this objectively. I really don't pay attention to
(1) Would you have replied the same to anyone who wrote that comment, or did you reply solely because it was posted by someone you didn't like?
and
(2) Are you at all disturbed that your comment is indirectly supporting Microsoft? Must have been quite the troll's dilemma for you
Seriously, grow up the lot of you. You're embarrassing yourselves.
Step 1: packet sniff
Step 2: get creative with myspace pages of offending locker-stuffers
Step 3: laugh inside
Step 4: rinse/repeat as necessary with email, school blackboard, etc.
Am I the only one that is always skeptical when reading about these "child prodigies"? I always picture some very overbearing, media-whore parents pushing the kid way to hard, way too early.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011
I had a paper route when I was 12. Of course, my parents also let me drive a moped to deliver them. The local sheriff deputies never looked to kindly upon that ...
No Inflation Taxation without Representation
Network Admin? Nothing special here folks. I started programming in C when I was 9 . By the time I was in middle school I had installed custom written hacks on my public schools network and used the programs to inflate my reading score (we got scored for books we read). I then used my inflated score to purchase prize items. That way I wouldn't be bothered reading school material when I could read my LOTR, or Redwall. For every 11-year-old network admin there are 4 11 year old hackers inflating their reading grades. It's like a microcosm of the real world...
Trying to install linux on my microwave, but keep getting a kernel panic...
I can't fully explain it, but I really like something about that insight. Maybe it's that I wonder what I could've accomplished if I knew everything I know now back when I was 11.
Evidently, the key to understanding recursion is to begin by understanding recursion. The rest is easy.
11-year-old Jon Penn, who took over control of a 60-computer school network in Alabama after the old administrator suddenly left
;)
Oh yeah, I did something like that one time... Well OK, except, the old administrator was still in charge, and he also probably wasn't exactly aware of my knowledge of all the network passwords...
New TV-show at 11
a reliable source told me that this 11 year old discovered an alternative proof for the least upper bound theorem on an etch-a-sketch and then shook it away because he thinks modesty is a virtue.
For every 11-year-old network admin there are 4 11 year old hackers inflating their reading grades. It's like a microcosm of the real world
Are you related to those guys who tried to hold up a bank and wrote the hold-up note on the back of their own personal check?
Now, where is that thinkofthechildren teg when you need one?!
...But that was 13 years ago. :)
;-)
Took over Novell 4.11 network, built two new computer labs from scratch, got us on the Internet with a fractional T1, built a team of 4 other people to help me, and worked as an IT admin for another company after school through an unsolicited principal's referral.
Could have done it all at 11 given the opportunity.
Woe be on these students once he decides to implement mandatory profiles, take away local admin rights, and really manage that network. Windows 2000 comes with some good tools for that.
Now one word of advice - learn business and find a way not to work for other people. It's a lot more productive.
Leonid S. Knyshov
Find me on Quora
Schools can force students to perform unpaid labour like 'picking up litter' for the same reason they can force students to perform unpaid labour like 'each student must make a perfect copy of what is written on this blackboard'. It's education, not labour. In the case of litter-picking or floor-mopping, it's teaching 'don't be a dick' or 'sit down, shut up and work when told to or you'll end up mopping floors for a living' rather than calculus, but it's still inflicting learning on the unwilling. Can you tell I work in a school?
Yes, they're getting the unpaid services of an IT administrator - but then they're getting the results of an inexperienced 11 year old in his first post who's learning in-situ. Hope they contract out their email services!
"For most of human history, this person would have been on the cusp of adulthood. 11 only sounds young because we artificially retard our population so that most never learn to function until much later."
I do however take exception to this. 11 was on the verge of adulthood if you were a pre bronze age child or if you live in a subsistance-poor family at any point, including currently. Children didn't sexually mature until much later than now, even into their 20's, due to malnutrition. In the wealthier sections of society, even in the iron age, children were much older than 11 before taking the full mantle of responsibility.
Children are sexually mature earlier than ever, but lack the reasoning capacity to use it properly it often seems. We also require them to know a hell of a lot more than they used to function in our society - not many jobs down the coal mines or running under the weaving machines any more. We are a more technologically advanced society, though intra-socially we're little different than the romans. I doubt you'd find many roman 11 year olds capable of being a network administrator, even if they could work a shift on the farm.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
The word is "nepotastic".
Inbox:
WORD DOESN'T WORK!!
Can't open book report
START BUTTON NOT THERE
THE iNTERNET IS BROKEN
Excuse me, could u help me?
URGENT!!1 Gradebook software broken!! Need fix asap thx1
If you think I jest, I sell educational software to elementary school teachers. They're wonderful people but, as a generalization, not Slashdot readers when it comes to operating their PCs. I have had to respond, I kid you not, to email suggesting that my software has broken their ability to send email. Which, on investigation, appears to actual refer to AIM ("you know, email, geez, I thought you knew computers") and which still has absolutely nothing to do with the Java application they just downloaded. And you want to sic Linux boxes on these people? Be my guest, I will retreat to my castle and stock the moat with voracious alligators before the torch-bearing mob arrives.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Wow. You are a perfect example of why home schooling is becoming more popular.
"it's teaching 'don't be a dick' or 'sit down, shut up and work when told to or you'll end up mopping floors for a living' rather than calculus, but it's still inflicting learning on the unwilling."
Really? Really? Have you ever actually listened to what your saying? Those are not the words of an educator, but of a bully who knows that he has his victims cornered. You can rationalize why your child slave labor is OK, but you and I know perfectly well that you are not doing it because you think it will make them better educated.
"I do however take exception to this. 11 was on the verge of adulthood if you were a pre bronze age child or if you live in a subsistance-poor family at any point, including currently. Children didn't sexually mature until much later than now, even into their 20's, due to malnutrition. In the wealthier sections of society, even in the iron age, children were much older than 11 before taking the full mantle of responsibility."
Take exception if you want, but it is true. Look at the rights of passage into adulthood for most cultures in the world. Things like the bar/bat mitzvah. They are almost always at 12 or 13. I don't know what country you live in, but less than a hundred years ago, right here in the U.S. wasn't uncommon for 13 to 16 year olds to get married.
Take a look at historical life expectancies. For your claim to be true, most of your classical Roman's not only never bread because they were dead before they could have children, and most of those that did breed, never saw their children's 11th birthday.
"Children are sexually mature earlier than ever,"
I've been hearing this since I was a kid in the early 70's. In the 70's, girls were on average hitting puberty between 11 and 13, although it was not unheard of for it to be as young as 8 or 9. So, for this to be true, the average age of puberty would have to be averaging 8 or 9 now at least. As far as I know, that is not the case. A quick search showed that it is currently at 12.5.
"but lack the reasoning capacity to use it properly it often seems"
That's right. People like you train them "sit down, shut up and work when told to". It's no suprise that they are developing slower and slower. Of course that is the point. The sad thing is that the retardation is environmental, not genetic.
"We also require them to know a hell of a lot more than they used to function in our society"
The only more that we expect them to know now that we did not expect before is that we expect them to be able to read, although not particularly well. This is a task that a bright child can learn to do well by 3, and a slow one can easily learn by 6 or 7. Your belief that most modern people know significantly more than people used to is cultural bias. Life in modern America is so simple, and so little knowledge is required of people that most modern Americans could simply not function in older environments.
"I doubt you'd find many roman 11 year olds capable of being a network administrator, even if they could work a shift on the farm."
Gee, you doubt that someone who had never seen a computer, could be a network administrator? Go figure. Of course, I doubt that you will find many 11 year olds today that can speak Latin and make an authentic Roman shield. Heck, that is even with hind site in their favor. Why? Because people don't learn things they are not exposed to, which is why so many people are now retarded. Because they are called children for a half to whole decade after they reach adulthood.
Your belief that historically people were considered children into their 20's is simply revisionist history, and you are helping with the dumbing down of modern America.
This guy is so lucky, I got in trouble for fixing a teacher's laptop with permission from said teacher. God, All adults seem to look upon us minors as if we are nothing more than thorns in their sides. Sometimes we know things that the teachers(and the school IT guy) don't. -A Frustrated High-Schooler
Yeah, but give him another year or two of actually using Linux, and he'll realise how impractical it'd be. Or perhaps not, considering there are more than a few out there who still haven't gotten that message.
Did you even read that thing? It says:
"the FLSA sets 14 years of age as the minimum age for employment"
so therefore an 11 year old cannot legally be employed for anything... doh!
stuff |
About negotiations, politics, and vendor lock-in. In fact, the lesson he thinks he's learning is probably different than the one he is REALLY learning. He would never be able to make the business case to switch. And besides, I'm sure whatever software the school uses will be heavily dependent on Windows. For the average office user, the world of Linux offers freedom. Not so in a school system, where the people who write educational programs (or administrative programs for that matter) have already consumed the MS Koolaid.
Whatever the benefits are of using seasoned IT pros vs. 11-year-olds, the school system is certainly not getting them. To the extent they are happy with the arrangement, it tells me a great deal about the value of seasoned IT pros in the Windows world. Surely, a pro COULD do a much better job, but is that what the school had before? If so, did they perform as pros? Did it matter? I'm not sure which answer is scarier.
Truth of the matter is, school systems get "sticker shock" when shopping for IT professionals. As an alternative, they slide somebody into the position based on their ability to (a) type, (b) ask an IT spouse for assistance, (c)their computer hobby, or (d) all of the above.
At a basic level, even an 11-year-old can be a Windows admin. Problem is, when he's a 22 year old college student, or a 33 year old IT pro, Windows will still be mediocre compared to the alternatives. If he continues with Windows he will spend the rest of his life being measured in terms of what the current crop of 11-year-olds can do. For the school system, Windows is a "marriage of convenience". For that kid, it's a waste of time.
I am glad that someone can help out a school in need, and maybe this will look good on the kids resume, but remember he is a kid, and needs to do kid things to have the ability to know how to have fun, and not become another wacko jacko....kids should not be pushed to grow up too fast.
I applaud this however as it shows that we as a generation are getting smarter quicker in the tech department, now as for social ineptitude, this is a diff. story.
Most grading systems are done on the computer. I'm sure a change here and a change there could greatly improve his popularity.
I WAS that kid, you insensitive clod!
Principal: This little kid survived longer than that with no antivirus and no firewall. [to Jon] Right?
[Jon gives a salute]
Teacher [starting to lose his cool]: Why don't you put him in charge?
Queens of the Stone Age - they rule
It is Alabama after all. I'm sure he has a wife and three kids to support.
I lived in Mobile, Alabama for 3 years and had to get out.
I am not surprised at all that "a child shall lead them" when it comes to general intelligence level in that State.
I worked with and met some of the stupidest people in the world there. They were also petty, back stabbing liars without any moral fiber at all.
Oh, but they lead "faith based lives" so I guess that's okay.
Do you detect a note of bitterness? Nah!
...should be enough for everyone
On a serious note, I once had Windows 98SE on a laptop with a P1 and 32MB RAM. It CRAWLED. Memories of it were brought back recently when I was using a Dell Core Duo laptop with 1GB of RAM running Vista. Of course it had the typical slow-as-molasses laptop HDD, but it's still pretty sad that it took about 6 minutes to go from POST to a loaded Vista desktop.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Stop being a egotistical jerk.
Unless you were a network administrator at the age of 11 or younger you should shut the hell up and say 'what a great kid, good on him'. Instead you bash the kid claiming that you were doing what he is doing back when you were 4!... shut up
It's not only the technical aspects that is the focus but also the RESPONSIBILITY of such a job. I say to him 'well done, as a 11 year old kid to TAKE on a JOB that requires your full ATTENTION where the slightest of hiccups can bring down the network, I say well done'
Yes, at 11 I was playing and programming my Amiga 500, but I don't think I had the CONFIDENCE to take on such a JOB.
Without having any more information about his day to day activities, I say good on him.
First of all, to all of the Alabama haters, at least I know how to RTFA (this includes the submitter of this article as well). The very first line in the article says that the kid is from Millbrook, Arkansas, not Millbrook, Alabama.
Secondly, I'm from Huntsville, AL and I always hate articles with Alabama in the title. Even though the article is about an intelligent kid who is doing something good for his school, it produces comments like "Alamaba sucks and consists of nothing but stupid people and rednecks". While it is true that AL definitely has its embarrassing parts (much like any other state), there have been plenty of intelligent people to come from this state as well. And don't forget, Alabama has probably done more for the field of space exploration than any other state. And yes, I do realize that Huntsville is definitely an outlier compared to the stats for the rest of the state.
this kids parents have to pay $3000/yr
First, $3000 is really cheap for a private school. It's probably sharing a building and some staff with a Baptist church. We pay $9000 for my son, and the secular private schools in that price range around here (Detroit) all stop in eighth grade. After that, we either need to move somewhere with a decent school district or expect to pay $16000.
Second, his mom's the librarian, so they probably aren't paying anything else.
Only money and mindshare.
Umm, the subject says Alabama, but the article says Arkansas . . .
Wow, has anyone noticed how the title is completely wrong? This is not in Alabama, it's in Sherwood, Arkansas! The people making the Alabama jokes should feel real smart now. Next time poster, get your facts straight!
Your extracirricular activities do not intrigue me and I do not wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
"Have you ever actually listened to what your saying?"
At what point did I say that I agreed with it as a teaching method? Or that I employed it? It doesn't happen at my school, perhaps because we're not from the US. I am however cynical enough about it because it's not uncommon in that part of the world. Much of your post is based upon me also being american, which I am not.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
Oh, and life expectancies don't work the way you think they do. The average age at death has been increasing somewhat for those who live past 5 (due to medical care in old age mainly) but people in the ancient world didn't drop dead at 30! It reflects very high infant mortality rates, often also killing the mother due to lack of medical care is the cause of that. People in the ancient world regularly lived into their 60's and 70's, if they weren't poor or unlucky, and made it past 5. Life expectancy is a mean average. Just read the paragraph after the numbers on the wiki page!
Assuming 16 is an adult, which is not unreasonable, 11 is not 'almost an adult'. 13 year olds getting married were almost invariably brides being married to an older man, so not exactly a sign of approaching adulthood in terms of responsibility, just the power structure that lead to powerful men getting access to very young wives.
As far as the puberty thing, my malnutrition quote hopefully showed that I meant way back further than the 70's! I'm quite happy to accept sexual maturity hasn't changed much since the 70's. However, I don't think you found many 11 year olds counted as adults in the west in the 1970's either. Going back to 70 say, it's a different story.
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
"At what point did I say that I agreed with it as a teaching method?"
The point at which you stated it as fact and said that based on this I should be able to tell that you work in a school, as opposed to you stating that it is an incorrect fact that others believe. Clearly wherever you went to school, the schools are just as bad as here in the US.