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.

OSS is evil.

The teacher was right. We have to stop this communism right here, right now!

Re:OSS is evil.

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) .

Re:OSS is evil.

This hit Digg a while ago, and I'm sure the little asshats there are doing things to the school.
Digg up the hoax story if anyone sees this...digg it [digg.com]..
Just because I feel sorry for the school...

Re:OSS is evil.

This entire story is possibly based on erroneous information.

http://www.bigspring.k12.pa.us/news.php?action=view_article&article_id=2130 [k12.pa.us]

Re:OSS is evil.

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:OSS is evil.

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:OSS is evil.

Exactly, schools aren't there to teach creativity, they're supposed to teach conformity and acceptance. And I damn sure want to keep it that way because I'm creative, I like my job security, and I need schools to churn out people to fix my plumbing so I don't have to crawl around under my house. I would hope my fellow /.ers would feel the same.

Re:OSS is evil.

If every kid comes out of school creative and motivated to do great things, where are we going to get people to do all the shit jobs that no one wants to do?

Prison?

No, we can't do that - it would be against the murderer's human rights to put him to work in a shitty job...

Re:authority figure is a moron

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.

Re:authority figure is a moron

Debating idiocity lends some validity to said idiocity.

it's in Illinois

Where, pray tell, is this place known as "Idiocity"?

According to Google Maps it's at the Art Institute of Chicago [google.com]

detention for disobedience

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

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.

Re:detention for disobedience

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

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

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

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

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

this is slashdot, we don't use logic here. for that you need to go to.... um... not the internet!

Re:detention for disobedience

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

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

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 work at a school district as a math teacher. I also have several years of experience in IT industry, and have a master's degree in CS. I can assure you that *most* of our IT people know little to nothing about anything that doesn't involve Microsoft or Novell. Which means I just deal with IT problems myself, because I can usually *not* count on getting any level of help beyond the simple scripted responses one gets when they e-mail technical support.

Why do I bring this up? Because this sword you swing cuts both ways: I'm *definitely* not one of the teachers you describe, and *you* definitely don't sound like one of the IT people I describe. I think it's fair to say that not many teachers *or* school district IT employees are what you and I would describe as "computer literate beyond the most basic level."

BTW, your comment about installing software leads me to believe that this student may have also violated an AUP that specifically prohibits the installation of programs other than those endoresed by the school district. Regardless of how one reads "installation," it's a safe bet that no one would argue that copying an .exe to a Windows drive, even if it does not access the registry, constitutes "installation."