[Lets take a shot at the digest version of the feedback and see how this all goes. :) - WK] Forwarded from: Brooks Isoldi <bjisoldiat_private> I am by no means advocating that this child be sent to jail, but the notion that the student was merely mimicking the teacher and had no idea he was doing something "wrong" is garbage. Sixth graders know the difference between right and wrong and if he did not know the difference, then why did he lie to get out of lunch? Why not just simply tell the lunch teacher "Hey, im going to my teachers room to sit down at her computer and change my grades. After all, I am just doing what she does!". Any coddling this child gets is simply going to teach the kid that he can continue to do things like that and get away with it. Jail time? Absolutely not. Detention, suspension of computer priviledges and maybe be forced to go through a morality class? Yep. Brooks Isoldi The Intelligence Network http://www.intellnet.org 877-581-3724 [Voicemail/Fax] -=Fwd=- Forwarded from: Eric Lee Green <ericat_private> Cc: lowvoltageat_private On Monday 17 February 2003 02:21 am, InfoSec News wrote: > Forwarded from: LowVoltage <lowvoltageat_private> > > Jail Time! For doing what every sixth grader around the world wants > to do - improve their marks? Okay, as a former American school teacher who had students in his class with probation officers, here's the deal: the kid isn't going to get "jail time" as such. Here's what happens. The cops come and handcuff the kid. They take him to their car and drive him to the juvenile detention center. He is placed into an interrogation room, and a juvenile officer goes in and starts scaring the bejeezus out of the kid about how wrong it is to use the teacher's computer without permission, how they're going to take him to the juvenile jail at Westfall where the older kids are going to bully him and beat him up every day and make him lick their shoes and etc., and how he's not going to see his mom and dad and home again, and once this "bad cop" has him good and scared and crying, the "bad cop" leaves. Then comes in the "good cop", who sits down and asks the kid why he's crying, gets the whole story from the kid's perspective, and gently steers the kid into admitting that it was wrong (and why it was wrong) and basically extracts a promise from him that he'll never do it again. Then the kid is released into his parent's custody. A few months later, the trial is held, the juvenile judge listens to the kid's story again, and sternly says that he's convinced that the kid won't do it again, but he's putting the kid on juvenile probation -- the kid has to go to school, has to behave and follow the rules, and if he doesn't, then he will go to the juvenile jail. At this point the kid's shaking in his boots remembering what the "bad cop" said about juvenile jail, and promises effusively that he'll be good. And for 95%+ of kids, that's the end of it. They fly straight, The other small percentage of kids who encounter the juvenile system... well, often they're coming from emotionally abusive backgrounds, like many of the "hacker" kids I encountered at that stage of my life, whose criminal misbehavior was often as much a cry for help as it was a desire for intellectual stimulation. The process doesn't work for them because they basically *want* (on an emotional level) to be removed from their abusive family and sent to juvenile jail. Another group of kids have criminal family members who steer the kid wrong, and the above stunt doesn't work because the family members have already been through the system and *know* that juvenile jail isn't like what the "bad cop" said. (In some ways it is, there's more bullying there than should be, but states are required to ensure the safety and education of the kids in those facilities or else have a federal judge swoop in and whang them for violating the civil rights of those kids, so juvenile jails typically aren't anywhere near as repressive as adult jails). > Praise the child for ingenuity and his social engineering skills. Praise a child for doing wrong? Sorry. Not I. > Scold the teacher for leaving her workstation unlocked and > publically accessible. *DEFINITELY*. Frankly, if I were a school administrator, I would write this teacher up for violating school policy (which undoubtedly says that the terminal shall not be left logged in when the teacher is not physically present). > Sit the student down and explain to him from a moral perspective > exactly why he shouldn't be changing his marks. Why did nobody tell > him that he wasn't doing himself any good, and that he was depriving > others of the fairness of the system? Absolutely. This will be part of the juvenile justice process. The techniques used will be a bit harsher than simply sitting him down, but this is the basic goal. > Sending a child like this to jail is NOT going to do any good to > anyone. Except he is *not* going to jail. I had 11 year old students encounter the juvenile justice system for the first time (one school that I taught at had a zero-tolerance policy for fighting, a policy that I did not agree with since a fight or two is normal for eleven year olds, even meek little guy me got into a fight or two at that age), and they were scared, but they were not sent to jail. > Obviously this 11 year old is still coming to an understanding of > moral obligations. In my experience, an 11 year old quite well understands his moral obligations. By this time he has been in the school system for five years, and well understands what is considered right and wrong. But what happens at age 11, in my experience, is that this is the age at which the child's intellectual abilities start to explode, without a corresponding explosion in his emotional maturity. At the same time they come to the realization that, unlike what they thought at age 10, the adults in their life are *not* infallible and in fact often make mistakes. This peaks by age 13, where most children become rather insufferable brats for a time, before everything finally starts coming together around age 15-16. So basically, in that time frame, you get your typical "know it all" tweener who has just learned that adults are not the infallible beings that a 10 year old thinks about the adults in his life, and thus at least here in the United States starts believing that it's thus okay to "put one over" on the adult. It's usually possible to earn this child's respect, but they no longer automatically grant respect to the adults in their life. The way to earn this child's respect is clear and well-defined standards effectively communicated, consistent consequences (being "strict" and not accepting misbehavior), while remaining friendly and engaged when the kid is behaving properly. If you do not enforce consistent consequences, the kid thinks you're "weak" and loses respect and sees no reason to behave properly. This may simply be the culture of the United States, but so it goes. I suspect that this is not a "first offense" for this particular child, and that the juvenile justice system is being called in to try to "scare the child straight". Hopefully that will happen. For most children it does work -- they come to the realization that they are old enough that consequences for misbehavior are no longer restricted to timeout or a firm talking-to, that there could be real and future-impacting consequences to their behavior. > He saw the teacher uses the computer to change marks. He understands > he can use the computer change his marks. Simple. Consequences were > not considered. Of course they weren't. Children don't understand > the choice -> action -> consequence cycle. An 11 year old understands the choice -> action -> consequence cycle, but on an intellectual basis, not on an emotional basis. What the school district and juvenile justice system will try to do is get him to understand it on an emotional basis, using methods that perhaps are emotionally brutal by the standards of most nations, but which do not involve jail or any physical brutality. The juvenile justice system does succeed with most kids who encounter it -- there is only a small hard core of children who go on to become criminals and encounter the juvenile justice system multiple times prior to "graduating" to the adult system, and most of the time they are coming from abusive backgrounds or backgrounds where their parents and older siblings are already criminals. - Eric Lee Green, former schoolteacher -- Eric Lee Green GnuPG public key at http://badtux.org/eric/eric.gpg mailto:ericat_private Web: http://www.badtux.org -=Fwd=- Forwarded from: James Goldberg <james.goldbergat_private> Consequences and understanding "why it is wrong" is dependent upon what the schools contract states, that most schools make the parents and students sign at the beginning of school each year. If the contract does not state that accessing the network from someone else's login, then the student's arrest/punishment should be rescinded. Betting money is on the school coming up short legally. jsg -=Fwd=- Forwarded from: White Vampire <whitevampireat_private> On Mon, Feb 17, 2003 at 03:21:28AM -0600, InfoSec News(isnat_private) wrote: > Forwarded from: LowVoltage <lowvoltageat_private> > > Jail Time! For doing what every sixth grader around the world wants > to do - improve their marks? > > Praise the child for ingenuity and his social engineering skills. > Scold the teacher for leaving her workstation unlocked and > publically accessible. Praise wouldn't necessarily be appropriate for the circumstances. > Sit the student down and explain to him from a moral perspective > exactly why he shouldn't be changing his marks. Why did nobody tell > him that he wasn't doing himself any good, and that he was depriving > others of the fairness of the system? > > Sending a child like this to jail is NOT going to do any good to > anyone. Agreed. The best way to put perspective on this, would the child be charged with a felony if it did not involve a computer? Obviously this is of dubious circumstances, but making an example of an 11-year-old is in poor taste. I knew that cheating was wrong when I was 5. I wouldn't paint the child as entirely naive, but this has to be taken from a realistic perspective. <snip> Regards, - -- \ | \ / White Vampire\Rem | http://gammaforce.org/ \|\| \/ whitevampireat_private | http://gammagear.com/ "Silly hacker, root is for administrators." | http://webfringe.com/ -=Fwd=- Forwarded from: GertJan Hagenaars <isnpostat_private> Hang on here. Yes, I agree completely with this part: jail time is way overboard and an incredibly stupid threat, and very typical of "zero-tolerance" policies (zero-tolerance usually means zero-thought by those who enforce it). But making it seem like an 11-year old cannot distinguish the difference between right and wrong, and suggesting to _praise_ the brat goes _way_ too far in the other direction. Obviously this 11-year old knew exactly that what he was doing was wrong, since he spun a story about being in the teacher's office for another reason: he tried to get out of being caught by lying. He definitely understood that there were going to be consequences, and that what he was doing was not the right thing to do. 4-year olds may not understand "choice -> action -> consequence", but 11-year olds do (and I'm fairly sure that some 8-year olds do as well). When I was growing up, and I did something I wasn't supposed to do, I got to sit down and write about it. Not one hundred times "I shall not change my reading marks", because that is just boring, and it's an uninspired punishment. No, I got to write "an essay" on what I did, and explain what I learned from the experience. That required thought! Because if my reasoning wasn't good enough, I had to do it over. If the reasoning was good enough, the essay was destroyed (shredded in front of me, and not graded) and thrown out. "Wasted effort" was the penalty of doing something wrong. Later on I realized that doing the extra writing work carried its own merit. Oh, and before the bleedin' hearts take over: I'm not emotionally scarred for life by having someone rip up my work in front of my eyes. It prepared me just a little bit better for life. But to be honest: nobody has ever threathened to throw me in jail either. Here's a good penalty for the boy: wipe his marks, and let him take eight reading assignment tasks. The lowest five marks will stand firm as his final mark. Punishment, formal education and valuable life lessons, all rolled into one, as it should be for those who break the rules. Apparently, InfoSec News wrote: % Forwarded from: LowVoltage <lowvoltageat_private> % % Jail Time! For doing what every sixth grader around the world wants to % do - improve their marks? % % Praise the child for ingenuity and his social engineering skills. % Scold the teacher for leaving her workstation unlocked and publically % accessible. % % Sit the student down and explain to him from a moral perspective % exactly why he shouldn't be changing his marks. Why did nobody tell % him that he wasn't doing himself any good, and that he was depriving % others of the fairness of the system? % % Sending a child like this to jail is NOT going to do any good to % anyone. % % Obviously this 11 year old is still coming to an understanding of % moral obligations. He saw the teacher uses the computer to change % marks. He understands he can use the computer change his marks. % Simple. Consequences were not considered. Of course they weren't. % Children don't understand the choice -> action -> consequence cycle. % % LV. % % % On Thu, 2003-02-13 at 11:28, InfoSec News wrote: % > Forwarded from: William Knowles <wkat_private> % > % > http://www.gopbi.com/partners/pbpost/epaper/editions/wednesday/martin_stlucie_e394fc8032005260000b.html % > % > By Nirvi Shah % > Palm Beach Post Staff Writer % > Wednesday, February 12, 2003 % > % > PORT ST. LUCIE -- While other students ate turkey tetrazzini in the % > cafeteria, a St. Lucie West Middle sixth-grader used the excuse of % > forgetting his lunch to return to his reading classroom and sat down % > at his teacher's computer to change five reading assignment grades, % > St. Lucie County sheriff's deputies said Tuesday. CHeers, GertJan. -- +++++++++++++ -------- +++++ --- ++ - +0+ + ++ +++ +++++ ++++++++ +++++++++++++ sed '/^[when][coders]/!d G.J.W. Hagenaars -- gj at hagenaars dot com /^...[discover].$/d Remembering Mike Carty 1968-1994 /^..[real].[code]$/!d UltrixIrixAIXHPUXSunOSLinuxBSD, nothing but nix ' /usr/dict/words I'm Dutch, what's _your_ excuse? - ISN is currently hosted by Attrition.org To unsubscribe email majordomoat_private with 'unsubscribe isn' in the BODY of the mail.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Mon Feb 24 2003 - 06:08:26 PST